A blog of two halves

One match to go for the Whites

With one Championship match remaining Fulham must aim for a win at Birmingham on Sunday (6 May) and hope that Cardiff draw or lose.

1 May 2018
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Aleksandar Mitrovic adopts a power pose. PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES

With one Championship match remaining Fulham must aim for a win at Birmingham on Sunday (6 May) and hope that Cardiff draw or lose.

It is a stressful situation, which explains the Whites’ substandard performance in the penultimate League match on a wet Friday evening. During the first half hour, against already relegated Sunderland, passes went astray and the opposition were given too much freedom. After Joel Asoro had bamboozled Matt Targett and scored for the visitors with pinpoint accuracy, Fulham jerked into life, giving Sunderland keeper Jason Steele several chances to impress.

Five minutes before the interval the unfortunate Targett went off injured, to be replaced by a favourite of the fans, Aboubakar Kamara. Fulham’s equaliser came almost immediately. Kamara sent Ryan Fredericks away on the right and Lucas Piazon converted the full back’s cross. Sunderland claimed that the game should have been stopped for a foul by Tim Ream, but referee Peter Bankes disagreed. For once the Fulham fans supported Mr Bankes’s decision.

Former Fulham captain Danny Murphy, invited on the pitch at half-time, won warm applause for his recollections. It is 10 years since Roy Hodgson took over as the Whites’ manager and kept the club in the Premier League. Danny played a big part in the escape from relegation, scoring a crucial goal at Portsmouth. As he commented on Friday, it was the start of a successful period for Fulham, and a decade later a similar optimism prevails.

The Whites showed more cohesion after the interval. Kamara was a constant threat and eventually drew the free kick from which Aleksandar Mitrovic headed past Steele. Truly the Serb striker should have been given offside. Sunderland, like other relegation teams before them, have found that when your luck is out it really is out. The game ended scruffily with Peter Bankes compelled to reprimand Marcus Bettinelli, Mitrovic and Stefan Johansen for various forms of time-wasting.

Joy over the victory proved short-lived.

Cardiff won at Hull a few hours later. So Fulham must get three points at Birmingham on Sunday, and hope that the Welsh team lose or draw. At one point on Friday the crowd sang: “We’ve got two stadiums,” referring to owner Shahid Khan’s bid for Wembley. It looks increasingly as if Fulham will be required to participate in the playoff final at the stadium if they want to return to the Premier League.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

Morgan Phillips

Morgan is our Fulham FC blogger.

Born in Fulham in 1939 Morgan has lived in the district ever since. His parents (both Fulham supporters) took him to Craven Cottage in 1948 and he was immediately smitten, though it was not until the mid-1960s that he became interested in the club's history.

Articles in the supporters' magazine Cottage Pie were followed in 1976 by Morgan's publication of the first complete history 'Fulham We Love You'.

In the 1980s he wrote occasional articles for the reconstituted Cottage Pie under his own name and under the pseudonym Henry Dubb.

As public interest grew in football history, Morgan compiled 'From St Andrew's to Craven Cottage' (2007) describing the evolution of a church team into a professional organisation with its own stadium.

This led to regular articles in Hammersmith & Fulham Council's h&f news and then to a blog on the council's website.

In 2012 he produced an illustrated history of St Andrew’s Church Fulham Fields and the following year he and the vicar (Canon Guy Wilkinson) persuaded Fulham FC to install a plaque in the church commemorating the origins of the football club.

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