Memories from 1968

[f321ffc]

Saw this link on TIFF ,was at the game myself as a spotty 14 year old, well worth a look for you olduns.  092.gif
http://twohundredpercent.net/video-fulham-blackburn-1968/

[keith]

I was there, aged 11.

[cmg]

Malcolm Macdonald, 18 years old. This was his fourth start for us, his second goal (he was to score in his next three matches).
Superb crosses from both sides, one well taken goal, close with two others, some terrific passes, strong on the ball, good in the air, quick and skillful, throw-ins into the box, all over the field. All who saw this thought we had found a new star. All except the Fulham management -  and they were the only ones that were wrong. He was gone by the end of November.

Why, after all these years, does this still make me SO MAD?

28, 30, 30, 24, 28, 32, 24, 29, 26
His seasonal goal tallies for the nine years after we deemed him surplus to requirements.

[GorgeousGus]

Not a bad fast bowler either in the Bishops Park v Lillie Road Rec  summer holiday matches!

[Funky Fulham Dave]

Malcolm Macdonald, 18 years old. This was his fourth start for us, his second goal (he was to score in his next three matches).
Superb crosses from both sides, one well taken goal, close with two others, some terrific passes, strong on the ball, good in the air, quick and skillful, throw-ins into the box, all over the field. All who saw this thought we had found a new star. All except the Fulham management -  and they were the only ones that were wrong. He was gone by the end of November.

Why, after all these years, does this still make me SO MAD?

28, 30, 30, 24, 28, 32, 24, 29, 26
His seasonal goal tallies for the nine years after we deemed him surplus to requirements.

We signed MM in the 1968-69 pre-season from Tonbridge as a full-back!

Although having never played up front before Manager Bobby Robson and assistant Harry Haslam gambled on MM's pace and enthusiasm to score the team goals that Frank Large among others were not doing.

He remained the whole of that 68-69 season and was top scorer for the reserve team.
 

[Supermitch]

This was my first ever Fulham match.   

My Dad took me 5 or 6 times a season for a few years - went 5 times that season without a win (4 draws) including the Cup match v West Brom which remains the highest attendance for me at CC (31,204).

[filham]

Thanks for the film, great to see those old legends again, wingers, attacking football, no sideways passing, great stuff.

There is a lesson to be learnt from that match, we were just relegated from the top flight and clearly we had a team with a lot of talent in it, we all thought a quick return was on the cards but come the end of the season we were relegated.

[bill taylors apprentice]

Happy days! (well, sort of)


I was there and still have the programme.

Couple of observations, Wolstenholme may of struck lucky with his famous "66" comment but most of the time he talked a load of B@ll@cks.

Frank Large was brave, fit as a buthers dog but bloody useless.

Barrett and Conway, class acts.

Whoever thought selling Macdonald was a good idea should have been shot!

[filham]

Happy days! (well, sort of)


I was there and still have the programme.

Couple of observations, Wolstenholme may of struck lucky with his famous "66" comment but most of the time he talked a load of B@ll@cks.

Frank Large was brave, fit as a buthers dog but bloody useless.

Barrett and Conway, class acts.

Whoever thought selling Macdonald was a good idea should have been shot!

That Fulham team had spells when it struggled to score with Haynes, Barrat, Conway and MacDonald available, why was that, blame the coach, Bobby Robson.
That is the bad side of Fulhamish.

[Woolly Mammoth]

Correct me if I am wrong, and I probably am, but didn't we sell Malcolm Macdonald for £15,000 English pounds to Luton Town, absolute madness.

[Baszab]

Why did KS keep picking Frank Large ?

[RaySmith]

I thought Large played well in this, always a threat up front, and created the goal with his closing down the defender and pass to Haynes. I liked him because he was such a trier, but unlucky.

Great video - brings back many memories - thanks.

[Lighthouse]

I may have mentioned that I was a fan of Frank Large, Not a great player but always a trier and put himself about.

1968 - Saw the first English club win the European Cup. Saw the deaths of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and Tony Hancock and Yuri Gagarin.

I sort of stopped caring after that.

[Snibbo]

Correct me if I am wrong, and I probably am, but didn't we sell Malcolm Macdonald for £15,000 English pounds to Luton Town, absolute madness.

17,500 I seem to recall. I remember being on a train with a bunch of Luton supporters at the time and telling them they'd bought a future superstar.

[Funky Fulham Dave]

I don't suppose that it was poor old Frank Large's fault, that apart from not being very good that his value of the record British transfer was calculated at a third of the £150,000 that took Allan Clarke to Leicester City and Frank to Fulham in the summer of 1968.

Based on today's record British transfer (Raheem Sterling) then poor old Franks total of three goals in that 1968-69 season was a cool £5.4 million per goal!

Poor old Franky Boy.

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[colinwhite]

Frank large had two left feet (as my dad used to say) and was useless to the point of being embarrassing . You actually felt sorry for him even though he had just missed yet another open goal . That and and then selling supermac for 17000 quid actually made the Mitroglu signing look like reasonable pieces of business .
I am still angry about Macdonald , time to get over it I suppose!
Thanks for the film I was at the game on the half way line on the riverside terrace. Golden years indeed. Jimmy conway was on fire that year until the knee injury . Loved Jimmy and Les of course.

[cmg]

The lastingly annoying thing about the Macdonald business was that everyone, including young idiots like me, could see we had something special here. You look at that clip now and think, 'Yeah, that's Supermac. Good wasn't he?'. But when we actually watched it nobody had even heard of Malcolm Macdonald; Supermac was some years in the future.
We were in the Hammersmith End that day, which was unusual, and were celebrating our luck in finding this 'left-back' to replace the much-missed Clarke.

We have recently seen quite a few youngsters given their first few senior games. Some may make it, some may not. None of them have had the kind of impact Macdonald had in his first few games.

[RaySmith]

I don't remember much criticism of Large at the time - well some used to criticise Allan Clarke ( a wag near me always used to shout 'where's your handbag Clarke, you useless..... .........' every time he got the ball).

In the video you can clearly hear the chart of 'Frankie, Frankie, Frankie Large' after a couple of his many scoring efforts. And he creates Fulham's goal with his effort and skill.

He obviously wasn't very successful at Fulham, with his poor goal return but he was a player I always admired for giving his all.

As I said in another post - shows the difference the internet makes - now I can read of the vitriolic criticism of Large, but wasn't aware of this of it at the time.

I saw Macdonald make his debut and his first games for Fulham, including this one, and agree that it was a shame and mismanagement to let such a talent go.

[colinwhite]

Didnt Mac score in that home game against Palace ,when we had gone a long run of games without scoring ? He was like a rocket . I was 12 at the time and there is no way that i would ever had sold him.
As for Large , you couldnt be unkind to the guy ,it was all rather pathetic really ,and he got his move to Fulham off the back of scoring a couple of goals for Leicester which was shown on match of the day . I just remeber the appalling amount of sitters he missed. An honest trier ,but useless none the less.

[Funky Fulham Dave]

Vitriol aimed toward Frank Large? definitely not then and certainly not now, internet or no internet.

The Fulham crowd were and still are an understanding and dare I say an appreciative lot and never gave Frank Large any stick he most certainly would have got elsewhere. Of course there were moans when chances that he had taken elsewhere never found the net. He was never up to the same standard as the player he replaced – Allan Clarke – but the Fulham fans appreciated his never-say-die spirit.

But why Frank Large never scored the goals at Fulham as he had elsewhere is just one of those things. After all he had the ammunition by way of a couple of speedy wingers Jimmy Conway and Les Barrett on either side who presented not only Frank but the other forwards with loads of chances. But the plain simple truth is that Frank Large was not very good.

His son Paul, in a book he wrote about his father's playing career, rather bizarrely holds Johnny Haynes wholly responsible for his father's failure while playing for Fulham. Work that one out.


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