I have just experienced the birth of my first baby boy and have just purchased his first fulham top - last season home and away strip.
It got me thinking about the nature v nuture and whether he would be a fulham fan because of me or decide later in life who he wants to follow.
How did you all become fulham fans? From birth? Because of family or friends?
I'm from Oz so the choice was all mine and i starting following the whites ago six years ago.
Oooh.
I think it was in 2001- we played Everton at Loftus and I went along with my dad. We won 2-0 (2 horrible own goals!). I was a vague supporter till I went to Craven Cottage in 2004
Fulham 1-1 United. Papa Bouba Diop SCREAMER. Tickets got my a season ticket holder/ family friend.From the moment it flew in the goal and I felt that rush of scoring a last minute equaliser I was hooked. Only one team after that.
Noticed the nice football/good players/likeable manager in the championship winning season and that was that
Quote from: ddeuce on July 20, 2012, 07:00:27 PM
Oooh.
I think it was in 2001- we played Everton at Loftus and I went along with my dad. We won 2-0 (2 horrible own goals!). I was a vague supporter till I went to Craven Cottage in 2004
Fulham 1-1 United. Papa Bouba Diop SCREAMER. Tickets got my a season ticket holder/ family friend.From the moment it flew in the goal and I felt that rush of scoring a last minute equaliser I was hooked. Only one team after that.
I watched the game in a pub with about 20 utd fans. Pure poo i was listening to all game and when papa scored i went mad
I have only been following Fulham for around 5 years and I am now 20. I am from Manchester and have been to quite a lot of United matches but I have always liked Fulham so one year I decided to buy a Fulham shirt and it started from there, I stopped going to United games and started going to the Fulham away games and it just caught on from there, I still follow United but I don't watch every match like I do with Fulham I just watch MOTD for the United highlights.
My Dad took me to my 1st game when I was about 6 back in 1973 been going regularly ever since. I now take my son and daughter who are 10 and 12 and they love it ! Bit easier being a Fulham now than it was when I was young, whole bloody school was full of Chelscum fans.
Im from devon and used to be a man utd supporter as my next door neighbour was one, then a ch*lsea fan (ashamed to admit it) until i was about 11, then due to a family circumstance i had to travel upto london every weekend due to this, as i was gonna be around for all the games and my sister's bf and friends were getting season tickets for fulham i also got one, from them ive been hooked.
Family... both sides supported Fulham so there wasn't an option thank god. My dads family are born and bred in Fulham.
I would say family. I was born in Fulham but all my family are Fulham fans. I think school friends can have an influence too. I have a 8 month old boy and would love him to follow in my footsteps and support the whites but I guess that his choice.......... Have a roof to live under or support someone else?? Its still a choice after all ;)
I didn't pick Fulham. Fulham picked me. :HD:
i suppose its been forced on me by my dad but i'm glad it was. Don't remember my first game as i was very young but yeah going to Craven Cottage every season is something i've just done since i remember. This is gonna be my first season without a season ticket :dft004:
Its my Dad's fault.
I can trace my family back to 1778,from the Kensington and Fulham area, from 1901 it is mainly Fulham, so I had no choice. My son had a choice as we had moved to Ireland when he was 2, for a while he thought about supporting a successful team but after I bought him to the cottage when he was about 5 he was and always will be a Fulham supporter. So if you can, get him to the Cottage as soon as he is able to make a choice.
My choice. When I first became interested in football there was this bloke playing for England called Johnny Haynes, and he played for this little quaint club called Fulham. Done deal much to my Dad's disgust as he's from and supports West Ham.
Pleased to say that I have brainwashed my two kids (not kids anymore). Daughter flew from Dubai where she now lives to be at the Hamburg final. As far as they are both concerned, supporting another team is not an option.
Both my sets of family are originally from Fulham but my parents moved me out to Northolt when I was about 4 still with family in Fulham, I began supporting Arsenal due to friends and then my Uncle Rockie (god rest his soul) began taking me to Fulham every other game when we were in the Old division two. I loved it my uncle had been a supporter from back pre-1975 so went to Wembley for the Cup and was a regular in the Hammersmith end up until 2004 when he fell ill. I then started going to the cottage on the odd occasions and even Loftus road but got my own season ticket in 2007. Personally I think if I didn't have the influence of my Uncle I wouldn't be a Fulham supporter and I am so glad he did so as I've found a wonderful community, sadly he couldn't ever come back to the cottage with me but to this day whenever I go I always look back to when Fulham were to put it nicely 'sh*t'. I'm sure your son will take interest in what his father is into so it should be nurtured naturally he will naturally want to follow in his fathers footsteps. Many congratulations on having a new born and lets hope he grows to love Fulham as much as you.
Do something really dreadful in a previous life.
...well it all starts with a man and a woman copulating, and from the process man's sperm is ejaculated into the woman's womb; the egg in the woman is surrounded by many sperm cells. One of those sperm cells breaks through to fertilize the egg. This is called conception. That is the point where the baby's future is determined.
The sperm cell that fertilizes the egg contains either an CFC or a FFC chromosome. If it is an CFC, the baby is born with a low forehead and long arms. If it is an FFC, the baby is born with a brain...
Become friends with Airfix. Essentially it is an acquired taste but hey, that is the best (coffee, whiskey, ...)
My Great-Grandfather lived on North End Road and owned the site opposite where the Fulham Waitrose is now. He came to support Fulham. My Grandfather grew up on the site opposite Waitrose. He took Dad to matches when he was a child and they stood where the Riverside Stand is now. Both Dad and I were born in Hammersmith.
Mum's family are a mix of Bradford and Leeds supporters as that's where my Great-Grandparents and Grandparents emigrated to from Eastern Europe. I flirted with another team (other than Fulham) as a *very young* youngster but fell into supporting Fulham soon after that. Funnily enough, Dad let me support whoever I wanted to support as a child (if I was in his position, I might think differently, haha!) My first match was a home game against Everton when I was thirteen or fourteen-ish.
Congratulation on the birth of your son :021:
I'm a Chel's WHUM
The sperm cell that fertilizes the egg contains either an CFC or a FFC chromosome. If it is an CFC, the baby is born with a low forehead and long arms. If it is an FFC, the baby is born with a brain...
[/quote]
Very good Ed - so true!!
My parents were both brought up in Fulham and were thankfully well brought up by my respective Grand-parents who were Fulham supporters as opposed to the alternative. My Grandfather on my Dads side was at the first game at Craven Cottage in 1896.
Make sure the first match he goes to (as long as he is old enough to figure it out) is at Craven Cottage. That should do the trick. If he has mates who support Chelsea, manure, Liverpool etc, just keep telling him they are not real football supporters or real football teams. :011:
I started to support FFC ten years ago.My british part of my family supports FFC and I've always liked the FFC style,the great supporters and the fantastic atmosphere at CC.
Dad moved us across the pond for business in late 1979 and our first gaff was in Fulham(Parsons Green). Fulham was the local club, and the Cottage was less that a mile away.. no brainer really.
Born in Fulham, grew up in Fulham, first live game was at Fulham, but if I'm honest it never really took. I was more into music than football and used to take the mick out of my FFC mates in the dark days.
Then I moved away and had kids and one day my son asked me who I supported. I said, "Fulham, I suppose", although I would have struggled to name a current player, and next thing I knew he wanted FFC kit for his birthday. So I took him to the Cottage to watch a game, as a surprise. Then I took him again... and six years later I'm in my fourth year as a season ticket-holder.
It's about going home.
Great topic! My journey is not a typical one. It starts out in normal fashion in that my Dad is a Fulham fan after growing up in Southfields. However he never really forced football on my brother and I when we were growing up. So we went through a few phases, based on who we had been to watch, including Sutton Utd and Wimbledon. I think my first top was a Wimbledon top.
Then during junior school, when who you supported became important in playground politics and being able to play footy at break time, I supported Man U like my best mate. Now before I get ostracised for this, bear in mind that this was before the Premier League, during the time that Man U were average and everyone supported Liverpool. All the while, Dad would keep an eye out for Fulham on the videprinter on a Saturday afternoon.
Anyway, when I got to 13-14, i asked Dad if we could go to watch more live footy, so he started taking me to the cottage. I really wish I could remember what my first game was, but it was during the 95/96 season.
From then on, i was hooked. I loved the journey to the ground; I'm a sucker for being by water (find it really relaxing). When I hit 16 and got a part-time job I started going more often and I made the decision that Fulham were my team. Then there was no looking back.
I'm glad Dad let me choose my team, but deep down it feels like Fulham have always been the right team, I just had to figure it out.
Friend of the family took me to the Cottage aged 8. I took my daughter to the Cottage, also aged 8! Most of her friends support Chelsea, Arsenal or Man U, but they have never seen them play live, whereas my Emily has!
Like many above, family. I'm third generation FFC and originally lived off Lillee Road. I was taken to my first game aged 7 at the Cottage in September 1973. We had won our first 2 games of the 73/74 season and promptly lost 0-3 to Orient.
A word of caution though. I have 3 sons aged 21, 19 and 17. Probably several reasons why but, none of them support FFC. This is because they are not interested on football at all (that is not sub-text for they support CFC!). Possibly "too much too young" and they have now found their own interests to follow.
My nephew is now 10, living in Verwood in the New Forest amidst ManU, Chelski etc school pals. I have been bringing him to 2 games a season for the last couple of years and seeing him in his FFC shirt shouting "come on Fulham" as we were 0-5 down to ManU last December makes me feel that I may have redeemed myself.
I'm a QPR fan.
Never mind Mr Moon i'm sure your recover eventually
Like so many good things in my young life, it was all my Dad's fault.
He was Millwall (by birth)/Arsenal (by inclination), but, as we lived in Sutton, both were deemed too far away for me at eight. The trolley-bus (younger readers may need to Google this) ran from Sutton Green past Selhurst Park so it was Crystal Palace for my first exposure to the beautiful (not very) game. I'd have probably gone along with this, but I think Dad felt this might not be quite right (I think Palace finished bottom of Div 3 South that year) and so took me on the more ambitous journey to Fulham. Eventually both were at home on the same Saturday and I was given the choice. It was what is today called a no-brainer, I had seen Johnny Haynes and even at that age I could recognize genius when I was looking at it for 90 minutes. Dad was relieved because it meant he had not bred a total idiot (that side of my nature developed later).
So, Dad, you've got a big responsibility!
Mr Moon obviously has far too much ambition for the rest of us
Quote from: FFC73 on July 21, 2012, 05:17:07 PM
Mr Moon obviously has far too much ambition for the rest of us
:005:
Born in Putney, and Brother Burt (one of three older brothers, but the sensible one who had got in to supporting Fulham) took me when I was knee-high to a grasshopper in 1974 (v. Blackburn). Hooked from then on.
Although I now live out in the sticks (if you can call Thames Ditton that) I got Burt Jr. in to the Fulham way from a very early stage too (5 years old, first match v. Cheltenham in the FA Cup at the Loftodrome). Apart from a minor wobble due to school peer pressure (full of glory hunting Chelsea, Arsenal and ManU fans) he has been a loyal white ever since, and actually now enjoys being the school oddball.
As you can guess, I lived in Peabody Buildings on the Fulham Palace Road. My Dad died in 1946,when I was 7, as a diversion from what had happened, my Uncle (who was Liverpool born and bred) had just been demobbed from the army and he took me to see Fulham v Luton Town (we won 2-1) and that was it, I was a Fulham fan. Thank goodness both Chelseea and QPR were away that day.
Its a very good question and one that I have to answer a lot being from and still living in Stoke.
My dad was never really into football so I never had the influence of parents thank god otherwise I'd probably be a Stoke or Port Vale Fan
I decided to follow Fulham just because it was different when I was a young lad in the mid 80's
My 1st game was a 1-1 draw at Port Vale on 19th September 1987
Back in the days before the internet I spent the following 2 seasons glued to teletext waiting for news of how we were doing on a Saturday afternoon with my yearly Fulham fix coming at either Vale Park or Gresty Road, the only places I could get to see us play live.
Freedom soon came when I passed my driving test on the day Italia 90 started and for season 91/92 I was able to get to the delights of Shrewsbury, Bolton, Bury Mansfield etc.
Amazingly I did not see Fulham win a game until the 91/92 season (nearly 5 years) when we beat Bolton at Burnden Park 3-0
My 1st visit to the Cottage was in 93/94 to witness a 0-0 draw against Wrexham.
Looking back now its bizzare really that I chose Fulham but I just feel that I belong and the whole ethos of the club and the whole "Fulhamish" thing was made for me so if I get asked I just say it was fate and always meant to be
