For you older folk

[St Eve]

Do you remember when we pretty much played the same 11 every week. The numbers on their shirts were 1-11. There was 1 sub. If you drew in a cup game there was e replay. No sipping liquids at every opportunity. Bookings and sending offs were a big deal. You got results on a transistor radio. You could stand up and watch the game and a have a beer at half time. The away coaches parked right outside the ground. Good memories

[davew]

Those were the days!! The numbers on the shirts these days, what are they 1 to 30 something (or more)?

[ALG01]

i like squad numbers, i hate the three substitutes and a choice of substitutes it so massively helps the bigger clubs, replays were brilliant an on the wednesday night after the saturday, not a week and a half later, i love getting the results immediately on line, and I never ever drink at the game. so some and some really..... but replays and subs, we should turn back the clock and also revert to the old offside law, i saw a game on MOTD when a player was in offside position then moments later was deemed not offside but would n't have been where he was if he hadn't been offside when the ball went forward, hence he just had to be intefereing with play and it smacked of goal hanging and that is what offside was introduced to stop.

[Southcoastffc]

And teams should have a home strip, and an away strip. There is no need for flaming Coral or whatever it was. Huddersfield could have played in their blue and white stripes and when we play Millwall and Blackburn there's no colour clash if we play in our white shirts and black shorts. But we won't.

[Oakeshott]

I can remember when there were no substitutes and precious few spectators on the Thames side, then completely open, even when we were in the old first Division. One year we only just avoided relegation following a series of 0-1 losses at the Cottage to among others, Cardiff and for that game my dad, my uncle and I standing on the terrace had literally no one within five yards of us.

But my most powerful memory of those times was not about the football, but the - to me - wonderful smell of wood as one passed the Hammersmith end, with then a timber yard right next to the ground. 

That and the fact that my dad, who had a very ordinary job, could afford to take me every fortnight, such were the ticket prices. I doubt dads in comparable jobs now can afford the current prices for themselves and a kid. But there again, fish and chips for two, take away, last night was £16.40 from our local shop.

[Dodgin]

Shirts 1 to 11 and no sub

[HV71]

+ rattles, pipe smoke,real victim and wagon wheels

[HV71]

Real bovril .... and no ffing predictive text

[Lighthouse]

Every fan knew the team of every club in their division. It was usually the same 11 and sub and we knew every player in every squad. Now I have trouble knowing who the England players are and what club they come from.

[Woolly Mammoth]

I enjoyed the football in those days far more than now. Today it's full of spoilt cheating wimps always arguing the toss with referees, and the standard of referees these days are so much worse, and the few pundits that were around were impartial and didn't talk Bolox in favour of the big clubs like they do today.
No queues outside the medical room looking for an excuse not to play. Even when there were no subs at all, and all eleven stayed on the pitch for 90 mins and didn't feign injury. These days some players only play half a game and some people say they need a rest, you couldn't make it up.
Obviously it wasn't all happy days, but for me it was far better times.

[Andy S]

I remember all that but come on the referees were never any better than they are today. Some of them were a lot worse

[Motspur Park]

As seen by the FFC v Chelsea and Newcastle games, football has vastly improved but the experience is, at least for me, far less enjoyable. The theatrics of players, the time wasting (effectively cheating the paying fan), the seemingly obligatory crossing their chest and pointing to the sky before coming on or after scoring leaves me completely frustrated. Also hate the way that any player whose hair gets touched goes down as if they have been clubbed with a baseball bat.

[Woolly Mammoth]

I remember all that but come on the referees were never any better than they are today. Some of them were a lot worse

In your opinion.

[Dodgin]

Ref. Kirkpatrick running backwards

[RaySmith]

The ref always wore black,and was likely a bit tubby and slow, holding down a full-time job, and  just reffing to be involved in the game.

There certainly wasn't the controversy about decisions there is now, with every call endlessly replayed for tv. Players used to accept the ref's decision, and didn't go down all the time  feigning  they'd been fouled and rolling about holding their head - this would have been frowned upon by teammates, as well as fans.

Percy Dalton's Roasted Peanuts was  the snack bought before the games from vendors outside the ground, and the terraces were littered with empty peanut shells, while  most smoked constantly, the smell  hanging in the air, along with  that of wet  overcoats from the rain.

The game was comparatively very cheap compared to today - cost was seldom a factor as to whether you went to a game or not, as it is now for many  folk.

An old timer from then wouldn't recognise the game today, but then  society  generally would seem completely alien to them.

[sarnian]

+ rattles, pipe smoke,real victim and wagon wheels

Wagon wheels, I was still buying them from the paper shop at Putney Bridge on the way to games up to 3 weeks ago. Seem to have sold out and no new stock in on Saturday. Shame. :dft011:

[tslyon]

I can remember when there were no substitutes and precious few spectators on the Thames side, then completely open, even when we were in the old first Division. One year we only just avoided relegation following a series of 0-1 losses at the Cottage to among others, Cardiff and for that game my dad, my uncle and I standing on the terrace had literally no one within five yards of us.

But my most powerful memory of those times was not about the football, but the - to me - wonderful smell of wood as one passed the Hammersmith end, with then a timber yard right next to the ground. 

That and the fact that my dad, who had a very ordinary job, could afford to take me every fortnight, such were the ticket prices. I doubt dads in comparable jobs now can afford the current prices for themselves and a kid. But there again, fish and chips for two, take away, last night was £16.40 from our local shop.

I am not yet lucky enough to be this old, and an American to boot.  I've feel fortunate enough to have visited the Cottage 5 times, but this...this is poetic to me and makes me yearn for a simpler time.

Well said.

Cheers,

Steve

[Oakeshott]

Steve

Visiting the Cottage as a kid was, for me, magical and of course we had the legendary Johnny Haynes. Someone, I think it may have been Alf Ramsey, said the late Martin Peters was ahead of his time. But so was JH. He could read a game, and spot a pass, like no one else I've seen play for us. Trouble is, half the time he'd tee up Tosh Chamberlain who'd either break the net or, more often, miss by a country mile. Another great Fulham favourite and character.

Nostalgia aside, my single best day as a Fulham supporter is, and likely always will be, probably the same as everyone else's, winning at Wembley less than two years ago. The goal was superb and the atmosphere at "our" section of the stadium unbelievable. (Beating Ipswich Town 10-1 was something special too, though those of us at the Hammersmith end couldn't see the Putney end goal for fog and only knew we had scored the last couple from the cheers at that end and seeing the players come back to the centre circle. In true "Fulhamish" mode we lost the reverse fixture a couple of days later.) 

[Peabody]

In my day, games kicked of at 3pm, all flans stood together, other teams were rivals, not enemies. Respect was the word.

[f bloke]

But we had rampant hooliganism even at sleepy old Fulham.  People of my age needed a strategy to deal with it - not always successfully in my case - I picked up the odd bump and bruise just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

The pitches were dreadful with the result that the football was more long ball and much less structured.  At the time we thought the Macdonald team was an exciting incisive passing team but watching YouTube footage of that team it wasn't a patch on eg the Slav team.

I think it is a case of pick n mix.  I now have a dislike of football generally and have no interest in the Gordon Gekko sponsored premier league unless we are in it.  Couldn't put faces to names of the vast majority of players even at the bigger clubs.  Miss just being able to go to a game on a whim and pay on the gate. Miss standing on the terracing when you could simply move away from the moaning old gits driving you nuts and gravitate towards the funny bloke who keeps you entertained throughout. The price of the game is now prohibited and excludes those on lower wages.  I was speaking to an Arsenal fanatic mini cab driver who can only afford for him and his son to go to league cup games or early euro games against obscure opposition

Don't miss three quarters empty stadia or only being able to watch back our goals two or three times a season and don't miss the general of hostility and violence back then and am glad my kids weren't exposed to the same.

So definitely stuff to miss but the worst of the old days was pretty damn bad