How Fulham entered your heart.

Hey, everyone!

I want to hear how all of you became Fulham fans!

Here's my story:

I never gave football {soccer} a thought. I never wanted to see or go to a game ... until five years ago. My oldest daughter wanted to play, so we signed her up. I knew nothing about the rules or anything. After that season, I got to know the game because she liked it. I wanted to know the answers to her Q's.

I fell in love! I watched my Columbus Crew. Then I watched a Premiership match. OMG! I fell in love even more!

It was a special time in my life when I began something new, something I haven't done since I was 5 years old and started watching NFL and picked a team - redskins}.

This was that moment, I was five again ...

When we choose a team, it's always something that we can relate to- that makes us choose.

His name was Brian McBride. Former Crew member, lived in the same city as I did.

I was five again and it was that special moment in a sports fan's life ... Choosing their favorite team. A team that will make you cry and brake your heart.

I chose FULHAM that day.

Five years later, I'm a fanatic and though I live in the states {OHIO} and always pull for the USA, I'm a big English National team fan!

And ... I hate MAN U!

This is my story

This is my team

Go FULHAM!

 

Good one, Denny. This is a thread that gets started several times and never gets old.

 

Ah finally time for me to elaborate! Let's see here.....

It all started when I was in 1st grade. Thats when I started playing. A few years later I was sick of playing soccer. I quit. Fortunately, although I didn't know it at the time, the '06 world cup was played a year later. After the cup I missed watching soccer so I decided to start watching a few CL and MLS games. Soon I was a fan of soccer again. So, I bought FIFA 07 and got introduced to the EPL.

Once I was acquainted, I stupidly chose Arsenal as the team I would support. A choice that still haunts me to this day. So after watching the EPL for a couple months I began to take notice of Fulham. They had quite a few americans on the team. I decided that they were pretty cool. Then I discovered this site somehow. After finally joining the site I was completely thrown into Fulham fanhood. The great escape quickly wiped out any allegiance I had to the big fat Arse. Now, I'm Fulham till I die!

 

This year, I coached my daughter's U12 team {spring and fall}.I helped the other two coaches and became friends.

Those two coaches are moving up with their two kids.
This fall we went Undefeated and won the Championship.

Nice thing was - the parents know the other two coaches are leaving. They told me they and the girls really want me to stay.

 

What a great thread -- thanks Denny. Here is what I have to say.

I have stolen Don's line that it was the Americans that brought me on board but it's the club (and this board) that keeps me here.

The only changes since then is that Man U allegiance is no more. Scholes and Giggs allegiance stays, but not to their team.

 

As for me I’ve been a soccer fan all my life. I watched a lot of indoor soccer back in my youth. We had some pretty good teams here in St. Louis with the Steamers, Storm, and Ambush. I got into the premiership while I was in the Navy. I was stationed in Bahrain and got hooked on watching premiership games. After McBride (St. Louis University) joined the team I made a special effort to watch Fulham games and that’s how my obsession began.

 

Hi Denny,

You obviously found Fulham at a special moment and McBride will be a special player in the hearts of Fulham fans.

My journey to the Cottage was very simple, I was never given a choice - I was bought up a Fulham fan from before I could walk. I was 3 when I first went to the cottage (but have no memory of it - Best played), the first game I remember I was 7. I am a 3rd generation fan and my kids are 4th gen - they were never given a choice either.

 

Welcome Denny.

My love for Fulham started a few years ago, kind of by fate. The short version- a good friend visited London and brought me back a Fulham kit as a souvenir. "Fulham who?" and the rest is history. "Manager" Cookie (I'll let you look that up) and I arrived at the same time. And not long after that the USA players arrived. So I guess it was because of me... :3d smile:

Trust me you will learn to dislike Manure & Chelscum. 8)

COYW!!!

 

Like 'fog said, these threads never get old. Here is my story:

http://www.fulhamusa.com/modules.php?op ... 1&thold=-1

 

Pretty boring, but...

it was the mid-70's as I remember ... '77 or '78 I think, so I would have been eight or nine. My two older brothers and I had started playing soccer at roughly the time we could stand, and became familiar among Colorado "select" team players/coaches/supporters (pretty small group at that time). A burly, red-faced, kind-of-loud guy called "Dave Clements" started showing up at various practices, games and events, though, being a kid, I was not overly impressed -- just another grown-up. That was until someone clued me in that the guy had played with Pele on the Cosmos (NASL was all we had, but I later learned he'd also captained the Northern Irish National team, and played for Everton and Sheffield, although playing with Pele impressed me a lot more!). Anyway, during one of my less-shy moments, I asked Mr. Clements, "Is Pele the best?" and he surprised me by telling me, "Almost, but not as good as George Best." Sacrilege! I looked into this George Best character, and found out he played -- at the time -- for a club in England called Fulham. That was the seed.

Truth be told, at the time I didn't know any world-class football was played outside the Bundesliga. We got to watch one game a week, Sunday nights on PBS's "Soccer Made in Germany." My oldest brother was a Bayern fan, so I chose Borussia Dortmund. There was no FSC nor Setanta, so, though Fulham was my English favorite, it was an unrequited relationship.

Things were finally cemented when -- almost concurrently -- technology allowed me to actually follow the EPL on TV, and I could watch two or three (or six or seven!) games a week, and Fulham signed Brian McBride.
One of my best friends had been a talented goalkeeper, and gone to college at Drury University in Missouri, where he played against McBride at St. Louis (calling him the best player he'd ever seen, and relaying a story of McBride almost knocking the cross bar off when he hit the woodwork HARD on a set piece), so we maintained a vicarious interest during his time with the national team. His signing turned me into the irrationally avid supporter of the Cottagers I am today.

The funny part is that I thought, until I discovered this site before the current season, I was the only one! Go Whites!

 

RE: Pretty boring, but...

There have been threads on this before, but it's always fun.

Short story: English friend is a Fulham fan.

Long story: On 14 Feb 1999, I actually got to see my friend's footy team on TV here in the US. It was in a "speakeasy" type bar for the FA Cup match against MU. When I realized there was a whole sub-culture of football fans in NYC that were willing to go to a bar early on a Sunday, well . . . that was interesting. When MU won the match by "only" 1-0 and all those MU fans walked out upset as all get-out, and "Keegan for England!" was resounding through Old Trafford, well then, that was the team for me!!

Longer story: buy me a few beers and I'll bore you with it.

 

RE: Pretty boring, but...

I believe I posted this before but here it goes again. Soccer was a sport that I always wanted to get into but being from the states never really did. Growing up I knew of Pele and would occasionally see highlights and maybe watch when the World Cup was on but that was about it. We played it during gym class for a few weeks each year so I knew the rules and basics but that was about it. When the MLS started I would watch parts some Rev's matches. Fast forward a number of years and my wife and I planned a trip to London for then end of Oct beginning of Nov 2007. She fell in love with England when she attended Oxford Brookes University for a semester in 1995 (she is a bit younger then me) and had be hounding me to make trip. We decided that we wanted to do a few non touristy things. We attended a benefit concert for Leukemia research at the Royal Albert Hall, spent a night with friends in Braintree Essex and decided we wanted to attend an EPL match. When we checked the fixtures list we really had a few choices for matches in London that weekend and of those Fulham v Reading at the Cottage was the easiest ticket. Before we left I would checked some websites to read more about Fulham. We were in London for about 9 days and the match was on our last day full day. As we traveled around that week I would pick up the papers each day and read what was happening on the EPL front, especially Fulham. We were there when Juande Ramos was named to replace Martin Jol at White Hart Lane so it was a pretty exciting time in he EPL. We arrived a little early at the Cottage on match day. Being from Boston and a Red Sox fan I felt an instant connection to Craven Cottage as it reminded me for Fenway Park. Fulham won that day 3-1 with Clint Dempsey scoring the winning goal. We instantly became Fulham fans and would watch every match we could the following winter and spring. As stressful as it was, the battle to stay out of the relegation zone was very exciting and one I hope never to have to go through again. When people find out that I now follow soccer I get the usual remarks but do tell them that they really have to see a match in person to get a better understanding fo the sport.

 

Thank you everyone for your stories. It didn't cross my mind that these threads were already brought up in the boards - sorry for the repeat.

I've been a football fan only five years and what a wonderful community! And to those guys who run this site ... THANK YOU!

 

Hey, apologize not -- everyone likes relaying old war stories.

 

I grew up loving watching the US Men's National Team even though I quit playing soccer in 5th or 6th grade since I played all the middle school sports through my school (American Football is god in Texas). McBride was always one of my favorite players.

I also went to a couple Dallas Burn games when the MLS first started, but I stopped following soccer through most of my high school and college days.

About 3-4 years ago, I just got this love for soccer again and started following the MLS a bit and decided I needed to "pick" an EPL team to root for. Fulham was a pretty easy pick considering they had McBride and Dempsey, one of my favorites of the newer players on the USMNT, just got picked up by Fulham which pretty much sealed the deal.

I stumbled across this site while trying to research more information on the club.

Two years later, here I am.

 

Great stories everyone. I'd never read Mike's before, so thanks for the link.

As for me, I never followed soccer on any level and only played one dismal season before giving it up for baseball, etc. Until 2002. I was working as a sales rep up in Seattle for a metals co. and most of our warehouse staff were Bosnian and Croatian refugees. They got me started during the World Cup. It was fun to see how excited they were and then the US team had that great run and I really got into it. I tried MLS a few times but just couldn't get into that.

Ffwd to the '06 World Cup and I'm following the US and I hear about this kid on the side from Nacogdoches, TX. Nac is a fairly small town in the middle of nowhere and is the sister township to my own small hometown in the the middle of the same nowhere. Well, as you all know, that would be Clint Dempsey, he went on to score against Italy and I started following his career a little. Then he was transferred to Fulham, I watched my first EPL match and it's been a growing devotion ever since.

To be perfectly honest, had FFC been relegated and/or Dempsey transferred, I'd have probably dropped the club in that early run. But neither happened, I found this site in the interim, met our illustrious HatterDon, and now I'm hooked. It's funny in hindsight, but this site did play a surprisingly large role in fostering my love for FFC. Throw in the Cottage, Fulham's parallels to my Aggies ("Fulhamish" is textbook Aggie stuff), the Americans and Dempsey, and the cool kits/colors, and I found a club that fit what I was looking for. Now if only we could get some more tv exposure on FSC. Oh well, I'll take 8th in the table and I just got my scarf for Christmas yesterday.

 

I played youth soccer and attended some Denver Avalanche games (that's indoor soccer), so the seeds of a soccer fanatic were always there... but it really took the 2002 and 2006 World Cups for me to realize how huge and wonderful the Beautiful Game was. I figured, it's not big in the US, but how can 5 billion people be wrong? This was also around the time that my fanaticism for the NBA, NFL, and MLB started to wane, so there was room in my life for a new passion. I realized that the EPL was televised on a regular basis and started watching games in the 2006-7 season, got hooked, and started looking for a team to be mine. My early favorite was Arsenal, they seemed logical given their ties to the Colorado Rapids, they are exciting to watch, and regularly play in Europe. I did not want to fall in love with a club destined to be relegated - that seemed too painful. However, I took notice of a particularly scrappy team full of Americans, who exhibited tremendous class and were full of history. When Demspey scored against Liverpool to keep Fulham up, I was pretty sure I had found my club. The 2007-8 season really tested my newfound allegiance, but only ended up solidifying it.

I joined FUSA with five matches left in the 2007-8 season, I think in an effort to will the club out of relegation. Being a superstitious fellow, I like to think that I helped...

 

Actually I found Fulham by way of Mike's story. I grew up playing soccer from the age of 5. I grew up outside of New York City in the ear of the Cosmos... After they went away, I continued to play but never gave a thought to soccer outside of what I played. The 94' World Cup brought international soccer to me again... From then I followed whatever game I found on TV, never really supporting one club over another. With the internet and the availability of information, I found Mike's story on ESPN.com one day. I knew of the Americans playing for Fulham but what I think touched me was the man in the pub soft-selling his club. He knew that Fulham could be loved by many, if people just gave them a chance. So, after reading that, I wanted to find out more, so I did. Plus, they're refreshing, in how they compete in the shadows of free-spending Chelsea. Now, I make it a point to watch each and every game that I can. Even when it has me waking up at 6:30AM on a weekend.

 

I became a Fulham fan during the 06/07 season. I was flipping through the channels and found a replay on fsn from the previous weekend of Fulham @ Arsenal. I heard the name Clint Dempsey, and I was like ohhh an American, so I conitued to watch. Fulham were down 1-0 at this point when Simon Davies made that long lobbed shot from the edge of the 18 to equalize.

I continued watching and saw Michael Brown concede a penalty (in the final ten minutes to give Arsenal the lead, and then watch the Arsenal score again to win 3-1.

I was hooked at this point and loved the Fulhamish start to my fanhood.

From there I googled Fulham and eventually made my way to this site.