There cannot be a more popular team in the Barclays Premier League than Fulham.
By popular I mean actually liked by their supporters. There is no whipping-boy, like Darren Fletcher used to be at Manchester United or Emmanuel Adebayor is at Arsenal, for the crowd to abuse when things go wrong.
Before the match against Everton, every player’s name was roared equally, even though everybody knew that, in terms of ability, Brede Hangeland and Danny Murphy are a lot more equal than, say, Paul Konchesky.
This is a proper family club with an ambiance that has survived a rise from near the bottom of the Football League’s lowest division to seventh place in the Premier League in 13 years. The average crowd has increased from 4,000 to 24,000 without too much of a drop in quality and that, given the tendency of spoilt oafs to attach themselves to the fashionable game, is something of a modern miracle.
Mohamed Al Fayed may have enough detractors to persuade him that an entourage of bodyguards is advisable, but it is hardly an exaggeration to claim that he has presided over a reinterpretation of England as we would wish it to be: polite, modest, with a sense of proportion and an ear for the other chap’s point of view. No wonder Hugh Grant, upon being asked for an opinion of his favourite club’s owner, replied: “I like him so much I’m thinking of applying for an Egyptian passport.”
It did have the feel of footballing heaven by the Thames yesterday, the very antithesis of the Geordie hell that was Villa Park – even if the combination of a blazing sun, Fulham’s knowledge that even a point might not be required to secure their place in Europe next season and Everton’s thoughts on an FA Cup Final against Chelsea six days hence induced something of a torpor.
Both sides deserved to conclude the League season looking eagerly forward, for David Moyes’s Everton, like Roy Hodgson’s Fulham, have taken as much care not to short-change their audience throughout the campaign as Newcastle United’s sorry assortment have done to add insult to their fans’ injured pride.
As a member of Barclays’ judging panel, I am bound by omertà not to discuss the deliberations that led to our choice as Manager of the Year. But you will sympathise with judges obliged to choose from Sir Alex Ferguson, Moyes and Hodgson (not to mention Tony Pulis, of Stoke City).
In a game sprinkled with impersonators, people who take over clubs and fill round holes with square pegs, finally resorting, in their desperation, to a famous footballer with no experience of coaching, let alone management, to save them from relegation – could Alan Shearer really have been expected to do better than win one match of Newcastle’s last eight? – Moyes and Hodgson represent professionalism.
One of the game’s leading managers was at a dinner with businessmen, one of whom asked the secret of his success. “A lot of my competitors are useless,” he answered.
Hodgson recently spoke of his scorn for those who pretend to have known what would happen in a match. “Half the time we haven’t a clue,” Hodgson said.
Management involves taking pains and playing percentages and this is reflected in the consistency of Fulham and Everton. They seldom carry passengers and starkly expose the folly of the star system that induced Newcastle to waste so much money on Michael Owen.
When Fulham sold Jimmy Bullard, widely perceived (though not by Hodgson) as their most effective player, they actually improved because Dickson Etuhu’s unselfish holding liberated Danny Murphy in central midfield.
The problem was a further stretching of Hodgson’s thin squad but at no stage were excuses advanced.
If only their reward were something more worthwhile (a book token, say) than a place in the inaugural Europa League. This is the Uefa Cup with more of an accent on the most tedious feature of the Champions League, the group stage. Unfortunately Fulham are too deep in debt to Al Fayed for Hodgson to expect a budgetary boost.
What would an astute manager do in these circumstances? Wear out his team by February and hope they have already amassed enough points to stave off relegation?
Or do what Martin O’Neill did, ultimately, and play a weakened team in the Europa League? As they trudged off the immaculate Craven Cottage pitch, Fulham’s players and manager merited every decibel that rightly ignored the result. Defeat was affordable and, while progress is probably not, this club know to enjoy the moment.