THE TALE OF THE MANY MESSIAHS - Del 1/2
Vår vän DANIEL CRAWFORD i London redogör här för den nya generationen Fulham fans hur resan mot toppen började...
LAST SUNDAY two Fulham managers attracted the attention of the nation as they tried to outwit each other in the tie of the FA Cup fifth round. Both were hailed as "the messiah" and both had a distinct connection with Newcastle. They both also left Craven Cottage in controversial circumstances, one of his own choosing and the other was harshly sacked by an unsympathetic board. Once they left SW6, they both went on to manage England - one more succesfully than the other. I am talking about two of English football´s most loved men; Kevin Keegan and Bobby Robson.
The game in front of a passionate St. James´ Park crowd was almost irrelevant. Keegan, who led a struggling Newcastle out of the doldroms and out of the old Third Division to within a win of the Premiership title in 1995-96, was loved by the Geordies for his forthright manner, which was evident both on the field and off it. He famously lost his cool live on television after a round of mind games with Sir Alex Ferguson and walked away from the Magpies soon after his side blew a twelve-point lead to lose the title in ´96.
Robson, a young manager, was shafted unfairly after never being given a fair chance in his first ever managerial job. In one of the most spectacular misjudgements of a man´s ability seen in English football, Robson was pushed when the going got tough and went on to have a successful managerial career both in England and on the continent, at PSV Eindhoven and Barcelona, as well as taking England to the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup, where they were beaten on penalties by West Germany. Robson´s case was just as tragic as the one that came a couple of decades later - when another young Geordie manager left the club after coming within a whisker of taking Fulham back to the top flight.
All in all, it was thirty-eight years between Fulham´s departure from the top flight and their return last August. There are many people who figure in the lists when Fulham fans select the man who they think was most responsible for the club´s metaphoric rise from English football´s basement to the top table. Mohammed Al-Fayed is the most common choice, whilst the names of Kevin Keegan, Jean Tigana and Micky Adams appear often. There is one man who does not get the credit he deserves for starting the revolution; that is Ian Branfoot. To say Branfoot was not liked by Fulham fans is the biggest understatement of the century.
Branfoot was a man whose tactics were biazarre. He chose the reserved ahead of the flair players and refused to play wingers away from home and he instructed his midfielders to play high balls forward to the unsupported strikers who jostled hopefully with 6ft central defenders. Consequently, results suffered and Branfoot took the team to their lowest league position of 91st in England, after they had lost to the one team below them, Torquay.
Once the team lacked the commitment and passion that Fulham supporters expected, a fellow Whites supporter wrote to Branfoot to express the concerns that many of us shared. He got the standard reply that went along the lines of "thank you for supporting Fulham . but I pick the team". Unsatisfied with Branfoot´s justification of his tactics, my friend decided to write again and this time Branfoot seemed intimidated by his newly found correspondent. He emerged as an arrogant individual, who boasted of how he "had been in the football industry for 30 years" and resorted to childish sarcasm, inviting my friend "to come and coach the team".
Branfoot was eventually forced upstairs and my friend asked Andy Muddyman, who was on the board of directors at the club until Al-Fayed took over, to look towards a young manager and suggested the name of Tony Gale. Gale got in touch with my friend, and assumed he had more influence that he did. My friend received a call from Muddyman telling him that he would be pleased to know that the club had appointed a young manager. It was on Branfoot´s recommendation that Fulham turned to determined left-back Micky Adams for salvation. It was an inspired choice.
Adams, who has a brother who has the same physical disability as I do, guided the team away from the threat of relegation with a blend of gritty determination and attractive football. He then told national newspaper that "the fans should not judge me on what I did this season, but what I do next season". Adams took Fulham to second in the table, level on points with Wigan Athletic but seperated on goals scored - had it been goal difference Fulham would have been champions and frustrating the ruling was changed for the following season. Adams achieved an improbable victory at promotion rivals Carlisle as the season entered the make or break stage with a rousing half-time team talk and, even more staggeringly, turned unloved striker Mick Conroy into a potent goalthreat and he fired Fulham into the Second Division.
...To be continued...
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Daniel Crawford är editor på London magasinet Sportscene, och skriver även exklusivt för "The Craven Cottage" här på SvenskaFans.com
