Five years ago, at the Rio Games in 2016, Team GB achieved the remarkable haul of 67 medals, 27 of them gold. A few weeks later, at our fixture against Liverpool, nine Olympians soaked up the applause of the Stamford Bridge crowd, with members of the Paralympian squad guests of honour when Leicester were in town a few weeks later.

It has become something of a ritual. Past Chelsea fans who presented their freshly-minted medals to fellow Blues supporters have included Ben Ainslie, who sailed to gold in four consecutive Olympics, and seven-time rowing champion Steve Redgrave (whose boyhood hero was Peter 'The Cat' Bonetti).

The truth is, though, that the Olympian spirit has been in Chelsea’s blood from the outset. The driving forces behind Chelsea’s foundation in 1905, Fred Parker, Gus Mears, and Claude Kirby, were officials at London Athletic Club and Amateur Athletics Association meetings before and after the club came into being.

Parker was also a handicapper, time-keeper and club secretary for the LAC, headquartered at the Bridge since 1877, and a sometime Great Britain coach. Another LAC official, Arthur Ovenden, stewarded the press for the Pensioners on matchdays, and an LAC vice-president, Charles Pratt, would become a long-term Chelsea board member.

Not many clubs can boast a double-gold medallist as a director, but Vivian ‘Jack’ Woodward, the brilliant centre-forward who twice skippered Great Britain to victory in the final against Denmark, was on the board between 1922 and 1930 after hanging up his boots with the Pensioners.

Woodward was directly responsible for the 1913 recruitment of ‘the Great Dane’ Nils Middelboe, who became English football’s first overseas star. The two became firm friends after meeting in the 1908 and 1912 Olympic finals, the Brits prevailing 2-0 and 4-2.

One of Britain’s great female athletics pioneers, Vera Palmer, was also the Chelsea’s club secretary Bert Palmer’s daughter. An all-round sports fan and talented exponent, Palmer helped set up the first Women’s Amateur Athletics Association in May 1922, while still in her early twenties, and became its Honorary Secretary.

A year later she co-founded and was vice-captain of Middlesex Ladies Athletics Club (now Ealing, Southall and Middlesex) who trained at the Bridge from 6.15pm every evening except Friday during the season. At a WAAA meeting on her home track on 1 August 1925, Palmer set a new world record over 250 metres of 33.8 seconds, beating her own mark of 34 seconds set two years earlier. She was equally at home watching the Pensioners play or supping a Guinness with a cigar.

Many other celebrated athletes achieved greatness at the Bridge. Ben Howard Baker was a six-time AAA high jump champion and the Pensioners goalie from October 1921. The same year he set a new British record of 1.956m at Chelsea’s home, which was not superseded until 1946. He also won discus, long jump, 120-yard hurdles, and tennis titles.

Then there is Ghana-born Arthur Wharton, the first black player to grace the Football League. At the Bridge on 3 July 1886 Wharton became the world’s fastest man by running the 100 yards in ten seconds flat, a record that would stand for 30 years. He also a goalkeeper for various clubs, including Sheffield United in 1894/95, but was unable to displace the considerable frame of Willie Foulke (who became Chelsea’s first custodian in 1905).

Another of the stadium’s fascinating athletics connections is to the protagonists of the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, conceived and produced by lifelong Blue, David Puttnam and centred around the 1924 Olympics in Paris.

A few weeks before famously scooping 100 metres gold in France, sprinter Harold Abrahams finished ahead of the field at the Bridge over the equivalent Imperial distance, 100 yards.

‘Flying Scotsman’ Eric Liddell was the 400m gold medallist in Paris and ran regularly at the Chelsea ground. He was also a Christian missionary who was born, worked and died in China.

After his retirement in 1925 he approached the British Embassy about building a stadium at Tianjin, armed with drawings of Stamford Bridge, his favourite athletics arena from which to draw the design. The result was the 1926 Minyuan Stadium, also the former home of Tianjin Teda football club. Its alternative name was “Oriental Stamford”. After several reincarnations, it is now a cultural centre.

The Bridge also played host to GB team trials against Chelsea. For some, the road to Tokyo 1960 began (or ended) on 16 November 1959 when the Blues beat Great Britain 4-1. Nineteen-year-old Jimmy Greaves, already a full England international, was among the hosts’ goalscorers and 18-year-old goalkeeper Bonetti made his 'debut'.

Chelsea and Team GB triallists played two draws in 1963/64, and in February that season Britain’s men won an Olympic qualifying match against Greece 2-1. The Greeks won the second leg to take the Olympic place on aggregate but were ejected for fielding professional players, ineligible under the rules. The last of those games came on 4 September 1967, a 1-0 defeat for the Blues.

It is magnificent news that Fleming has made her own significant piece of Chelsea history with her triumph in Japan today.

Yet it is important to put things into perspective. Lord Seb Coe grabbed the coveted gold medal for 1500m at Moscow in 1980, and helped deliver the successful London Olympics 32 years later. Yet he knows the correct pecking order for sport at Stamford Bridge. ‘For me, Chelsea is life, he wrote recently. ‘The rest is mere detail.’

A version of this article first appeared in Brick by Brick in last season's matchday programme