Ben Chilwell's career runs through title winners in Leicester and London
Ben Chilwell was a young squad member when Leicester City pulled off their 2015–16 Premier League title. Five years later his first senior trophy came in the Champions League final with Chelsea. Loaned to Crystal Palace in 2025, he watched from the bench as the club won its first FA Cup.
Born in Milton Keynes on 21 December 1996 and raised in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, Chilwell joined Leicester's academy at 12 and was named its player of the year in 2015. Sport ran in the family: his maternal grandfather, Guy Shuttleworth, won an England amateur cap in football in 1949 and played first-class cricket for Cambridge University, and Chilwell himself turned out for his local cricket club. His father had emigrated from New Zealand three years before he was born.
A six-week loan at Huddersfield in late 2015 left a lasting mark; he later credited manager David Wagner with shaping him as an attacking full-back. Back at Leicester he became first-choice left-back, scored once and set up two more in the club's record 9–0 win at Southampton in 2018, and passed 100 appearances the following year. On his England debut in September 2018 he became the first player since Paul Scholes in 1997 to win a first cap at his own club ground.
Chelsea paid a reported £45 million for him in August 2020. His first season brought a moment of pain and one of triumph: a late goal against his old club in the 2021 FA Cup final was ruled out by VAR, but two weeks later Chelsea beat Manchester City 1–0 to win the Champions League in Porto. That autumn he scored in four straight league games, the first Englishman to do so for Chelsea since Frank Lampard in 2013, before a ruptured cruciate ligament ended his season. He was later made vice-captain and led the side in the 2024 League Cup final, lost to Liverpool.
When Enzo Maresca made clear he had no role for him, Chilwell went on loan to Crystal Palace, then signed for Strasbourg in 2025. On 1 September 2026 he returned to Palace permanently. Internationally, he was in the England squad that finished runners-up at Euro 2020.
Source: Ben Chilwell
