Frustrating argument with a Chelski fan

[domprague]

I was one of those fans back in the 1970s and 1980s who would go to the Cottage and Stamford Bridge on alternate weeks. That was partly because it was a good way to spend time one-on-one with my Dad.
The rivalry didn't seem to matter then but I think that the Premiership has changed the attitudes of some fans and brought in some new ones who don't understand how football used to be. As I said earlier, Chelsea fans (most of whom probably think The Shed was a pub) seem to think that they are one of the all-time great clubs when the truth is that they would have gone bust with out Abramovich's dodgy money.
We're not immune to that - I remember being angry and embarrassed in our last promotion season when we were taunting Wigan fans with 'We'll never play you again' but I think a lot of our fans (certainly those who are still going this season) realised that we were in our Golden Age and it was a special period that was always likely to end sooner rather than later. Just look at Wigan as another example.
I suppose that's why I feel Fulham fans are superior to Chelsea because we seem to have a better sense of perspective about our club.

Chealscum are the best team in the league this season. Hope they don't win but if they win oh well . I'd rather concentrate on our situation and beat them when we are up. Hate them but credit where due, they are a few leagues above us. We have brentford and qpr to worry about before we take aim on them.
   A lot of fans on here used to watch them and fulham on alternative games back in the day. How it's changed but my dad still likes them and he knows better if not on this one. Let's beat teams around us before we start pretending we can play them. All I can say is Luis boa morte, I was there and that blue flag is nothing but loo roll.

[Forever Fulham]

Things have a way of coming back to bite you in the butt. 

If you claim Abramovitch's millions of ill-gotten money taint the accomplishments of that club, you have to reconcile al Fayed's millions of questionably-derived money which rocketed FFC past the poorer lower leagues to the Prem.  Pot, you are calling the kettle black.  It's just a fact of life that money usually buys the best players and great managers.  Which is, I suppose, a real indictment of Manchester United.  ManU has the biggest payroll, yet can't accomplish what Chelsea is doing right now.  Chelsea, to be fair, is getting far more out of its squad, than any of the other big money clubs in the EPL.  And that has nothing to do with boorish fans.    What Fulham did -- surviving in the EPL for so long without a relatively large payroll for its first team -- is something to be proud of.  Especially when you consider the seating capacity of the stadium, the lack of brand recognition/notoriety needed to fuel branded merchandising sales.  All of the collateral sources of income a club depends upon to meet its obligations.  Fulham did more with less.  That's a real point of pride.  When Americans ask me what "Fulham" is, or where it is, I usually say something like, "It's the little club by the river."  Then they stare at me.  "What river?"  When I explain, they often ask me why I don't support a better-known club, like Chelsea, ManU, Liverpool, or Arsenal.  I don't have a ready or pat answer to that one.  It's really a question of the heart, not the head.  Over the years I've followed Fulham, I've come to believe that there are supporters, and then there are consumers.  Some of you call them "plastic" fans.  The top two leagues are clearly designed today for clubs to treat us as consumers.  To-wit: Fielding a bunch of scrubs to play in the FA Cup rounds, as the perceived payoff for the top clubs, like Chelsea, isn't there.  Ah, but to be a supporter you have to be willing to absorb Martin Jol, Felix Magath, the undesirable aspects of MAF, the inconsistency but necessity of playing time for promising youth, relegation, derision from the plastic fans, being ignored by mainstream sports media coverage, getting no favoritism from referees' decision-making, and routinely dealing with middling results.   We should all have our heads examined.  I sometimes think that if you follow a team that is always winning everything, what's the point?  You sit there in all your smugness, insulated from the vicissitudes and vagaries of competition.  You have bought the best money can buy.  The press faun over your manager's snide comments about lesser-heeled teams.  The team's success is not your success.  How can you bond with such players?  They make more money in a year than most will make in a lifetime.  But when there is struggle and strife, hardship endured and overcome, when a player (who didn't arrive straight from Olympus) actually improves on your watch, and the team gels and beats out some improbable wins, and then the wins become not so improbable anymore--well, isn't that worth far more than just supporting a cash-flush team, where money papers over everything and good results are pretty much ensured from the outset?  I'm ambivalent today about Chelsea, because that team is so good, and yet go down the roster and look hard at each player.  The whole is far better than the sum of its parts.  That IS something to be proud of, if you're a Chelsea fan. 

[Twig]

Fair points from you all. I shouldn't have taken the bait from him. It's just that...Chelsea seem worse than anyone in the League. They'll go on about all that they've won when for decades they were an irrelevance who won nothing, had a stadium that was falling down and had some of the nastiest racist thugs in the country masquerading as their supporters. I know that we pole vaulted up the divisions thanks to Mo's money but the majority of Fulham fans don't seem to have the sense of smug superiority of Chelsea.
Chairman Mo always strikes me as an Arthur Daiey made good. Abramovich is in a different league of theft. Had he bought us, I really don't know what I would have done.
stevehawkinslidingtackle - you don't sound like a cynical p**** at all. If anything, I feel like a naive p****.

You probably shouldn't have cast the bait in the first place.  Other supporters are just like us, assuming they are true fans they have a passion for their team (even Chelsea fans).  The rivalries are just a bit of fun, I never understand the attitudes of those who "hate Liverpool/Chelsea/QPR scum (delete as applicable). These fans are mostly decent people like most Fulham fans. 

I thoroughly enjoy the football and the day out, I go misty eyed when I reflect on our few great days in the past, but I can't take any of it too seriously.