Craven Cottage Newsround

Make of it what you will.  Warner’s numbers would be even better if he hadn’t thrown two in.

More great stuff from the best general football blog out there.   This time it’s a look at the Euro 2008 away kits.

The Turkey efforts are intriguing.

Sweden (who Mart and I are supporting this summer) have gone a shade darker than I would’ve.

And as the man says, Austria’s black away kit is slightly sinister.

Part 1 - the home kits - is here.  Great stuff.

Also, rumours abound that Fulham will have new kits next year.   Wasn’t there a directive that we had to keep the same one for a while?   That hasn’t happened for a bit has it?  Suits me, I get quite excited at new kits, but perhaps a bit much for families who have to buy several.

The Independent just emailed and asked if I’d link to this.

I really don’t know how our commenter can give us 3/10.   We were bad for a while, true, but after all we went through to pick up the pieces I reckon 5/10 would be more reasonable.  More perhaps.

And Villa at home our best performance?  Really?   Did he go to any away games?  Reading away surely trumps everything else for sheer dominance, and Portsmouth and City are notable for guts.  The Villa game is worthy because we won it, but it’s not like we did particularly well or anything.  Some strange choices in there I think.

I was walking home last night when Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” came onto my iPod. I turned it straight off. We’ve had too much of all this tub-thumping and emotionally stirring stuff recently. It has been exhausting, even as a spectator.  A good rule of thumb in life is to avoid any music that might appear on an compilation album with “Ibiza” in the title, but I needed something peaceful so turned to FC Kahuna’s “Hayling”, which is both very relaxing and geographically relevant to our trip to Portsmouth (near to Hayling Island). Much better. The break from football will be quite welcome.

Jimmy Bullard is allowing himself to dream:

“I know it’s early but if we can start next season in the form we’ve finished in, God knows what might happen.

“You’ve got to get off to a good start in this league.”

The Guardian has a report card.

More Franck Queudrue, this time from the mouth of Brum Chairman David Sullivan:

“We bought a pile of rubbish last season and Franck Queudrue has disappointed me the most,” Sullivan told Sky Sports News. “We also brought in a third-choice keeper, Richard Kingson. He was a waste of space, too. I could go right down the list. Nobody has really shone out.”

This is, to put it mildly, very unprofessional. Franck Queudrue’s a comedy favourite of mine so I’m obviously going to disagree, but whatever your opinions, you don’t talk like this if you own a football team. And poor old Richard Kingson too!  Kingson - Ghana’s regular goalkeeper - is not a waste of space. He made one appearance and made a bad mistake, but that happens to goalkeepers. He may or may not be Premiership quality, but I’d suggest that his international record is in his favour on this one. It must be a difficult time to support Birmingham.

Everyone’s jumping right into the summer squad rebuilding thing, but I haven’t the energy for that now.  We have no idea what’ll happen and there aren’t even any rumours yet.  We all have our own ideas about who should stay and who should go, but I’m going to let the dust settle for a few days before getting into that sort of thing.

To recap: Reading had the same points as us but a worse goal difference, and were playing away at hapless Derby; Birmingham were at home to Blackburn and had a point less than ourselves and Reading, but a better goal differerence.  So Birmingham were relying on both Reading and Fulham to lose, and Reading had to get a better result than us to stay up.  Simple.  To be sure of safety, we had to win.

And after 90 minutes of unbearable tension we did.   The magic moment came after 78 minutes.  Joe Kamara, not for the first time this year, won the all-important free-kick.  Jimmy Bullard - he was always going to have a say in this, wasn’t he? - whipped a ball behind the Portsmouth defence, and Danny Murphy rose unchallenged to head home.   Simon Ashdown in the Porstmouth goal didn’t move, the linesman - and my eyes went straight to him - kept his flag down, and we were a goal up.

There’s no point describing how this felt because times like this cannot be harnessed by words.  It’s more like a sound, from the depths of our very being, a primal scream, a collective floatation into something that is not usual.

We needed that goal.  As the match found its feet it became clear that Portsmouth were certainly not here to make up the numbers, and were in playing like the big, strong, and well-drilled team that had beaten us so easily earlier in the season.  Simon Davies had an early half-chance saved, but there were few opportunities after that.  We simply could not find space or rhythm.  It was, perhaps, a case of keeping things close and hoping for the best.

Meanwhile Reading were pulling away from Derby, and we knew it.  Birmingham scored early, got pegged back, then went ahead again.  We really needed to win, we weren’t winning, and feelings were nudging quietly towards desperation.

But nothing was coming.  Portsmouth were shooting more, but not accurately.  Hangeland and Hughes stood their ground at crucial momemnts, and Keller made the most of his opportunities to get involved, commandingly claiming crosses, charging out to put off a clean through Defoe, and beating away a dangerous strike in the second half.  A Portsmouth goal seemed less and less likely, but would we get one?

In the end it was nice for Danny Murphy to get the goal that kept us up.  The midfielder has never quite won over the Fulham faithful.  For every one of us who appreciated his tireless pass and move game, others wanted more steel, more obvious effort.   Not that Murphy wasn’t trying, but he is not and never will be a ball-winner, and his quiet efficiency in the middle of the park often went unnoticed.  Except in the final analysis we realise that Roy Hodgson had built his survival plans on passing, passing, passing.  Murphy and his midfield side-kick Jimmy Bullard were the two central figures in this plan and without either of them we’d have required a different approach.  Simon Davies, surely player of the season, did his good work out wide, but it was Murphy and Bullard, over and over, who kept the ball, moved for each other, and passed, passed, passed.

At the final whistle everyone went nuts.  All the players’ shirts found their way into the crowd, all the player danced, jumped with joy, and celebrated their accomplishment.  Later Bullard and Murphy came out for a second helping, and the famous McAree chant was transformed in Danny Murphy’s honour.  Then the crowd changed focus:  “We want Roy!  We want Roy!” and this most humble of managers finally appeared to meet his subjects.  I almost cried.  He mouthed “have a good summer”, which is wonderful and hilarious and almost inexplicable.

Thanks, Roy.  Thanks, Danny, thanks, Jimmy.  Thanks to all the other players who have won four out of five games to end the season, three away from home.  That’s some accomplishment, one that does not stand up to rational scrutiny.  This game, eh?

[a few pictures below - lost for words]

(more…)

Our man Roy Hodgson, while beaming, speaks to the BBC.

In a turn around of turn arounds, our boys in white, well actually red & black today, beat Portsmouth away. Incredible is an understatement as Fulham wins on the road again. 3 away wins after going almost two years without an away win. As well, the win made it 4 victories out of their last 5 games. They say wining is contagious and in a post game interview, the lone goal scorer Danny Murphy, as well as teammate Jimmy Bullard said as much. Confidence breads confidence and Roy Hodgson has instilled a believe in our side that we’ve not seen in some time.

Astonishing events really. Portsmouth had a chance in the dying minutes that saw the turn and shot go well over the bar as everyone in the pub gasped and then collectively sighed. Then there was the 3 min. of stoppage time. I had been on my feet since about the 70th minute and though my legs felt wobbly, this was no time to sit down.

Finally, Mark Clatterburg’s whistle, and Fulham have saved their premiership hides and will be around again for another year in 08/09. Which will make it the Cottagers’ 8th consecutive season in the Premiership.

I was able to watch the game live at “The Local” pub in Minneapolis and were joined by about 15 others. The small room exploded when Murphy nodded in at 75th minute. There were also numerous Toby sightings, particularly during the post match celebration. How can you miss someone with a Mexican hat and a large blue inflatable. Toby, you looked great on television world wide.

So leave your thoughts.

It was Victory Day in Ukraine on Friday, celebrating the end of the second world war. Hade’s friend Jack has been out there for a while, working as a teacher and getting a different perspective on things. In the end the many, many cultural differences wore her down, and she has decided to leave Kiev after an interesting but bewildering few months. Her new job is in Qatar. That’s another pretty big step if you ask me, and I really admire her for taking it. There are jobs she could do in England I’m sure, or somewhere a little closer to England, but no, Jack’s going for it. She might regret it or it might turn out to be the best thing she ever did. More than likely there’ll be elements of both, but it’s living isn’t it?

I don’t think I could do what Jack’s doing, I don’t even know if Jack can do what Jack’s doing, but she’s giving it a go anyway and while most of our days and weeks and years blur into each other, she’ll always remember 2007 and 2008.

So will we. Football comes, football goes, and every August here we are again, hoping, expecting, then gradually finding our bearings and working out where we fit into this silly food chain. This year has been odd. How can it be explained? It was first enigmatic, then awful, and now surging towards heights we haven’t seen for a long, long time. These last three wins may be the most thrilling things any of us will experience for a while: that incredible day in Berkshire; the improbable comeback in Manchester; and the thoroughly delirious home win against Birmingham. We needed to win every one of them, and we did. And now tomorrow is hard to even contemplate. It really is unfathomable. We’ll always remember 2007/08 though.

Good luck, all.

It’s been a terrible day so far. I was up and out at 6, early but not punishingly so. On the walk between South Wimbledon tube and Wimbledon Station my back went again, then my iPod stopped working. Luckily the train was quiet. I usually use my iPod to shut out the noise from others’ iPods. It’s a bit weird when you put it like that.

Early mornings are funny, you think you’re wide awake but then look back later on and it’s all a blur. This morning, for instance, there were half a dozen half-naked girls on the train, 19-20 I imagine, dressed in a St Trinian’s type garb, with mud smeared on their faces, and their shirts deliberately ripped up. They got off at Surbiton. Where were they going, I wonder, at that time? I type this now and wonder that they didn’t capture my attention more than they did. I had my sore back though, and was grumpy, and, well, best to keep your eyes to yourself anyway, right? Maybe they didn’t exist at all. Maybe all this red bull I drink has gone to Another Level.

Then at work everything’s fine but there’s a lot to get through. I bought some Worcester Sauce crisps from the vending machine, bent down to retrieve them from the dump bit, then smashed my head on the bar we have in our canteen on the way back up. So I volleyed a nearby wall in anger and made a satisfying dent. It could’ve been my foot that lost the battle, but the wall is cheaply made and gave way enough to spare me. Thanks, wall. Concrete bollards are less forgiving. So I suppose things could be worse.

All of which brings us to the weekend. We could wonder what might happen, but frankly anything at all could happen. We’re 2:1 underdogs *on paper*, but really the formbook and the laws of good sense can be ignored at times like these. All we can do is make noise and hope the players do the business.

Here we go then. Toby’s bringing his inflatable woggle again. If you see it, say hello.

Clint Dempsey talks to U.S. Soccer about his experience at Fulham and the current relegation fight. He also explains his contract extension.

What the new manager has done is really help us work on our shape defensively. So I think we’re a hard team to break down. Then we’ve gotten some goals from our forwards, Kamara, Mc Bride and Nevland.

Any time you’re able to not concede goals and then score goals you always have a chance to win.

Click here to listen.

This is what we collectively predicted earlier in the year.

Nice piece on player of the year in waiting Simon Davies in the Guardian.

“We’ve all talked about it: ‘What happens if we go down? Can we come straight back up?’,” he said. “I’d stay [if Fulham were relegated]. I think if you go down with a club, you owe it really to try, as a group of players, to get back up.”

Great stuff on the official site today.

Leon Andreasen on his West Ham dismissal:

“I can’t explain what was going through my mind. It was an overreaction from my point of view, but I just shouted out what I think everybody wanted to shout out, because it was so obvious,” he recalls. “But that’s in the past now, these things happen in football.”

Indeed.

On Sunday’s game:

“When we think that we’ve won it and people think that we’ve won it, that’s when it’s most dangerous. Take the game against Sunderland. People thought we were going to win that, and maybe we did as well, but it didn’t happen. So we need to think the exact opposite way. We need to focus on the game, focus on what Roy tells us to do and just play our game, not go into it feeling overconfident that we’re going to beat them, because this won’t be easy.

And some words from super-sub Nevland:

“This is what I came for and I just want to contribute to keeping Fulham up and I’m doing that at the moment. I had a bad period in March when I didn’t do well and that’s frustrating for a player. I just had to keep working hard and I’ve got my rewards.”

On another note (he says donning a beret and settling into Pretentious Corner), recently I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is to be humble, to lack ego, to show humility, and that sort of thing. You’ve probably heard of Achilles because of his tendon, but the main thing with him was that he was widely regarded as the greatest warrior in Ancient Greece (he’d had a choice of a short and glorious life or a long and mediocre one and chose the former, but that’s a story for another day). Well, another great warrior was Diomedes: he was said to be the second greatest after Achilles, and was particularly famous for never committing hubris.

Hubris is the showing of excessive pride, arrogance perhaps, and really was a big deal in Ancient Greece. Any act of hubris was usually followed by some kind of comeuppance and Diomedes was famous for knowing himself, his limitations, and acting in a very wise and respectful manner at all times. It, allayed with his prowess as a warrior, made him the extraordinary man he was.

Roy Hodgson’s team have shown a lot of Diomedes like fight lately. They have said the right thing at every turn (famously and brilliantly that the chances of success had gone from tiny to small after Man City away), neither getting carried away nor losing belief. It’s been just about perfect and makes it very easy to not just like what’s going on, but to really warm to it, to believe in it, and to want to be a part of it.  Roy and his players are doing the right thing the right way.

I can’t wait for Sunday.

Talk not of flight, for I shall not listen to you: I am of a race that knows neither flight nor fear, and my limbs are as yet unwearied.

Diomedes

From my good friend Mart:

I’m off to Canada and NW US next week, and should Southend reach the playoff final, i’ll need to find somewhere to watch it.

Do any of the North American readership out there know which TV channels/websites this is being shown on, if any? A real longshot this, but should anyone from Vancouver be reading, and know of a bar that might carry the game, please let me know!

Anyway, back to Fulham - best of luck for Sunday!!!!

Cheers,
Martin