Until recently, Fulham was known primarily to football history buffs - as the first professional London club, founded back in 1879, and in the middle of the last century, presented the English team captain Johnny Haines. Another noteworthy page in the team’s biography is 47 matches that George Best himself played in a white T-shirt in the 1976/77 season. The career of the rebellious genius was already inexorably rushing downhill, and London was just another stop on the road to obscurity. But, despite this, the Northern Irishman has repeatedly talked about staying at Craven Cottage as the happiest stage of his sports life. It’s not worth wondering if he was cunning, whether he was telling the truth or just wanted to be closer to the vibrant nightlife of the capital - an important fact. As for Fulham, new bright events in the west of London had to wait exactly twenty years.
Abramovich - not the first
It is generally accepted that the current Chelsea owner was the first foreigner to buy British football real estate. But few people remember that ten years ago the Egyptian Mohammed Al-Fayed became the full owner of Fulham (pictured). Of course, the resonance was much weaker then. By 1997, Al Fayed had lived in London for nearly a quarter of a century, owned the prestigious Harrods shopping center and had a strong business reputation, although not without a scandalous connotation. “White” (or “summer residents”, as the team in Russia is not quite correctly called) at that time only consolidated their position in the third division.
Al-Fayed immediately proclaimed lofty goals: reaching the Premier League in five years at most and turning the humble club into Manchester United of the English South. ” The first part of the promises was fulfilled almost perfectly. Five-year plan - in four years! And with bribing thoroughness. The first season in the new division, the team was getting bumps, in the next - it went on increasing, winning the tournament with a huge margin and a three-digit number of points.
It is no wonder. Indeed, in addition to multimillion-dollar infusions, Al-Fayed managed to almost immediately after the purchase lure the star coaching duo of Kevin Keegan and Ray Wilkins to Fulham. Note that the first agreed to exchange the coaching chair at Newcastle for the post of executive director of the club with two divisions below. However, Wilkins was fired a year later. Keegan brought the team to the “championship” and went on promotion to the England team, leaving the team to his assistants. But in fact - homeless for the whole season. Coaching leapfrog seemed to end with the arrival of Jean Teagan. He in 2001 and presented Al-Fayed with the desired pass into the high society of English football.
The future was depicted by the Egyptian moneybasket exclusively in pink colors. In the summer, a record 32.3 million pounds were spent on acquisitions. Joined in the team were the skilled craftsman Edwin van der Sar from Juventus, the fairly well-known Frenchmen Steve Marle, Sylvain Legvinsky and Stead Malbranck. The British press has seriously analyzed Fulham’s chances, if not for the prize, then for getting into the European competition zone. It seemed that Al-Fayed’s dream was even brought closer by the sign of the first match of the season: they were to play with Manchester United ...
Familiar pictures
At the Battle of Old Trafford, Fulham lost, but with dignity - 2: 3. However, in the end, the 2001/2002 season cruelly dispelled all illusions at Craven Cottage - only thirteenth place. Despite this, Al-Fayed was still enthusiastic and hatched grandiose plans. The team agreed to open a window to Europe through the Intertoto Cup. At the place of the dilapidated stadium on the banks of the Thames, the only one in the Premier League with standing places, it was decided to build an ultramodern thirty-thousand-year-old in a year. The legendary Milan defender Franco Barezi was invited to the post of technical director. The cost of building a new arena should have amounted to about 70 million pounds. Therefore, Al-Fayed reacted to the alarming transfer policy with understanding: he did not spend a cent, limiting himself to renting several players from Italy and signing free agents.
The team started the new season as a host at Loftus Road, the arena of the Queens Park Rangers club. Temporary difficulties were obscured by the proximity to the home stadium and European successes: Fulham overcame the Intertot sieve and even went through two rounds in the UEFA Cup. The trouble came from where they least expected it. Respectable residents of the West End blocked the construction of a new arena, filling Al-Fayed with lawsuits.
Sheikh's patience snapped in the spring of 2003. The team trudged downstairs, before it loomed the prospect of being homeless for the second year in a row, at the beginning of the season Barezi left ... Al-Fayed let off steam in the best traditions. He not only fired Tygan, but also filed a lawsuit against him. The expressive Egyptian suspected that the Frenchman was cheating, deliberately overpaying in due time for Marle. 11.5 million pounds "Lyon" - the money is indeed astronomical. But to prove that in court at least something to the owner of Fulham failed in that spring.
The construction of the stadium has not begun. Ironically, the club, representing the richest district of one of the most expensive cities in the world, had to experience the many years of hardships of our CSKA and Spartak in our own skin. Convulsive attempts to find an arena could lead the team not only to Stamford Bridge - the stadium of arch-rivals from Chelsea, but to the opposite end of the city: the option of cohabiting with West Ham was being considered. As a result, to the accompaniment of rumors, harsh statements by Al-Fayed and litigation, the team remained at Loftus Road, and in the Premier League came to the finish on the fourteenth. Coached by her former club defender Chris Coleman ...
Between past and future
The appointment of an inexperienced Coleman was greeted with smiles: the next eccentricity of a rich tyrant is a good “own guy” who can be paid a low salary. The acuity of the fans and the press did not look pointless. In the summer of 2003, “Fulham” turned into a suitcase without a handle: throwing away is a pity, and fixing it is expensive. The best players were sold, the team was staffed mainly by rented and free agents.
And Coleman, meanwhile, in the spring of 2004 brought the homeless and bloodless Fulham to ninth place - the best in club history. In the same fall, the team returned to their arena, where they just installed new plastic chairs. She still leads a well-fed bourgeois life in the lower half of the table, but nevertheless closer to the warm golden middle ...
The club’s competent transfer policy, in which Louis Saa, Steve Finnan and Brian McBride really revealed themselves, the remnants of continental combination luxury and Coleman’s coaching ideas will surely not allow Fulham to go down in the coming seasons: teams more direct and in the Premier League, and on the approach to it all the same in abundance. Arguments in favor of such sustainability - even if a historic victory over Arsenal, a draw at a party at Chelsea or few people saw a ten-match unbeaten run in all tournaments (+ 3 = 7-0), which began before Christmas and broke off in penultimate day of January in Sheffield.
Alexei Smertin certainly will not be bored on the field. But Mohammed Al-Fayed, having a chance at a comparison with Abramovich, for two seasons turned, alas, into a prototype of Fedorychev. Unless he has yet to sell the team, although rumors about this have appeared in abundance in the last couple of years. Many people went to potential buyers at different times: from Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to the notorious Kia Jurabchian.
Let's hope that the remake of Dynamo in Smertin’s career does not happen ...