Our greatest team excluding those that played in the top flight

[filham]

Danny Boy, this one needs a lot of careful thought. A good start may be to look at our Cup final team and MacDonald's team and then take into account all the posts on this thread and come back with your revised team in a week or so.
Oh you may even find a place for George Best somewhere, although myself  I never look upon him as a real Fulham player.

[dannyboi-ffc]

That's a bit heartbreaking lol. Back to the drawing board


                          Peyton

Gale      Coleman      Brown      Parker

O'Driscoll            Wilson           Houghton

           Rooke        Ivor       Hammond


Bring Mcdonald, Kit, Hayward and Coney into the squad?

[b+w geezer]

Gale      Coleman      Brown      Parker

You can play Parker as RB  (not left), and I guess I should have had him in my team instead of Ray Evans. But Coleman and Brown are too similar and Gale is no full-back.

Discounting Moore, you won't improve on Coleman+Gale as an eligible CB pairing. But LB is a problem however you look at it, and just naming a CB there won't do. Strong instead of Lock if you like, but neither is mouthwatering.

Mullery would have been in like a shot, but is ineligible, so in central midfield ithe only options are good Championship hustlers like my suggestions -- maybe Slough instead of Wilson. Unless you count Bracewell I suppose -- again I barely think of him as ours.

In answer to your last Q., no way Kit or Hayward and there's no point in Coney if MacDonald is eligible and why should he not be. That one of the best strikers of his day was let go by his local club should not disqualify him! And even in his brief spell with us, he scored a few and made a couple.

[dannyboi-ffc]

Gale      Coleman      Brown      Parker

You can play Parker as RB  (not left), and I guess I should have had him in my team instead of Ray Evans. But Coleman and Brown are too similar and Gale is no full-back.

Discounting Moore, you won't improve on Coleman+Gale as an eligible CB pairing. But LB is a problem however you look at it, and just naming a CB there won't do. Strong instead of Lock if you like, but neither is mouthwatering.

Mullery would have been in like a shot, but is ineligible, so in central midfield ithe only options are good Championship hustlers like my suggestions -- maybe Slough instead of Wilson. Unless you count Bracewell I suppose -- again I barely think of him as ours.

In answer to your last Q., no way Kit or Hayward and there's no point in Coney if MacDonald is eligible and why should he not be. That one of the best strikers of his day was let go by his local club should not disqualify him! And even in his brief spell with us, he scored a few and made a couple.

I love it when people get right into my random greatest teams. Everyday I'm educated a little more. I was being lazy with Gale at RB. Shift Parker over to the right, Cookie and Gale in the middle. What about Robbie Herrera at left back?  I always liked him, not saying he was great but we are getting desperate now.

When I recently did Fulhams top 50 greatest players I was laughed at for considering Strong as someone who could scrape into the 50. So is he good enough for the context of this team?

Anyone from the Micky Adams era good enough? Other than the couple I've mentioned I didn't think so. Good at that level but we've had better.

[b+w geezer]

Strong doesn't rate as one of our 50 greatest players, maybe even 150 greatest, but he's one of the few LB's available to you who played most of his career (unlike Robbie) at Championship level. Same for Lock. Les if you want a bit more going forward, Kevin if you want someone more like Ream. He was also a penalty king.

The Adams question and my Bracewell mention raises the issue of how to treat former top-division stalwarts who did a bit for us at the fag-end of their careers. Beardsley, for example, was objectively superior to Ivor, but doesn't seem 'ours.'. In central midfield, former Arsenal fixture Peter Storey trumps anyone who I've mentioned. And of course Moore and Best. But of those only Moore seems remotely right (length of time and achievement with us).

You're the boss of this exercise in nerdery anyway.

[cmg]

We have been very lucky for a club of our status to have seen three players who could arguably be in the 'Best of All Time' class. I don't just mean 'good' or modern definition 'great' or 'legend' players but those who might sensibly be included in Best Passer or Defender or Forward of All Time discussions.
One of them was unquestionably our own and nobody else's, another is unquestionably Manchester United's and, although always giving great value, was only here for a season and a bit.
The third, Bobby Moore, also 'belongs' to others, to West ham and to England. But Mooro played 150 times for Fulham, which is more than Louis Saha or Kit Symons or Ray Houghton or Moritz Volz or Super Mick Conroy or Leroy Rosenior or Ronnie Rooke. In nearly every one of these appearances he provided a master class on defending, he inspired and instructed the youngsters (he sometimes seemed to be playing his own and Johnny Lacy's game), he controlled the referees and provided social companionship to George Best. His performance in the first semi-final against Birmingham might well have been one of the greatest ever in a Fulham shirt. If he had never managed any of those other bits and pieces he achieved before he came to us he would still be remembered as one of our top men.

Always good fun these things, anyway!

[b+w geezer]

Maybe this would nail it as a rule:-

Hadn't already played in the top division [for Fulham or anyone]. That does rule out Coleman though.

And Moore -- about whom CMG nevertheless writes very well above. All he says there is spot-on.