Fulham Next. | Vital Football

Fulham Next.

RebelBee

Vital 1st Team Regular
Derby day 2.0 coming up on Friday. The natives of Putney will need to travel the short distance to share their evening with we the great unwashed of Middlesex. By the way our manor resembles the shires when compared to some parts of SB these days, it's like Aleppo in parts!

Personally I've always really wanted to beat fulham, but have no historical angst towards them, until the Al Fayed years they were much like us. I know plenty of decent Fulham chaps, good banter, good laugh & never been a problem. And to be fair it's a quality away day - no wonder so many bees want to go there.

This is possibly the toughest game with them since we came up, both sides a bit streaky but very good on their day. Fulham don't look like lump it and fight for the 2nd ball merchants that we seem to do well against. Aluko had a stormer on Sat, seemed to be the difference, Martin then prospering from the havoc he created.

But anyway what's the general view on here?

-Best memories of our games with FFC over the years
-What's bigger for you, Fulham or them super hoops? and why?
-Are they due one or can we do it again?
- How / where do we win the game?
-Score prediction & attendance?

Coyb
 
Blimey, you not asking much lol

I remember our first game with Fulham for many a year was when I lived in Northampton and came down in a car with a mate, Chris and his dad, both Fulham fans and my dad. My dad stood up the Hammersmith End and I went round the ground to the away end (as you could in those days). I picked my spot on the massive away terrace and chatted to my mate I always met up with, Kev. Suddenly we were aware we were standing alone. When we looked we were standing chatting in the middle of a fight between about ten to twenty of each mob. Funny thing is, nobody touched us and just left us alone. All very surreal. Leaving the ground I had to meet up with Chris' dad outside their end who made a point of shouting "Up the Bees" to me and bringing unwanted attention my way! The match itself was unremarkable and think it ended nil nil but no doubt someone will be able to correct me.
I prefer the Ra Ra's game as I lived and worked in the Bush, working in a right rough hole pub there for three years called the New Telegraph and have a lot of mates who are Ra Ra's and it's nice to turn them over.
Think they might nick this one. We've larged it over them a couple of years now and maybe the laughs could come back at us. Sod's law says it has to eventually and what worse way for it to happen while on tele, beginning of weekend so we have two days to sulk about it and while we're still high about beating the Steptoes?
I hope to see us pushing high, with someone playing alongside Hogan and not forty yards behind him, keeping them under pressure. But I'm no major tactician, just don't want us to end up lumping long ball after long ball at the opposite wing like we did at home to Barnsley.
Score? Not a clue. Attendance? Go for 10,925
 
For me it's beating the Ra Ra's that really counts, mainly because of the '67 takeover attempt and how we achieved what seemed impossible and got that frigging barometer at the entrance right up to the top. They also seem to have more delusions of grandeur and less humour than Fulham which makes it a bit sweeter.

As the old joke goes.
2 guys are having a chat in a pub, talking about different parts of West London and the conversation goes like this -
"Shepherd's Bush is only good for two things - football players and whores"
"My wife is from Shepherd's Bush"
"Oh really, what position does she play?"
 
LOL, Spanish. I married a Bush Baby btw. Not sure if she was right wing, back or half but she was always right.
 
Agree that the bigger game is QPR given 1967 and that they have greater delusions of grandeur. Both think of us as a little country cousin but both seem slowly to be grudgingly giving us respect as worthy Championship contenders.

I don't think either sets of fans will take us seriously until we move into LR when stadium wise we will be stepping up.

As for Friday it is really hard to call. If we play to our potential we can certainly win but consistency has not been our strong point so far this season. A sensible call would be a draw but if we avoid conceding the first goal I can see us going on to get all three points.
 
Good stuff chaps.

My favourite bees v FFC game has to be the 4-1 at theirs, then the 2-1 in the same season, then the 4-0 at GP in that great promotion season.

I'm feeling a 3-3 result -similar to that epic game with Watford all those years back. We need to keep on top of Aluko, he had a storming game for them last week and troubled us when with Hull last season.

Looks 12.000 plus tickets already sold so should be banging in there.

Do it for the fans and for Lewis Mac my beautiful bees.
 
Nothing can beat the 4-0 win in 1992 apart from being a great performance it knocked them out of the play off race for good and set us on the road to promotion. The 4-1 win at their place was though very special.
 
Well that was a disappointment, second best from start to finish to be honest. Second half was a lot better than the first but as we have seen before when we are behind and trying to get a goal to catch up, we seem to lose all composure and guile in front of goal.

When we are good we can beat anyone in this league but when we are not at our best we seem unable to grind out a draw at least. As they say good teams can play badly and win, we can't seem to do so.

You can put it down to having young players but if we want to be challenging this season then greater consistency and grit when needed has to become part of our play.

Having said that, apart from Newcastle, I thought Fulham were the best opposition I have seen this season it pains me to say.
 
As you say, Kent they were better than us in every single department.

I am getting very concerned at Smith's lack of being able to change things, especially when it is so obvious they need changing. Their game plan out thought and out fought ours and after about twenty five minutes it was time to bring on Vibe, move to two up front, giving us another outlet and just give us a different shape. I can't understand taking off Clarke who was the only one really making anything creative and I still don't get picking Bjellend over a real left back in Barbet when Bjellend is consistently torn apart while playing there.
Egan, Clarke, Bentley and Dean were the only ones out there for me who really tried. The rest just didn't look as up for it as Fulham. As Smith said, too many fives and sixes out of ten. But surely that's for him to sort from the touchline and push them to improve their game. Not stand there with his hands in his pockets and shrugging his shoulders.
 
Agree with you both Kentbee and CB. Very disappointing night in the end and well beaten by a very good side. We were far better 2nd half and could have snatched an undeserved draw but it was their turn and we have to take it on the chin. Agree with your player comments CB, the back-line and Clarke all had decent games. But that's as bad as I've seen us across the midfield in a long time - it was here where we lost the game. If we get ahead or the oppo sit off we look OK, otherwise we struggle and DS has no answers. Top championship midfielders know how to sort us out and are decent across all parts of the game, whereas ours are good at some things & not at others - tackling, threading passes to SH and shooting to name 3.

Every week I seem to readdress where we are, right now we are mid table at best, possibly a bit below that. I was never sold on the promotion aspirations and anyone thinking that now must be the eternal optimist.

Good to see GP packed again and noisy despite the flat performance, we need to stick with it and roar on every point. Such a tough league. Pre match I saw MB with Clive Woodward in the forecourt and it didn't look like he was there just to watch a game, keen to know more about this if anyone has any info.