Greatest Fulham Manager Ever

[Spirit of 2000]

3 votes per user to vote for your top 3 choices - For instance many may consider Hodgson or Tigana as their 1st choice, but wish to recognise Stock for getting us to the Cup final or Adams for one of the most memorable seasons ever built on a shoestring, Ray Lew for being a great servant and stepping up more than once, Supermac for the almost unbelievable double promotion & great football played (again on a shoestring) or Slavisa for the once in a lifetime playoff victory experience on the back of an amazing record breaking club unbeaten run.

Should be fun to see the outcome - as many of the options are great managers for different reasons & in different circumstances.

 

[Penfold]

I've gone for Roy on the back of the 7th place finish and Europa League final.

Tigana's football in 2000/01 was sublime but we probably didn't fulfill our potential in the premier league under him.

Mickey Adams deserves huge credit for getting us up in 1996/97 on a shoestring and the success that year might have swayed MAF in buying the club.

MM was manager when I was first a regular and had he been provided with the resources in 1982/83, we may well have gone up.

Recently, Slav getting us up is a bright spot.

[Spirit of 2000]

I've gone for Roy on the back of the 7th place finish and Europa League final.

Tigana's football in 2000/01 was sublime but we probably didn't fulfill our potential in the premier league under him.

Mickey Adams deserves huge credit for getting us up in 1996/97 on a shoestring and the success that year might have swayed MAF in buying the club.

MM was manager when I was first a regular and had he been provided with the resources in 1982/83, we may well have gone up.

Recently, Slav getting us up is a bright spot.

All fair points - I've included all of the options on some form of merit. Ray Lew may not have achieved much but a failed play off semi final for instance but during the days when things were really bad he stepped up as manager & caretaker manager to keep the ship afloat with sod all budget, a proper unsung hero in many respects and recognised especially of late as a magnificent coach. I almost voted for him myself, but to pick 3 from the list isn't easy (Buckingham was before my time but included for older fans).

[S.F.Sorrow]

Roy Hodgson, Jean Tigana and Micky Adams.

[Tony]

https://www.managerstats.co.uk/clubs/fulham/
I found this on the internet, unfortunately not up to date or very accurate, but it shows that Kevin Keegan had the best win percentage

[SuffolkWhite]

Hodgson... achieved 7th plus the Euro run with no star players as such.
MacDonald...... achieved promotion with a team on a shoestring and has lots of memories for me. 
Adams...... for the Promotion on no money and just the sheer good feeling he produced through the club.

[Cambridge Pete]

Tough to choose. My choices
Roy, just for seeing what he achieved and seeing Fulham in a European Final.
Tigana, The promotion season was sublime and Boxing Day just a fantastic memory
Third Big Mac, Oh if the Board had only supported him
Whilst I can't have a fourth I would give special mention to Beddy Jezzard.
All on the list though did good jobs for the club.

[Woolly Mammoth]

They all deserve a pat on the back i would have thought apart from Vic Buckingham.
Difficult to separate many of the others, but I have gone for these three based on their limited resources and the politics at the club at the time, and in some cases the shortcomings of some players they had, but still got the best out of them within the framework of the team. Which in itself is a massive result. Whereas others may have had the good fortune of having a cheque book to use as a crutch to assist them.
All three of these managers had excellent Man Management skills.
Of course I had to leave out 2/3 others who served us very well indeed, nevertheless these three I have a lot to thank for.
 It’s a shame Bedford Jezzard is not amongst them as I thought he was also a very good Manager.
In alphabetical order, Micky Adams, Malcolm Macdonald, Alec Stock.

[Spirit of 2000]

Tough to choose. My choices
Roy, just for seeing what he achieved and seeing Fulham in a European Final.
Tigana, The promotion season was sublime and Boxing Day just a fantastic memory
Third Big Mac, Oh if the Board had only supported him
Whilst I can't have a fourth I would give special mention to Beddy Jezzard.
All on the list though did good jobs for the club.

Jezzard added now in case you/anyone wishes to vote for him. (Like Buckingham though, before my time)

[bill taylors apprentice]

Buckingham's name should be nowhere near this list!

[Spirit of 2000]

Buckingham's name should be nowhere near this list!

After referring to my dad and some replies here - Buckingham now replaced by Jezzard! Apologies about his initial inclusion - I checked his win/loss record and can understand now why he shouldn't be on the list!    - I was probably mis-lead to add him as had heard Buckingham held in great esteem for his time elsewhere at Ajax, Sheff Wed, Barca, WBA and others!  (including discovering Cruyff - but this needs to be FFC specific)

[ALG01]

Super mac no brainer. he had the most impressive/thrilling football I have ever seen with no money and a squad of about 14 players. The one touich football was out of this world and the team was way better than the sum of its parts.

Roy, Keegan. JT and Slav are not to be sneezed at but had the advantage of rich chairmen that splashed the cash. I am not sure they could have done what Supermac did... The win away at newcastle, the win at home to leeds and others where stunning. This was a team made from nothing but founded on a top class back four of hopkins, gale brown, lock. they complemented each other, worked well as a unit and had both toughness and a delicacy of skill. Lock was a supreme left foot dead ball specialist and penalty taker and gale was the cliosest thing to moore i can remember us having and also a top right footed free kick taker... shame he messed up at home v leicester backing off when he should hav eclosed down in that defeat, but other than that brilliant.

tigs purchased who he wanted, but getting saha was a master stroke. roy was arguably the greatest and we wll loved him, but the football was not thrilling, it was built on strict adherence to 4 4 2 and very little scope for breaking from the scrript. that is why he did not like bullard or Kamara and yet thiose two were so instrumental in the great escape.

So for me Supermac,l but I did love JT, Roy and KK too, plus one or two others.

[Holders]

Roy Hodgson, Jean Tigana and Micky Adams.

+1

[Russianrob]

For purely personal reasons l have gone for the manager we had when I first supported Fulham,a man called Bill Dodgin.Not a gentleman in the sense of Alex Stock but a genuine man of integrity.

[Spirit of 2000]

Super mac no brainer. he had the most impressive/thrilling football I have ever seen with no money and a squad of about 14 players. The one touich football was out of this world and the team was way better than the sum of its parts.

Roy, Keegan. JT and Slav are not to be sneezed at but had the advantage of rich chairmen that splashed the cash. I am not sure they could have done what Supermac did... The win away at newcastle, the win at home to leeds and others where stunning. This was a team made from nothing but founded on a top class back four of hopkins, gale brown, lock. they complemented each other, worked well as a unit and had both toughness and a delicacy of skill. Lock was a supreme left foot dead ball specialist and penalty taker and gale was the cliosest thing to moore i can remember us having and also a top right footed free kick taker... shame he messed up at home v leicester backing off when he should hav eclosed down in that defeat, but other than that brilliant.

tigs purchased who he wanted, but getting saha was a master stroke. roy was arguably the greatest and we wll loved him, but the football was not thrilling, it was built on strict adherence to 4 4 2 and very little scope for breaking from the scrript. that is why he did not like bullard or Kamara and yet thiose two were so instrumental in the great escape.

So for me Supermac,l but I did love JT, Roy and KK too, plus one or two others.

Good post and cannot really disagree with anything you've said there.

[Sir Alec of good Stock]

Super mac no brainer. he had the most impressive/thrilling football I have ever seen with no money and a squad of about 14 players. The one touich football was out of this world and the team was way better than the sum of its parts.

Roy, Keegan. JT and Slav are not to be sneezed at but had the advantage of rich chairmen that splashed the cash. I am not sure they could have done what Supermac did... The win away at newcastle, the win at home to leeds and others where stunning. This was a team made from nothing but founded on a top class back four of hopkins, gale brown, lock. they complemented each other, worked well as a unit and had both toughness and a delicacy of skill. Lock was a supreme left foot dead ball specialist and penalty taker and gale was the cliosest thing to moore i can remember us having and also a top right footed free kick taker... shame he messed up at home v leicester backing off when he should hav eclosed down in that defeat, but other than that brilliant.

tigs purchased who he wanted, but getting saha was a master stroke. roy was arguably the greatest and we wll loved him, but the football was not thrilling, it was built on strict adherence to 4 4 2 and very little scope for breaking from the scrript. that is why he did not like bullard or Kamara and yet thiose two were so instrumental in the great escape.

So for me Supermac,l but I did love JT, Roy and KK too, plus one or two others.

Good post and cannot really disagree with anything you've said there.

MacDonald was the man manager and Ray Harford was the brilliant tactician. The combination worked extremely well.

[filham]

Having watched all of their teams regularly there is no doubt in my mid , it just had to be the magnificent and understated Beddy Jezzard.  He achieved promotion to the top flight in his first season as manager and then kept us in the top flight for the next five seasons on a shoestring budget.
He must be our longest serving manager, hard to think of another who stayed in the position longer.

[keith]

"Supermac" for me along with Ray Hartford as his Number Two.

[ALG01]

Super mac no brainer. he had the most impressive/thrilling football I have ever seen with no money and a squad of about 14 players. The one touich football was out of this world and the team was way better than the sum of its parts.

Roy, Keegan. JT and Slav are not to be sneezed at but had the advantage of rich chairmen that splashed the cash. I am not sure they could have done what Supermac did... The win away at newcastle, the win at home to leeds and others where stunning. This was a team made from nothing but founded on a top class back four of hopkins, gale brown, lock. they complemented each other, worked well as a unit and had both toughness and a delicacy of skill. Lock was a supreme left foot dead ball specialist and penalty taker and gale was the cliosest thing to moore i can remember us having and also a top right footed free kick taker... shame he messed up at home v leicester backing off when he should hav eclosed down in that defeat, but other than that brilliant.

tigs purchased who he wanted, but getting saha was a master stroke. roy was arguably the greatest and we wll loved him, but the football was not thrilling, it was built on strict adherence to 4 4 2 and very little scope for breaking from the scrript. that is why he did not like bullard or Kamara and yet thiose two were so instrumental in the great escape.

So for me Supermac,l but I did love JT, Roy and KK too, plus one or two others.

Good post and cannot really disagree with anything you've said there.

MacDonald was the man manager and Ray Harford was the brilliant tactician. The combination worked extremely well.

Yes, I have to say that is probably true. the combination was outstanding although mac did get promotion the year before Harfiord.

[Spirit of 2000]

Personally speaking and in order with reasons my 1,2,3 was as follows.

1) Jean Tigana - absolutely the best football I've ever seen from a Fulham side, made comparative journeymen like Brevett look class (no slight on Rufus who I loved), discovered Saha who had played often as a winger and converted him into a devastating central striker. The side that destroyed the championship for me is the best side that has ever graced this division, things got messy with the Marlet saga, agent fees and the associated falling out with MAF in the premier, but it doesn't take enough away to stop him being my no.1


2) Roy Hodgson - took an ordinary set of capable but unspectacular premiership players, added his own ingredients (Hangeland a brilliant acquisition) and kept us up against all odds then the following season had us finishing in the clubs highest ever position - 7th in the premier and then onto a magical run to the Europa Cup Final vs Atletico Madrid, the stuff dreams are made of. FFC's most successful manager for these reasons, but just lost out to Tigana on top spot in my book as Roys football was often methodical & attritional as opposed to the fluent fast paced attacking style of Tigana - and as a fan I love being entertained.


My third place was almost a 50/50 split and I'm still not convinced I got it right. however it was out of 2 managers who brought us great success with a bargain basement budget. Nothing to choose between them in my book & I'd give them joint 3rd if the voting system allowed, I even thought to extending the votes to 4 but thought out of 10 candidates this to be excessive.


Micky Adams I eventually went for due to the 1997 being my favourite season ever as a Fulham fan, probably a personal thing - I was 29 at the time and went to about 80-90% of the home & away games that season. The atmosphere & camaraderie on the terraces was brilliant, such a feeling of togetherness and the team of old men, young lads, journeymen etc cobbled together for buttons doing us proud. There's seldom ever been such a connection between the team and fans and we travelled in big numbers consuidering we were 4th tier. Being denied the title due to a law change that was the doing of our very own Jimmy Hill was "Fulhamish!" - still it didn't spoil that magnificent season too much, Carlise away - who put the ball in the Carlise net, Cambridge on the final game of the season filled to the brim with Fulham & outnumbering the home fans around 4 to 1. So yes, probably a sentimental edge that mad eme include Micky in 3rd (could hardly rate him over Roy or Jean).


An honoury shout out to Supermac Malcolm MacDonald though - and I feel awful for not including him in the top 3 & the side under him that included so many of my all time favourites, Ivor, Ray Lew, Gerry Peyton, Kevin Lock, Ray Houghton ... all put together again on a shoestring. We played great football - Newcastle 4-1 at St James Park was stunning. Loads of memories the 1-1 fraught affair in a packed Cottage to get promoted against Lincoln - then a 14 year old me scaling the then massive fences to run on the pitch all the way through to that terrible Day at Derby County when we lost out on the final day in a match that was never completed - not going to bang on too much about that now but all has been well documented but that side & us under Supermac never really recovered despite the epic cup games against the then mighty - almost invincible Liverpool of the time.