Fulham at Newcastle United

Upon further review...everybody was great, but Aluko is the key ingredient offensively for me. He darn near put the ball on a tee for both of Sessegnon's goals, although they weren't gimme's, to be sure. Ryan one timed the perfectly placed and weighted back heel on the turnover, then played him in perfectly on the run for the second. Sone's the Energizer bunny...he keeps going, and going, and going..... The only weakness I see in his game is his shooting, but right now, we just need him to keep doing what he's doing, setting up his teammates for clinical finishes. Most will go with Tom Terrific as our MVP this season, but for me, it's Aluko. He makes good things happen, and with Sessegnon moved up, he's in his element.

 

Newcastle is an unbelievable place. The atmosphere, not just in the stadium, but throughout the city on a match day is something you have to try to be a part of. The downtown area of the city isn't that big, and the match just dominates everywhere you go.

The first of 1,600 or so Fulham fans arrived on the train about 11 am (there were plenty of others that had flown up the day before). There are plenty of pubs that are away friendly and other fans were easy to find. We ended up at a place called the Newcastle Arms, a smaller pub near the ground, and by noon it was packed.

We got to Newcastle on Friday to see some friends, folks we had met three years ago after a Fulham Newcastle match at the cottage. They wanted us to have a "proper" match day so we met them at another pub at 12:30. My friend there knows just about everyone in town - his mother had worked for the club for 60 years! So we got some grief, but all in good humor. We pub crawled our way to the ground, with every one of them packed to an unhealthy level.

About 2:30 we headed for the ground, contemplating the legendary walk up 7 stories to the away end. It's everything they say it is, steep, narrow (for all those people) and the full 140 steps. Once up top the view is something. It's the rafters all right, and the roof doesn't seem all that far over your head. But the view of the pitch is much better than expected, and I like to sit behind the goal and watch plays develop.

Fulham were excellent from the opening kick. Clean passes and the ability to find players in space. After the first shot was blocked, everyone could feel a goal coming. The reaction when Cairney scored was emphatic. Lots of high fives and group hugs in the aisles. Newcastle managed a couple of chances over the rest of the half, but Fulham, as usual, dominated possession. Late in the half Shelvey had enough and started with the first of several hard fouls, usually from behind.

When Sessengnon scored early in the second, the feeling in the rafters was that we had them. Newcastle was already getting chippy, and were completely disorganized. By the third goal, we were all almost too tired to jump and scream anymore. We managed too anyway.

Then......the PK. I can only assume Ream won some sort of bet during training last week. I haven't seen the highlights, but he picked up the ball and handed it to Sessegnon, but then it went back to Ream. By then everyone around us knew we were Americans and looked at us like we had made this happen. All I could say was "I wouldn't put Ream in the top 9 guys in the team to take it". You all know the rest.

Post match we met our friends in what would be the first of maybe 10 different pubs we would see over the next 5 hours. Everywhere we went was packed with supporters, and every one of them congratulated us on a well played match. Several even bought us drinks...maybe it was several, I really don't remember.