CHAOS AT THE COTTAGE
While the bulk of Fulham’s support is comprised of working-class folk who like a pie and a pint of foaming shaft as much as the next match-goer, the club’s Thames-adjacent postcode of Craven Cottage means fans have never been able to shake their undeserved reputation for being a bunch of well-heeled, upper class popinjays with more of a predilection for half-time hummus washed down by a flute or two of expensive champagne. Their case certainly isn’t helped by the fact that the Fulham ticket office is invariably the most obliging port of call for foreign tourists hoping to tick “Attend A Premier League Match” off their bucket lists, or that the ground’s go-to celebrity camera cut-away during televised games is the raffish fop and professional posho that is acting’s Hugh Grant.
In what looked like a cynical attempt to lean into their status as the quintessential club for football fans with no particular interest in actual football, last season Fulham threw open the doors of their new Riverside Stand. While the club’s owner, Shad Khan, described this giant overpriced hospitality suite, which just happens to have pitch-facing seats tacked on to one side, as “a location like no other, a real game-changer for Fulham Football Club”. It immediately became the butt of jokes that high rollers who paid through the nose to wine and dine in its many posh eateries would not have to sully their eyes by looking at the pitch, when the windows opposite offered a far more aesthetically pleasing view of the River Thames.
Even the most diehard Fulham fan in what pass for the cheap seats could have been forgiven for averting their gaze from the farce unfolding before them as Manchester City took a 5-1 lead against their team with less than an hour of their Premier League encounter gone last night. They could scarcely have imagined that the rout they were witnessing would end with most of the assembled 26,700 viscerally roaring on the home side only to see them come up this short of rescuing a point, in what would have been one of the most extraordinary top-flight comebacks of all time. “It was impossible for me to enjoy it,” said Pep Guardiola, after seeing his team come within a late Josko Gvardiol goalline clearance of total humiliation. “At 5-1 maybe, but at 5-4 I was watching the clock more than the game. It was tough and it would have been tougher if we could not get the result, but I will remember I was there.”
Last night’s match will also live long in the memory of City striker Erling Haaland, who became the fastest player in Premier League history to score 100 goals, achieving the feat in just 111 games. “It’s huge and I’m really proud,” he said, upon obliterating Alan Shearer’s record of almost 30 years by 13 games. “It’s a massive thing, the 100 club is a nice thing to be in and I’m happy.” Of course, while Football Daily has no wish to fully rain on the Norwegian’s parade, it behoves us to at least drizzle upon it on behalf of those forgotten strikers who plied their trade before the invention of football in 1992. While Haaland’s extraordinary achievement makes him the quickest player in Premier League history to score 100 goals, he is only fifth on the all-time English top-flight list. Were they still alive, Sunderland’s John Campbell (102 games) and Dave Halliday (103), Everton’s Dixie Dean (105) and Arsenal’s Ted Drake (108), would almost certainly want a word.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s one of the most magical nights we’ve lived, one of the best nights of my career. Thank you very much to these people who have come to support us. At this point, some of us have been playing for the national team for 13 years and never imagined this. It says a lot about what we’ve done for women’s football in Spain. We’ll continue to inspire girls and boys to fight for their dreams, which sometimes come true” – Alexia Putellas was overwhelmed by the support from a record 55,843 crowd for a Spain home game in the 3-0 Women’s Nations League final win over Germany.
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