Filham's story- supporting Fulham

[dannyboi-ffc]

THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN AS A FULHAM FAN


I have been a Fulham fan for some seventy years and recently have been asking myself what exactly is this thing I have with Fulham that stays  with me for year after year. Of course it is my most fascinating leisure pursuit, what could be better entertainment than a Fulham match at the Cottage, but it is so much more than just that.

I have come to realise that Fulham is a habit I just couldn't rid myself of, it is a  fixation, a mania, a love, an addiction and a preoccupation. Above all it is a magnificent obsession. 

The Beginning
Recently I met a couple of Fulham fans, brothers who lived at Hemel Hempstead and they explained to me that their parents, children and grandchildren were all Fulham supporters.  It had started during WW2 when their parents had taken in an evacuee from Fulham, the young lad convinced the family that there was no team like Fulham and his doctrine has remained steadfast in the family all these years.

There are very many fans who owe their allegiance to the club to their parents and grandparents and who are passing on the love of the club to their own children and grandchildren. This is just wonderful and helps to make us a truly family club.

I had no parents with an interest in sport, I have failed to raise any real interest in Fulham with my daughter and my two granddaughters have followed their father's support of Watford so I rely on friends, acquaintances, social media, press and television  to feed my hunger for Fulham  chat and understanding.

My affair with Fulham started at school where most of the boys were  football mad, there was a game in the playground with a small ball before school started in the morning and then again at morning break and a big game at lunch time. The school was Chelsea Central located right on the Fulham /Chelsea border and you really had to declare your allegiance to either Fulham FC or Chelsea FC, fortunately after a year at the school it was relocated from a site under the Lots Road power station to Bagleys Lane in Fulham which somehow seemed to give us Fulham fans an edge over Chelsea. This club allegiance was then a part of your make up and never changed.

Before ever going to a match at Fulham or Chelsea the pupils became strong club fans , Tommy Lawton being the hero of the Chelsea lot and Ronnie Rooke the Fulham hero.

Pre Haynes
Yes, there was life at the Cottage before the arrival of Haynes and in the short period I went to watch matches as a schoolboy I saw some very good players , watched some exciting football and enjoyed a  season that took Fulham into the top flight for the first time in their history.
That promotion season was tremendous, Southampton topped the table for most of the season and  for a while had an eight point lead over us .We were in third place and it looked as if we would do well to make the second place.  We had a tremendous run in  and eventually finished top of the table.
With four games to go we were away to Luton and I made the trip with a friend by bicycle, we played very well and won. On the way back to Fulham I remember stopping at Marble Arch and buying the Classified Evening News to see that other results had gone our way  and realising that promotion was a real possibility. It was a significant moment.
We had a good team that season but a defining act was the purchase halfway through the season of centre forward Arthur Rowley who  played in all 21 league matches after his arrival and scored 19 goals. Arthur was not the fastest of players but his left foot was lethal and with the pace of Bob Thomas and Beddy Jezzard either side of him our attack was excellent.
It was a struggle for three seasons in the first division before finishing bottom of the table and being relegated. We were not bad but Rowley was too slow for the top flight and we made a terrible mistake by transferring Len Quested , a real workhorse of a defensive midfielder.  The gates were good and matches against the top teams were special.  The big time bug had bitten and most  of us fans wanted us back in division 1 as soon as ever possible.

The Haynes Era
Halfway through the first season back in division two the young Johnny Haynes was introduced into the team and immediately formed a talented and effective attacking trio with the young Bobby Robson and the pacey Jezzard, These three were so, so good and goals started to flow like water. We have never, before or since seen an attack as potent as this at the Cottage. Newcastle, a really big club at the time, wanted to buy all three of them .

With these three playing in the team we all felt that promotion had to be just around the corner. In fact we had to wait seven seasons by which time Robson had been sold and Jezzard had retired, due to an injury, and had become manager and I think Haynes was captain.

Fulham had some very good players during this period always finishing in the top half of the 2nd division . We reached an FA cup semi final against a post Munich Manchester United side in 1958. Also there was my best ever match, that magnificent 4-5 FA Cup defeat at the Cottage by Newcastle. This match has been well documented over the years but it is perhaps necessary to explain the status of that game to the younger fan. In those days the FACup , without European football, held prime status and matches received more media coverage than league matches. Newcastle were one of the country's top clubs, had star players and were the FA Cup holders and over 39,000 people were at the Cottage for the match. We were the underdogs in a thrilling match that resulted in the favourites becoming lucky winners.

I was a young apprentice draughtsman still living in Fulham and working in Chelsea during this period and regularly watched our home games, two years National service in Wiltshire, Norfolk and Malaya was an obstacle but whenever leave permitted I was at the Cottage.
This sixties spell in the top division was to last for nine seasons . There were changes to the team while in the first division with some very good players being introduced but always the team and tactics centred around the magnificent maestro Haynes.
However we struggled to get out of the bottom half of the table and had a few tight scrapes with relegation. I particularly recall a one season when all seemed lost but a Great Escape took place which included an important win at the home of relegation candidates Northampton.

A good cup run took us to a semi final against Burnley in 62 but we lost on a replay.

Beddy Jezzard was manager and after gaining promotion he lead us for five seasons in the top flight on a shoe string budget  . Rumour had it that he eventually resigned over the sale of Mullery to Spurs which was undertaken without any reference to himself.

Beddy never served another club and his managerial Fulham career coupled with all the goals he scored for us must put him right up there at, or close to, the top of the list of all time Fulham greats.

With Haynes ageing and the team lacking top quality players we we languished at the bottom of the table throughout the 68/69 season , were relegated , fell straight through the 2nd division and then after a short spell in the third Haynes, loyal to the end ,retired.

The Haynes era had been a golden era for Fulham fans, we had:-

•   Seen the magnificent Haynes play week in week out
•   Seen Cohen, a member of the England 1966 World Cup winning team play regularly for us
•   Been in an FA Cup semi final.
•   Enjoyed watching many top  class players at the club.
•   Jimmy Hill , a Fulham player, had freed footballers from the maximum wage.
•   Fulham had been the first club to pay a player £100 per week.

I was married on 15th September 1962 and had to miss a match against Arsenal for the wedding, however there was a clear understanding that in future games at the Cottage would always take priority over other social events.

Post Haynes
Languishing in the third division, no Haynes and lacking top quality players in most positions but  we managed to claw our way back into the 2nd division a season or so later. Alec Stock became manager and happy days were with us again. Mullery came back from Spurs, Bobby Moore joined us from West Ham and we found a new favourite in John Mitchel at centre forward. We reached our only FA Cup final in 1975 after a record 12 cup ties. The final was a bit of an anti climax, we were not at our best. The semi final at Hillsborough with a magnificent goal from Super Mitch and eventual victory over 1st division Birmingham was more satisfying. Those Brummy fans were so confident of a win before the game.

In his final season at Fulham Stock brought in George Best and Rodney Marsh who together were real entertainers and if you wanted to see the most skilful pair of players in the country that season you came to the Cottage.

After Stock left we became somewhat ordinary and were eventually relegated again to division 3 at the end of the seventies.

Relief came when Malcom MacDonald was appointed as manager, he quickly built  a team that gained promotion from division 3 and the following came so, so close to gaining promotion to the top flight.  This MacDonald team was strong throughout, a top keeper in Peyton, tremendous centre backs in Brown and Gale, and a wonderful strike partnership of Coney and Ivor. The whole team is one to be remembered and the best we were to see for a long while

The Doldrum Years
Through all the post war years the leading director and later chairman had been Tommy Trinder a popular comedian , a local Fulham man with a real passion for Fulham. He was popular with the fans although he took stick when forced to sell the likes of Mullery in order to balance the book but his big achievement was in keeping Haynes at Fulham for some twenty years.
After the success of the MacDonald team us fans were becoming aware of boardroom problems. Money had been borrowed to build a stand on the riverside and the club carried a large debt. A businessman named Clay had become Chairman and seemed more interested in developing the Cottage site for housing than running a football cub, he eventually sold his Fulham interests to a property developer   who also purchased the Loftus Road ground and we were facing a merger with QPR which would leave the Cottage free for development as a site for luxury housing.
The team had been neglected , with good players sold and us fans were suffering, Fulham Fooball Club  was under threat of disappearing forever.
Thankfully Jimmy Hill came to our rescue and somehow managed to form a board of real Fulham people, buy the club and lease the ground. How he achieved this I will never understand but we owe Jimmy an enormous debt of gratitude, without his help the club would now be long gone.

The club that Jimmy took over was in a poor shape,  all of the assets had been stripped  and season after season was spent in the lower divisions and at one stage we came perilously close to relegation out of the football league. There seemed no way up until we bought Micky Adams from Southampton and within a season appointed him as manager.
The 1996/7 season was unbelievable, we were unrecognisable from the previous season, a good striker had been converted to a sweeper, about £70,000 had been spent on bargain buys and we played with real passion, leading the table for most of the season and finely finishing in 2nd place.
Things at last were looking up for us fans.
On getting married I had moved away from Fulham living in Ealing, Sudbury Hill and Sunbury and working in Ealing so regular trips to the Cottage continued although postings of short duration to Malaya, Singapoor ,Bagdad ,Hong Kong and Peru did result in a few missed matches.





The MAF Years

Mickey Adams had given us hope, yes it was only the fourth division we had performed so well in but it was the best we had seen for some thirteen years and I believe the club again owned it's own ground.
The news then broke that Mohamed Al Fayed had purchased Fulham and was promising us top flight football in the next five years. Some of us at the time did question MAF's motives and wondered if the Cottage would again be at the mercy of property developers. However MAF delivered and provided  really exciting times with top class players and managers being enticed to the Cottage.
Promotions through two divisions , and an FA Cup semi final were experienced in a short time, The promotion season  to the top division was unbelievable with a new French manager, Tigana, training the team to play an attractive brand of football that was entirely new to this country.
We had the longest time in the top flight in our history, generally finishing around the middle of the table but with some great encounters against the big teams, especially at the Cottage.

Tigana and Coleman served us well as managers but Roy Hodgeson  arrived in in the middle of a season when we looked certain for relegation and performed a Great Escape and then within a season took us all the way to a Euro final which surely  was the peak of any Fulham achievment. The brilliant come back we made to win the match against Juventus was unbelievable and the match was the best seen at the Cottage since the cup tie with Newcastle half a century earlier.
MAF eventually retired and sold the club to a wealthy man from the States who seemed to need time to grasp the reins, there were several quick changes of managers and players , the team performances suffered and we were unable to avoid relegation.
The problems continued in the Championship with question marks over the quality of our managers and players.

I had been forced into early retirement at the beginning of the MAF years  and resisted moving away to a quieter life away from the London area so found myself with time to continue to follow Fulham and to attend matches at the Cottage regularly.

Now And The Future.
Last season we saw Fulham playing the most attractive football in the Championship and making it into the play offs but failing to get promotion after a very close defeat at Reading. If we can hold on to our coach and best players and a couple of new players of quality then we should again be in another promotion chase in the coming season.
At the moment there is hope of future premiership football again at the Cottage. However we know this is difficult to achieve so we have to be prepared for alternatives.

Filham

[Cambridge Pete]

What an eloquent narrative of seventy years following the Whites. Thank you. I am a mere apprentice with only 59 years. How the world has changes for better and worse!

[cmg]

Thanks for a beautifully written narrative of a large sweep of our club's history from a man whose devotion shines through.
Always good, too, to hear from a man who has faced adversity and peril on behalf of his country. I mean, Wiltshire and Malaya must have been a doddle, but Norfolk, that really is hard time!

[Mince n Tatties]

Super Stuff Filham  049:gif

[Jonaldiniho 88]

Really enjoyed this. Fulham losing the best game ever though?

[filham]

Really enjoyed this. Fulham losing the best game ever though?

That's real Fulhamish for you.
Would love someone (Danniboi perhaps) to interview Tosh about that match.

[dannyboi-ffc]

Really enjoyed this. Fulham losing the best game ever though?

That's real Fulhamish for you.
Would love someone (Danniboi perhaps) to interview Tosh about that match.

I'd love too. But Tosh is 83 now so the chances of a social media contact are small. I'll put the call out on twitter, I ended up with Jim Stannard's phone number so you never know.

[filham]

Thanks for a beautifully written narrative of a large sweep of our club's history from a man whose devotion shines through.
Always good, too, to hear from a man who has faced adversity and peril on behalf of his country. I mean, Wiltshire and Malaya must have been a doddle, but Norfolk, that really is hard time!

Yes,  Norfolk seemed remote but I always remember the late night train journey after a week end at home from Liverpool Street to Downham Market, we seemed to share the train with lots of American Air Force men returning to Kings Lynn, about 15 minutes down the line from Downham, after a week end in London.

It was the duty of the last two or three RAF men off the train to run past the carriage with the Yanks in shouting  "Kings Lynn" in order to awaken them from their sleep and get them out on the platform at the wrong station. It always worked.

Of course we were really jealous of all the American servicemen in Norfolk, much better paid, superior  food , smarter uniforms and they seemed so much better than us at chatting up girls.

[Supermitch]

Excellent read Filham.  Thanks for sharing.

[jarv]

excellent.