| Fulham's history has, at times, been a genuine “Who's Who” of football folklore and the roll call underpins the underachievement of the Club through the years. England captain Johnny Haynes, one of the most gifted players of his generation, spent his entire first class career at Fulham between 1952 and 1970. The original Maestro, Haynes made the unprecedented steps of becoming the first footballer to earn £100 a week. However, the list does not stop there. Playing alongside Haynes in Fulham's last top-flight side of the 60s was another one-club man, England World Cup winner George Cohen. And to this day it can still be claimed that England have never won the World Cup without the contribution of a Fulham player.
Fulham has long been renowned for discovering promising young talent that has progressed to win major honours elsewhere. Alan Mullery (Tottenham & England), Rodney Marsh (QPR, Manchester City & England), and Allan Clarke (Leeds & England) all came to prominence with Fulham. Bobby Robson has achieved success at the highest level in four countries over five decades and it all began, for him, as a 17 year-old at Craven Cottage in 1950. More recently Ray Houghton (Liverpool, Aston Villa & Ireland), Paul Parker (Manchester United & England) and Tony Gale (West Ham & Blackburn) all forged their careers at Fulham before moving on to play in Championship-winning sides.
In addition to being a springboard for many blossoming futures, Fulham has been home to numerous legends in the autumn of their footballing lives. Mullery returned to Craven Cottage in 1972 and linked up with the legendary Bobby Moore, another of the World Cup-winning XI, to don the black and white. Together, Moore and Mullery guided Fulham through a record 11 matches to reach the 1975 FA Cup Final. Unfortunately, Moore's former employers West Ham got the better of his new team at Wembley. A year after the Cup final another old boy returned to join forces with a legend in his twilight years when Rodney Marsh and George Best signed. They were both past their best, however the entertainment factor was at a premium.
Despite the FA Cup Final and the star-studded line-ups of the 70s, it is the 60s that are viewed as the sepia-tinted halcyon days in Fulham's post-war history. The reason is pretty straight forward – between 1959 and 1968 the banks of the Thames were home to top-flight football. This was the era of Craven Cottage crowds exceeding 30,000, the era of regular visits from the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal. But Fulham's existence in the old First Division was often precarious. Never pushing higher than mid-table, it was only the threat of relegation that forced Fulham to raise their game.
By May 1968 Fulham had ridden their luck once too often and the sultry 27 points on the board made relegation unavoidable. “The real reason why Fulham have never won the League Championship is that we could never work up enough speed. That's why we've dropped back into the Second Division – to get a longer run at it,” quipped Fulham's music hall Chairman of the time, Tommy Trinder. The rabble-rousing comment may have been uttered in a light-hearted attempt to keep spirits up, but the reality of the matter is that the run-up he spoke of took 33 years.
In stark contrast to the relative stability of life in the top flight in the 60s, the ground beneath Craven Cottage constantly shifted as Fulham bobbed between the old Second and Third Divisions. Malcolm Macdonald's young Fulham side of the early 80s looked to be the ray of sunshine the Club so desperately craved and were touted by many as the best Fulham team since the 60s. However, two consecutive promotions in twelve months were denied at the final hurdle as Fulham threw away their last genuine attempt to regain top-flight status until the arrival of Mohamed Al Fayed.
As the face of football changed, so too did the disparity between the have's and the have nots, and mounting financial pressures led to the premature break up of this side which inevitably triggered a major downward spiral in Fulham's fortunes. In the meantime, as the Club passed between a succession of owners, all with their sights firmly set on the real estate value of the ground, the fight to remain at Craven Cottage intensified. By this time Fulham Football Club had been at the heart of the community for one hundred years.
As a selection of ground share options and residential developments that threatened the very survival of the Club were tossed around, it was the mettle of an alliance of supporters, led by former Fulham player and TV pundit Jimmy Hill, who ensured that Fulham Football Club would not be displaced from Craven Cottage.
However, as battles were fought and won in the board room, the gradual slide on the pitch continued until Fulham hit the football basement in 1994. In January 1996 the situation hit absolute rock bottom. Home gates were averaging a meagre 4000. The Club had less than 1000 season ticket holders, and employed only seven full time staff. In a bid to stem spiralling debt, the team trained on Epsom Downs and, so the story goes, one infamous training drill involved circuits of a park bench! In January 1996 Fulham travelled to Torquay United who were bottom of the entire Football League. Fulham were second from bottom, the Club's lowest ever League position. Fulham lost. For many it was the blackest day in the entire history of the Club. Staring non-league football right in the face, Fulham Football Club in its traditional guise was also staring at the prospect of extinction. Such a far cry from the days of Haynes, Cohen et al.
Fortunately, those days seem like a distant memory now. Flamboyant chairman Mohamed Al Fayed dreamt of Fulham winning the FA Premier League and invested heavily in pursuit of his ambition. After cruising to the First Division title in 2001, Al Fayed's expensively-assembled team was able to stand toe to toe with England's finest club sides. Fulham kicked-off the new season at Manchester United and showed they belonged in the top division with some sparkling football, despite a 3-2 defeat. Following three seasons of consolidation and improvement in the Premiership, ambitious Fulham remain one of the teams to watch, with Steed Malbranque establishing himself as a top-class midfielder. The club parted company with French coach Jean Tigana in April 2003, with Al Fayed's dream of challenging for the title now in the hands of Chris Coleman, who guided the club to ninth in the table in 2003-04. |
