Fulham F.C.
Fulham Football Club is a professional football club based in Fulham, West London, England. The club competes in the, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1879, they have played home games at Craven Cottage since 1896. Fulham contest West London derby rivalries with Chelsea, Brentford and Queens Park Rangers. The club adopted a white shirt and black shorts as its kit in 1896, which has been used ever since.
Founded in 1879, they are London's oldest professional football club. They joined the Southern League in 1898 and won two First Division titles, as well as two Second Division titles and a Western League title. Elected into the Second Division of the Football League in 1907, Fulham would win the Third Division South in 1931–32, four years after being relegated. They won the Second Division title in 1948–49, though were relegated after three seasons. Promoted back to the First Division again in 1958–59, the form of star player Johnny Haynes helped Fulham to remain in the top-flight until consecutive relegations occurred by 1969. They were promoted in 1970–71 and went on to reach the final of the 1974–75 FA Cup.
Fulham drifted between the second and fourth tiers until being taken over by Mohamed Al-Fayed in 1997. They went on to win two divisional titles in three seasons to reach the Premier League by 2001. They won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2002 and were beaten in the 2010 final of the UEFA Europa League. However, 13 consecutive seasons in the top flight culminated in relegation in 2014. Since then, the club have moved between the first and second tiers under new owner Shahid Khan. Fulham changed divisions in five successive seasons between 2017–18 to 2021–22, being relegated after winning the 2018 and 2020 EFL Championship play-off finals. They then won the 2021–22 EFL Championship title, settling in the Premier League since 2022.
History
1879–1907: Formation and Southern League years
Fulham were formed in 1879 as Fulham St Andrew's Church Sunday School F.C., founded by worshippers at the Church of England on Star Road, West Kensington. Fulham's mother church still stands today with a plaque commemorating the team's foundation. They won the West London Amateur Cup in 1887 and, having shortened the name from Fulham St Andrews to its present form in December 1888, they then won the West London League in 1893 at the first attempt. One of the club's first ever kits was half red, half white shirts with white shorts worn in the 1886–87 season. Fulham started playing at their current ground at Craven Cottage in 1896, their first game against now defunct rivals Minerva.The club gained professional status on 12 December 1898, the same year that they were admitted into the Southern League's Second Division. They were the third club from London to turn professional, following Arsenal, then named Royal Arsenal 1891, and Millwall in 1893. They adopted a red and white kit during the 1896–97 season. In 1902–03, the club won promotion from this division, entering the Southern League First Division. The club's first recorded all-white club kit came in 1903, and ever since then the club has been playing in all-white shirts and black shorts, with socks going through various evolutions of black and/or white, but are now normally white-only. The club won the Southern League twice, in 1905–06 and 1906–07.
1907–1949: Football League
Fulham joined The Football League after the second of their Southern League triumphs. The club's first league game, playing in the Second Division's 1907–08 season, saw them lose 1–0 at home to Hull City in September 1907. The first win came a few days later at Derby County's Baseball Ground by a score line of 1–0. Fulham finished the season three points short of promotion in fourth place. The club progressed all the way to the semi-final of that season's FA Cup, a run that included an 8–3 away win at Luton Town. In the semi-final, however, they were heavily beaten, 6–0, by Newcastle United. This is still a record loss for an FA Cup semi-final game. Two years later, the club won the London Challenge Cup in the 1909–10 season. Fulham's first season in Division Two turned out to be the highest that the club would finish for 21 years, until in 1927–28 when the club were relegated to the 3rd Division South, created in 1920. Hussein Hegazi, an Egyptian forward, was one of the first non-British players to appear in The Football League, though he only played one game for Fulham in 1911, marked with a goal, afterwards playing for non-league Dulwich Hamlet.During this period, businessman and politician Henry Norris was the club chairman and curiously he had an indirect role in the foundation of Fulham's local rivals Chelsea. When he rejected an offer from businessman Gus Mears to move Fulham to land where the present-day Chelsea stadium Stamford Bridge is situated, Mears decided to create his own team to occupy the ground. In 1910, Norris started to combine his role at Fulham with the chairmanship of Arsenal. Fulham became the first British team to sell hot dogs at their ground in 1926. Fulham had several high-profile international players during the 1920s, including Len Oliver and Albert Barrett.
After finishing fifth, seventh and ninth in their first three seasons in the Third Division South, Fulham won the division in the 1931–32 season. In doing so they beat Torquay United 10–2, won 24 out of 42 games and scored 111 goals, thus being promoted back to the Second Division. The next season they missed out on a second consecutive promotion, finishing third behind Tottenham Hotspur and Stoke City. A mixed bag of league performances followed, although the club also reached another FA Cup semi-final during the 1935–36 season. Fulham were also to draw with Austria in 1936 before Anschluss. On 8 October 1938, Craven Cottage saw its all-time highest attendance at a match against Millwall, with a crowd of 49,335 watching the game.
League and cup football were severely disrupted by the outbreak of World War II in 1939, with the Football League split into regional divisions temporarily, with a national Football League War Cup and a London War Cup up for grabs. Craven Cottage was used like many grounds for fitness and training of the army youth reserves. Post-war, a full league programme was only restored for 1946–47. In the third season of what is now considered the modern era of football, Fulham finished top of the Second Division, with a win–loss–draw record of 24–9–9. John Fox Watson made a pioneering transfer to Real Madrid in 1948, becoming one of the first players from the United Kingdom to sign for a high-profile side abroad.
1949–1970: First Division Cottagers
Promotion to the top tier of English football saw the club perform poorly, finishing 17th in their first year and 18th in their second. In only their third season of First Division football, Fulham finished rock bottom of the 22-team league in the 1951–52 season, winning only eight of 42 games. On 20 May 1951, Fulham played one of their first ever games in North America in an exhibition match against Celtic at Delorimier Stadium in Montreal in front of 29,000 spectators.Possibly the single most influential character in Fulham's history is Johnny Haynes. "Mr. Fulham" or "The Maestro", as Haynes later came to be known, signed for The Cottagers as a schoolboy in 1950, making his first team debut on Boxing Day against Southampton at Craven Cottage in the 1951/52 relegation season. Haynes played for another 18 years, notching 657 appearances, his last appearance for Fulham coming on 17 January 1970. He is often considered as the greatest player in Fulham history, and never played for another team in Britain. He gained 56 caps for England, with many being earned while playing for Fulham in the Second Division. Haynes was injured in a car accident in Blackpool in 1962, but by his own admissions never regained the fitness or form to play for England again, missing out on England's victory in the 1966 FIFA World Cup for which he would have stood a chance of being selected. The Stevenage Road Stand was renamed in his honour after his death in a car crash in 2005.
Fulham reached the 1957–58 FA Cup semi-finals, the best cup run of Haynes' career and nearest he came to a major trophy win playing in England. They were eliminated in a replay by the remnants of Manchester United's Busby Babes team that had been decimated in the Munich air disaster the month before. United were the first top division team Fulham played in that cup run. Fulham won promotion back to the First Division in the following season by finishing second to Sheffield Wednesday. Also joining Fulham in 1958 was Graham Leggat, who went on to score 134 goals in 277 appearances,. In the 1959–60 season, they achieved tenth position in the First Division, which until finishing ninth in the 2003–04 season was their highest-ever league position. This accompanied another appearance in the last four of the FA Cup in 1962.
By this time, the club were regularly playing in front of 30,000 plus crowds at Craven Cottage, despite struggling in the league.
The club earned a reputation for constantly battling against relegation most seasons, with numerous narrow escapes; none more so than in 1965–66. On the morning of 26 February 1966, Fulham were bottom with just 15 points from 29 matches. The last 13 games saw Fulham win nine and draw two to reach safety. Eventually, however, the club suffered relegation in the 1967–68 season, having won just ten out of their 42 games. Even that, however, was not as catastrophic as the calamity of next season. Winning only seven in 42, the club were relegated to the Third Division.
1970–1994: Mixed fortunes outside the top flight
The aforementioned Third Division hiatus lasted only two seasons before the club was promoted back to the Second Division as runners-up in 1970–71. This spell also saw Fulham invited to the Anglo-Italian Cup, which saw the club draw four out of four games in 1972–73 season. This preceded a period of high-profile signings for the club under Alec Stock in the mid-1970s, including Alan Mullery and Bobby Moore. Fulham reached their only FA Cup final to date in 1975, having won their first semi-final in five attempts. The club lost 2–0 to West Ham United in the final at Wembley Stadium. This gained the club qualification for another European tournament, the Anglo-Scottish Cup, where they reached the final, losing to Middlesbrough.George Best played 47 times for the club in the 1976–77 season. Rodney Marsh, who having grown up with Fulham in the 1960s went on to play First Division football and play for England, rejoined the club in the same season, playing only 16 games. This capped one of the most successful eras in Fulham history.
The club were relegated again after winning only 11 in 42 matches in the 1979–80 season, which eventually resulted in Bobby Campbell's dismissal in October 1980, to be replaced by Malcolm Macdonald. With a strong squad during his 1980–1984 period in charge, they won promotion again in 1981–82 back to the Second Division, although the promotion was overshadowed by the suicide of former defender Dave Clement a few weeks before promotion was sealed.
In 1980, Fulham founded the rugby league club that is now London Broncos designed to be an extra stream of income for the football club, but which made financial losses every year while linked to Fulham F.C. Then called "Fulham Rugby League," they played at Craven Cottage until moving away from the parent club in 1984.
In 1978, Fulham had signed Gordon "Ivor" Davies who, during two spells at Fulham, became the club's leading goalscorer of all time with a total of 178 goals in all competitions; the record still stands. Fulham narrowly missed out on back-to-back promotions to the First Division, losing 1–0 to Derby County away on the last day of the 1982–83 season – although the match was abandoned after 88 minutes due to a pitch invasion and inexplicably never replayed or finished. The side which had shown so much promise was quickly sold off as the club were in debt, so it was little surprise when the club were relegated again to the Third Division in 1986. The club nearly went out of business in 1987 via an ill-advised merger attempt with Queens Park Rangers. It was only the intervention of ex-player Jimmy Hill that allowed the club to stay in business by formation of a new company, Fulham FC Ltd. In 1987, the club took part in what was then the longest penalty deciders ever recorded – it needed 28 spot kicks to sort out a winner between them and Aldershot following a Football League Trophy match. Fulham later broke the record when they played at Championship side Preston North End in the 2024 EFL Cup in 2024 when it took 31 spot kicks to separate the two team.
In 1992, the foundation of the Premier League, and the resignation of 22 clubs from The Football League, restored Fulham to that league's Second Division. However, the club were relegated to the new Third Division after a poor 1993–94 season, following which Ian Branfoot was appointed as team manager.