MANY FULHAM SUPPORTERS DID NOT think their club would ever return to Craven Cottage and, to judge from the five thousand empty seats on Saturday, some of them still don’t believe it has happened. An historic return to a much-loved old home, that enjoys perhaps the most alluring backdrop of any English league ground, might have attracted a full house but the tone was muted. Even the pre-match appearance of Mohamed Al Fayed on the pitch , singing a revised version of Back Home, England’s 1970 World Cup song, could not tempt the crowd to raise their voices. The matchday programme articles implored fans to lose their reputation as the quietest in the Barclays Premiership, but perhaps that is part of the club’s charm.
There was a small fans’ boycott when Fulham moved in with Queens Park Rangers for the past two seasons, during which a new stadium site was sought, and the journey back to the banks of the Thames prompted Chris Coleman, the manager, to appeal for the “missing fans” to return. Yet it could be argued that the public has been absent since 1967-68, the last time the average attendance exceeded 20,000. While the 16,000 or so attendances at Loftus Road were 3,000 down on the 2001-02 Premiership season at the Cottage, they in fact constituted the second and third highest averages of the past 35 years. Fulham’s core support is so small that their average remained below 5,000 for 11 successive seasons from the mid-Eighties onwards. Their new or occasional fans will surely pack out the ground when the big clubs come to town, though, and they might just do so when the likes of Bolton Wanderers visit, if the performance on Saturday becomes the norm. The lack of matchday income leaves Fulham at a financial disadvantage that makes mistakes in the transfer market more serious than at rival clubs but all their four main summer signings impressed on their home debuts.
The most prominent was Andrew Cole, who has been absent from Craven Cottage much longer than the club. On a day when the striker might easily have had a hat-trick or more, his 199th and 200th league goals were scored for the same team as his first three, which came 13 years ago when on loan from Arsenal. If Glenn Hoddle is correct in claiming that the striker needs five attempts for every goal he manages, then he has just reached his 1,000th goalscoring opportunity, an appropriately high figure for a player who, at 32, remains almost unparalleled in sniffing out chances.
His second goal came from one of several fine passes by Claus Jensen, just signed from Charlton Athletic, who seems a perfect midfield colleague for Pape Bouba Diop. Portsmouth’s anger at losing out to Fulham for Diop’s services seems understandable: similar to Patrick Vieira in being a 6ft 4in, defensive midfield player, born in Senegal, who is ferocious in the tackle, he did a passable impression of the Arsenal player by keeping Jay-Jay Okocha fairly quiet.
Tomasz Radzinski completed the quartet of excellent newcomers as Fulham swept aside a Bolton team that had stood joint top of the table after the opening round of matches. After having complained of disruption caused by players leaving for international duty last week, Sam Allardyce will need every minute of the four days with his squad as they stay down south for the trip to Southampton on Wednesday.