The brief
A hundred years of a football club is usually marked on walls: framed shirts, photographs, a plaque. Chelsea wanted something different for Centenary Hall: the crest in the floor itself, where supporters would walk across it on the way to their seats, matchday after matchday.
That changes the job completely. A floor graphic in a hospitality hall cannot be printed or painted. It has to survive spilled drinks, wheeled trolleys and years of boots and heels, and it has to stay safe underfoot when it is wet. The only honest material for it was safety flooring.
The floor
The crest was reproduced in Polysafe, a safety flooring whose slip resistance runs through the wear layer, not a coating on top. Every colour in the design is a separate piece of sheet, cut to the drawing, set into place, and hot-air welded to its neighbours so the finished emblem is one continuous, sealed surface.
Curves are the difficult part. A welded joint in a straight run is routine; a joint following the sweep of a crest is an afternoon’s work for one fitter. There is no patching a mistake in the middle of an emblem, so each piece has to be right first time.
In service
The crest went down for the centenary season. It is still there. Two decades of matchdays, concerts and conference trade have crossed it, and it has been maintained, by us, the whole time.
That is the part we would point a new client to. Anyone can photograph a floor the week it is finished. The proof of a commercial floor is its second decade, and this one is well into it. We still look after the floors at Stamford Bridge today.