Thoughts on Fulham
It has to be said that Craven Cottage
does not particularly strike one as a ground owned by an excessively wealthy individual.
On the away end, facilities can’t have changed much since the last time they were in
the top flight, and are likely to be the same the next time they play there - which will
be soon, for the premier is where they are undoubtedly going. Although there are some
seats, the main part of the away end is an uncovered terrace, a rare enough sight in this
division. It should be said that, in case you’re tempted towards nostalgia, all my
recollections of Craven Cottage are damp around the edges; it always seems to be raining.
Whatever result we come away with – and
clearly Fulham should win – at least it can’t be worse than the gutless
hammering we sustained in December 1998. Then, amidst a downpour, we simply turned up and
rolled over. In my opinion, it was this, rather than the twin home capitulations to
Gillingham and Man City, that marked the low point on the Ternent rollercoaster.
Personally, I don’t think I’ve felt as down since as I did when I crossed Putney
Bridge that afternoon, or got as savagely drunk as in the hours afterwards. Anything will
be better than this. And surely, this time will be. Just look at that team we put out less
than two years ago. Not many remain, and those that are gone are not missed.
Fulham ought to win. It’s as much of a
banker as you get in this sport. Early season indications are that they are effortlessly
better than anyone else in the division. Of course, you could say, with the money they
have they ought to be, but with neighbours like ours, we should know more than most that
money doesn’t guarantee success. Fulham are often praised for having got it right by
putting the development of the team before that of the ground. The idea seems to be that
they'll build a ground to match the team, rather than, say, the mid 90s Burnley strategy
of building a ground and then trying to find a team to put in it. That’s fine in
theory, until you have to stand on the away end. I suppose they still have the few
portakabin toilets they’ve always had, and the mobile hut inadequately dispensing
food. The Cottage itself, located in the right corner of the away end, is undoubtedly a
picturesque site, but the very least one might hope for from such olde world surroundings
is a ticket price to match. Thirteen quid for this dump strikes me as akin to charging
Harrods prices for Kwik Save fare. More offensive still are the stewards, who have in the
past belied Fulham’s ‘friendly club’ image by adopting an aggressive search
policy.
Still, it’s a part of London I like and the
ground is in an interesting place. Sitting right on the Thames and approached through
Bishop's Gardens, which contain Fulham Palace, it’s hard for a visit to Fulham not be
evocative. (Although you'll find the park chained shut after the match, extending your
walk.) Of course, it’s a posh part of town these days. Those tall terraced houses you
pass are beyond the means of most of us. All this makes it an odd place for a football
ground to be. It’s one of those accidents of history that there’s a football
club here. There nearly wasn’t. During the 80’s Thatcher nightmare, this
ground’s riverside location in a rapidly gentrifying area made it a prime target for
yuppie redevelopment. It’s reckoned that only the slump saved it, although it
faltered at best until Fayed came in. I well remember a visit under Mullen when we
contrived to be the better side and lose 3-2, where the second half was delayed to allow a
procession of micro-celebs to take the field in support of the 'Fulham 2000' campaign,
designed to enable the club to secure their future at the ground. I wonder what happened
to that?
The local population has enjoyed a somewhat
ambivalent relationship with the club. During that Thatcher years, which coincided –
although that may not be the right word – with Fulham’s lowest ebb, many would
have regarded it as a nuisance, something that lowered the tone and property prices and
brought undesirables past their doors on a regular basis. Remember when football was a
pariah sport? Now, of course, football is the hobby of choice for the middle classes, and
no one can be upwardly mobile without a lifelong club allegiance. (One Fulham site
suggests that most locals, shopkeepers and publicans support continued football at the
Cottage.) Fulham have, naturally, attracted a number of arriviste neo-fans. Perhaps they
haven’t found as many as they may have thought – their crowds are disappointing
for a side at the top of this division, and compare badly with what ours would be in
similar circumstances - but success has inevitably brought newcomers. Perhaps we
can’t criticise too much. How could it not? But Fulham’s new found supporters
can be a dislikable bunch. They seem to have made themselves unpopular around these
divisions, and Fulham’s image of being a friendly club with friendly fans is
something that can be hard to recall.
The problem is that, having never experienced
failure, they are incomplete supporters. They know only superiority and success. Thus,
they were quick to crow when their team humiliated ours. Yet, when we beat them at Turf
Moor to stop up, they couldn’t stop bleating. We were cheats, we were thugs, we
hadn’t given them the respect they deserved. Odd. My recollections of that match were
of a physical tussle, true, but one in which our forwards were as fouled as theirs. They
finished with nine men because their players went down and were taken off at the first
opportunity, and they had run out of subs by the time they sustained a genuine injury,
before a player was dismissed for a text book application of the professional foul rule.
This was later reported by Fulham as some kind of bloodbath. Our players were just more up
for it than them, but it seemed to be something they didn't expect and couldn’t take.
We had beaten them, so we must be cheats. Some young fans left a message in the Sparrow
Hawk’s guestbook along the lines of, "nice hotel, shame about the team." I
suppose they found it amusing, but it struck me as ill-mannered. It might be easier to be
gracious in defeat if you’ve practised being gracious in victory.
This may sound like sour grapes, but
there’s a large part of me that wants Fulham to do well, because they have at least
plumbed the depths and stared into the abyss, so they’re a lot more entitled to feel
some success than most. It’s just I wish Fayed wasn’t in football, as I find him
a unlikable man at the best of times, and while I can avoid his shop and, in common with
the rest of the world, not listen to his crappy radio station or buy his hopeless
magazine, there isn’t much I can do about his presence in the only game I care about.
I’m glad he doesn’t run our club, although this is an easy thing to say as a
hypothetical; had it been us, would we have been tempted? Would the Fulham fans who were
there before be happier trying to get by, probably in the division from which we have just
sprung, wondering how they were ever going to secure, and do anything with, their ground?
It’s not a new problem in football. Is it the same now the purity of supporting a
losing cause has gone? Are they happier now with success, even with the nuisance it
brings, including, if our last visit was anything to go by, several thousand rugby-shirt
wearing middle class tossers who don’t know the rules of the game? Is it worth the
uneasy feeling of being Fayed’s plaything if you get into the premier league?
Possibly yes, but it is in some ways a judgement I’m pleased not to have had to make.
Because, as with all suddenly wealthy clubs, the
old time fans haven’t always found it easy to adjust. We’ve always got on
alright with the old Fulham fans, and had a drink and a laugh with them, but some of them
have said that we’re not the only ones to have problems with the new breed. Some have
called their new fans the kind of names you generally reserve for rivals, and have even
gone so far as to hope for a bad patch to burn them off.
Not that there seems to be much chance of that
happening at present. And it is questionable how many of the new fans they could afford to
lose. There aren’t as many as you might expect. Kevin Keegan, when manager,
attributed their disappointing second division home crowds to the unenticing quality of
the opposition, citing as examples Gillingham and, yes, Burnley. Well, they’re
playing both of us this season, so that explains two gates away, but what’s the
excuse now? The last time they played us at Turf Moor, as champions, they brought hardly
any support. It’s fair to say that, other things being equal, we will always take
more to their place than them to ours, and while this is partly attributable, putting
modesty to one side, to the success of the London Clarets supporters club, and the lack of
an equivalent body of Fulham fans in the North, it still leads us to the conclusion that
Fulham fans don’t travel, which can be taken as an indicator of a less than staunch
support.
The old fans, at least, understood the odd
relationship Burnley have with Fulham. It goes something like this: we beat them at Turf
Moor, we lose to them at the Cottage. You have to go back bloody years to find anything
other than this pattern. Fulham last won at Turf Moor in the early 50s, while our last win
at their place is a relatively recent twenty year ago. As internet sage Igor Wowk put it,
"Fulham’s function in relation to Burnley is to come and look at the rolling
hills, shiver a bit, give us the points and bog off back down south again." This site
more than most resists the clichés of ‘these southern ponces don’t like coming
up here’, but with Fulham, it really seems to be the case that these southern ponces
don't like coming up here. Yet, at their place, we roll over. It’s a 0% ground for
me. Even when we deserve something, we lose. When we nearly look like holding out, as in
the live Sky game under waddle in 97, they score at the end. And you’re bound to have
a bit of a problem with a club like that, aren’t you, particularly when there’s
no way you can see that cycle being broken this time.
I write this before our game there, confident it
won’t be too out of date afterwards. As if to make sure we’d worry enough, Stan
even took the whole team to watch them tonk Barnsley 5-1! But ultimately, I don’t
hate Fulham or anything like that. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if they went up.
They’re going to do it anyway, so there’s no point getting upset about it, and
they’ll be out of the way next season, freeing up one of the automatic promotion
places and thereby elevating a side from a play-off spot to clear it for our own push. The
main reason, though, is that I just like the idea of cosseted premier league fans standing
on that away end. Even worse, they have to listen to the half time ramblings of 1970s
Radio One forgotten man 'Diddy' David Hamilton.
Still at least they'll get to do all the
'Cottaging' jokes like they've invented them for the first time.
As for us, we’ll concentrate on the big
games to come. They’re the ones against Grimsby, Crewe, and other sides that might
finish below us. Keep sight of that.
Firmo
11th September 2000
