Length of supporting the club

[OxfordWhite]

Since 2002 (I was 9) and if I remember we finished high that season, fell in love with the quirky ways of the club. First match a year later, and I liked it as even as a ten year old I felt safe, and have ever since (apart from when Shaktar and Roma came to the cottage). Do I know ALL the history - no, I am young and I am overly absorbed by the present and future, but when I am older I will see now as the past and appreciate it, and perhaps wish for it to return. Until then I am a real fan in my opinion, I love the club and commit a lot of time to it, even when it is fairly unjustifiable.

[Me-ate-Live, innit??]

Are the  Acquisition and Mergers team on Holiday ???

Failing to spot the  AIRFIX's  18 page  jobby  held at the top
titled : Have we ever Introduce Ourselves   isit ??

Shouldn't this errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr beauty be hoisted  up there ??
Like Lofty,  not being patronizing or nuffing ...............innit ??  :dft012:

[Burt]

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Sorry


Hi there. I don't want to sound patronising. But all this fuss and bother about only having two forwards and three wide players, two of whom are kids and having only one creative midfielder. With less than 48 hours to go until the windows shatters shut along with our hopes and dreams. Well all this is coming from the newer fans some of whom are actually not English. They don't know what it was like at Doncaster on a wet weekend. Or Stockport on a wet Tuesday Evening following the Fulham. Or turning up at home to Darlington and being told by the Police to park closer to the ground as only two other fans and a ferret from the away team had turned up. We true fans and by that I don't mean to be rude about the new fly by nights lets follow some American rap artiste type of fan. No us true fans are used to being sad and broken.

So not to be patronising as I tap the head of all these panicky child like new fans. Some of whom may even be American. But really some of you had an idea that we were an established Prem side hoping for the same exciting  football as we have been used to. But really how stupid can you be? I have been to Bury twice and I can tell you that all the hope of not fighting relegation was a spot of Tosh Chamberlain. That is an inside joke for my fellow real fans. Not that I wish to be patronising in any way to the new people of no fixed abode. So be on your way and take your modern ideas with you. We are FULHAM UNTIL WE DIE. WE ARE REAL FANS. WE HAVE NO AMBITION.


No offence meant to anybody.

Beauty, Beamer, beauty!

The irony is that we all had to be panicky child like new fans at some stage.

I guess the main differences are:
1. When some of us started out it was in the lower reaches rather than the glamour of the Premier League.
2. Technology advances means that it is far easier to be a "remote" supporter.
3. The nature of the game has changed from local/community/shoestring to global/business/stupid money.
4. Having "seen it all", the longer term Fulham supporter will tend to be more patient and have low(er) expectations.

[mccscratch]

Since Eddie Lewis signed back in 2000 I guess... A very good mate of mine from high school ended up playing at UCLA with him and whenever I went and visited out there Eddie hung out and chilled with us, great fella so I ended up following his career.... Never made an impact at Fulham but he brought me here and I have been here ever since... through 6 other Americans (I still claim Brede as a Texan... haha) and I will still be here if we don't have anymore. I unlike Hatter Don think we should always be on the look-out for more young talented Americans though. They are often good cheap investments and the idea of Fulhamerica is special to me and should live on.

[JBH]

1st game 1967 v Macclesfield won 4 -2 last game will be when I get my season ticket upstairs (or down below)

[Willard]

First game in 1978 but to be honest have only been serious about FFC since 1999.

[sipwell]

I am a toddler fan. Dragged into it by Airfix. First game was the Hamburg Europa League Final

[TonyGilroy]

I am a toddler fan. Dragged into it by Airfix. First game was the Hamburg Europa League Final

That means that you'll be entitled to express an opinion in about 40 years time.

[supersub]

I was first taken with one of my brothers by my Dad, a Reading fan, when we were living in Wimbledon in 1962 (we beat Arsenal 5-2). There are now five of us brothers supporting Fulham - three of us current STHs.

I take the point about those of us who have been through the hard times (my younger daughter's first game was Hartlepool away - and it WASN'T a cup game), but I also welcome the perspective of newer fans. They can remind us that things can always be better, no matter how astonishing the last 11 years might have seemed.

That's why I encourage non-fans to come along to the Cottage... one good day out there and you're hooked for life!

[K33NY]

Started supporting this club when I was around 12 or 13 I think, was at my fathers and hadnt even heard of Fulham before, then I saw a match of them from what is now Championship dunno who they played but they hadnt been promoted to PL yet think this was in 97/98 under Keegan times, correct me if im wrong but it was around those years I think ;)

I remember everyone laughed at me when they asked what team I supported cus here in norway most kids in that age, especially the farmland kids, support the bigger clubs like Man U, Liverpool etc etc, allways been a proud supporter from the first time I saw my first match,

Love at first sight! ;);)

[OldBrownShoe]

Fulham have been my family team since about 1907, maternal grandparents and their parents and other parts of the family living about two to three hundred yards from the ground and I was born and brought up around Fulham Palace Road.

My first game was the famous FA Cup match against Newcastle in January 1956. 4th Round, Saturday 28th January to be precise, k.o. 2.45pm. I can't honestly remember much about the game except the unbelievable air of excitement, the abuse directed at the referee and their centre forward Vic Keeble, and not being able to see too much being dwarfed by all the adults around me.  I came to several more games that season and then became a regular next season. There were no floodlights and the only cover was the Stevenage Road (now Haynes) Stand. Within a couple of years or so I was watching  the reserves as well as the first team, collecting autographs outside the ground (during school holidays) when players arrived for training (almost always at Craven Cottage) and we sometimes bunked in to watch the training before getting chased out by the groundsman.

In due course, my number two son became, like me an avid Fulham supporter and we travelled home and away as often as that proved possible. However my oldest son. much to my embarrassment and eternal shame, became a glory hunter and somehow or other after going through a few clubs became a Spuds supporter!
For those younger or newer supporters wringing their hands in despair at Dembele's and others departures, things have been much, much worse over time and I am not just talking about Saha, Van de Saar, Malbranque etc.  Or the days of the wretched management of Vic Buckingham and the players we lost under him but before him Alan Mullery and even further back Bobby Robson.  I daresay even older supporters than me such as the venerable Peabody, Corked Hat, and Bog will have their own memories and disappointments. But they and I have remained Fulham through and through. :scarf:  

COYWs!!

[FC Silver Fox]

Compared to OBS and a number of people on here, I'm a newbie. I've been supporting Fulham since 1963. That's errrm... 49 years.
My first game was Fulham v Liverpool when I was 10 years old.
Living in France now, I only get to 2 or 3 games a year.

[OldBrownShoe]

Glory hunter!!

[The Equalizer]

First game for me was in 1985 aged 9. My uncle Brian took me to see Fulham get walloped by the filth in the Milk Cup replay. I've loved the club ever since!

[Adi-ffc]

first game was a 3-2 win over Blackburn, Ray Houghton scoring the winner. 84 I think?
I realised I was passed the point of no return some years later at Sincil Bank on boxing day, 0-4 in the snow (amongst countess other similar experiences).
Get to 10 games or so a year from Berlin these days, always worth it.
FTID

[cmg]

I wanted to support...

                         ...Spurs, but they were too far away
                         ...Arsenal, but they were too posh
                         ...Orient, but I couldn't find them
                         ...West Ham, but I wasn't hard enough
                         ...Millwall, but I wasn't bigotted enough
                          ...Chelsea, but they found out I had a little bit of style
                         ...Charlton, but I would have been too lonely
                         ...Crystal Palace, but they were 'the team of the 90s' and this was only the 50s.
                         ...Brentford, but I couldn't keep a straight face

                       I'd never heard of QPR, so I was left with this bunch.

                       "Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up supporting Fulham."

[brightster]

Born in 1965, My first game was March 25th 1973 against Sunderland lost 2-1, so just starting my 39th year, seen us play away at over 70 grounds around Britain and Europe. FTID - COYW

[MasterHaynes]

No matter how long you support Fulham (or most other clubs come to that) you have two feelings at the start of every new season - nervously think we should be alright and avoid relegation but closely followed with the hope and deep rooted belief -usually suppressed and rationalised as daydreaming - that something really special can be achieved with our little club surprising everyone.

After the first two performances some substance was given to the dream, although we all accepted at the start of the summer we would probablylose Dembele we hoped,  as it reached the final week we started to think we might keep him and then at the eleventh hour we lose him whilst at the same time our Squad vulnerability is exposed to the light at Sheffield. I can understand the depression setting in with many supporters and don't question their support because they post angry posts trying to vent out their disappointment.

On Tuesday night it felt like a double stab to the heart, even though it both the result and transfer were sort of expected. I still felt down until this morning. Still a new day dawns and we all move on. thoughts move on to weekend with hopes of beating Spam at Upton Park so we can take extra delight at all the 'pundits & experts' squirming after predicting our doom on losing Dembele.

Oh by the way I have been experincing these traumas since 1966 COYW  :scarf:

[ClarksOriginal]

I'm 21.

My first match was in 2001. 0-0 Against Aston Villa at the Cottage.

11 years, numerous shirts, programmes, pies and one tattoo later I'm still here.


FTID

[bog]

59 years. My first recollection is of my late father saying... 'Hurry up and get your school cap on...they have this young lad playing called Johnny Haynes....'

Never wavered in the following of the club. Painful at times mind you...

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