The debate following the club's proposal to Chelsea Pitch Owner shareholders to allow the club to buy back the freehold land on which the stadium sits is certainly not the first occasion fans have discussed the possibility of leaving Stamford Bridge.

That option and where prospective new sites are located have been raised on many occasions in recent years as the team accumulated silverware and the fanbase grew. However, two prominent Chelsea supporters were giving thought to the prospect way back in 1995 when just two of Stamford Bridge's current stands were built and sold-out games were the exception rather than the rule.

Those supporters were Matthew Harding and Graham Bell, who as dyed-in-the-wool Blues had taken their love of the club as far as putting large amounts of their own money into it, and on receiving his letter this month from Bruce Buck regarding the proposal, Bell replied wishing to recount the story.

By 1995 Harding had already invested heavily in the club and was a director. He asked Bell as a fellow Chelsea supporter who worked in the same reinsurance industry in the City of London to also become more involved.

'I said right then, what am I doing, and he said our youth set-up is quite badly ignored,' recalled Bell this week.

'So I went along to our youth games and I liked what I saw. Graham Rix, the youth team coach at the time, was a terrific coach so I got involved.

'I also became a director of the Chelsea Children's Trust which Lord Attenborough ran and was able to bring disabled and abused kids to home matches, and I was also asked to become a director of Chelsea Pitch Owners.

'For a bit of fun I used to buy a share every time the youth team scored and at the time they had a prolific goalscorer called Joe Sheerin who cost me a fortune. So I had the pleasure of buying a lot of CPO shares but also had the pleasure of watching Jody Morris, Jon Harley, Neil Clement and John Terry come through the youth ranks.'

Nick Crittenden and Graham Bell

As well as backing the junior level of the club financially, Bell (pictured above presenting the Chelsea Young Player of the Year trophy for 1997 to Nick Crittenden) funded a long-overdue extension to the main building at the club's then training ground at Harlington. Harding and he also paid for the original giant blue flag that memorably appeared during the latter stages of Chelsea's run to the FA Cup Final in 1994.

Harding (pictured below), who later became vice-chairman of Chelsea before his death in a helicopter accident in October 1996 when returning from a game, spent a considerably larger sum when he purchased the freehold of the Stamford Bridge stadium site from the Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank was the custodian since property developers Cabra Estates, who had wanted to evict Chelsea, had run aground financially. Harding's action was to underpin the future of the ground and remove the risk that it would be taken away according to Bell, but at the same time he believed that one day the club would have to move on.

It was from Harding's estate following his death that Chelsea Pitch Owners, helped by a loan from the club, acquired the freehold.

Matthew Harding

'I remember really clearly a conversation I had with Matthew Harding in a pub right next to Lloyd's of London, where we both worked,' Bell said.

'It was on a Monday in 1995 before we were going to Kingstonian on the Saturday for a pre-season friendly.

'He said, "I want you to answer this question with your honest opinion, don't answer with what you think I might want to hear." He would often pose questions like that.

'He said, "If we achieve the sort of success that I dream of for Chelsea, what do you think about changing the location of our stadium?"

'I retorted straight away without even thinking, absolutely not, we can't leave the Bridge, the Bridge is our spiritual home, don't be stupid. And he said to me you are completely wrong.

'He said the club is the people, and we will still be the club, but if we have the chance of really taking off and if we achieve the sort of success I dream of for this club then we are going to have to move, we will have no choice.

'So I asked how far then and he said well let's put it this way, it will be a disaster if we occupied that bit of land between the M4 and the M25 that is empty at the moment. We need to be as close to Stamford Bridge as possible but we need a bigger stadium and we will need to move.'

Sixteen years on from that conversation it is a question Bell, as a CPO shareholder (he resigned as a director on amicable terms when new business commitments prevented him giving it due attention), finds himself pondering again.

His father was best friends with the father of that most local of Chelsea players, Alan Hudson - and his home has never strayed more than half a mile from the stadium, but he is ready for that to change.

'We have to move grounds. I don't think the club has a prayer of redeveloping Stamford Bridge. The only way out of Stamford Bridge in an emergency is onto the Fulham Road. That certainly isn't going to work with 60,000.

'We have not got room to develop the Bridge.

'In order to be able to move if a site comes up we have to be able to move immediately, and when I say move I mean move on the deal. In contrast to the opinion of a lot of people I really like and whose opinion I value, and I do understand some of the conversations going on, I do not feel uncomfortable about it at all.

'I loved the idea of supporters owning the pitch, I thought it was brilliant, and it was something that was a great source of comfort to a lot of people. I do understand and appreciate that some people are reluctant to give that source of comfort up.

'I do understand that some people want to talk to the club more about it but my view is I trust the club.

'The more I see this regime operate, the more I realise that they are genuine. I have no idea how much it must have cost to change from the badge we had to our proper badge but it must have cost a fortune, but they did it because they knew it was what the supporters would want, any genuine Chelsea supporter wants a rampant lion on the badge. That demonstrated to me that they were listening to the fans.

'Another example is the 10 per cent of seats set aside for young supporters and families if we have to move grounds.

'I am comforted by my dear old mate who did so much for the club who made it clear to me that moving wasn't a problem.

'If I have to get public transport to the stadium from my home rather than walk then it isn't going to be the end of the world if we move within a three-mile radius, and I really think there is a decent chance we could.

'I will be reluctant to leave the Bridge, especially having never lived more than half a mile away from it, but it is my belief, and it would have been Matthew's belief, that it is an inevitability.'