A tough challenge – Fulham more than worthy of their Premier League status | OneFootball

It’s Fulham v Newcastle United at Craven Cottage up next.

I thought I would take a brief look at the post-war history of our next opponents.

Fulham’s greatest ever player is undoubtedly Johnny Haynes. One club man and England international, captain Haynes played 657 games for the Cottagers scoring 157 goals.

He was the first £100 per week footballer after the abolition of the maximum wage and part of his time at Fulham dove-tailed with the comedian Tommy Trinder’s chairmanship of the club.

Trinder was chairman at Fulham from 1959 to 1976 and his proudest moment came in 1975 when former England captain and World Cup winner Bobby Moore, led the Lilywhites out at Wembley to play against his former club West Ham United in the FA Cup Final.

Another former England captain, Alan Mullery, was also in the Fulham ranks that day, but two Alan Taylor goals for the Hammers ensured the cup would be going back to the East End.

Other famous footballer figures who have represented Fulham over the years are the likes of Jimmy Hill, Sir Bobby Robson and George Best.

Fulham’s finest hour arguably came under Roy Hodgson in 2010, when they reached the Europa League Final and were narrowly beaten after extra-time by Atletico Madrid.

Former Newcastle United man, the versatile defender Aaron Hughes, was in the Fulham line-up that night at the Volksparkstadion Stadium in Hamburg.

More recently, former Toon centre forward Aleksandar Mitrovic also became a Fulham cult hero, by scoring 97 League goals in 173 games after joining Fulham in 2018.

United’s recent record at Craven Cottage (won on all of our last five visits) is good and I expect an open game this weekend. There is no doubt that Fulham have got some canny players who could well cause us some problems.

They will be licking their wounds a little after exiting the Carabao Cup against Preston North End at Deepdale in midweek. The game was finally decided 16-15 on penalties but Fulham changed their entire team.

I regard Fulham as being more than worthy of their Premier League status.

Manager Marco Silva is well respected by his peers and so lets hope that our own ‘Fast Eddie’ can have his Hotrods revving out of the blocks quicker than our opponents on Saturday afternoon.

Another win on our travels would be absolutely tremendous, getting many older lads like me excited and dreaming once again.