“The real reason why Fulham have never won the League Championship is that we could never work up enough speed. That’s why we’ve dropped back into the Second Division – to get a longer run at it,”
This was said by the Chairman of Fulham when they were relegated from the old First Division in 1968. Its not surprising that he came up with such a good line because he was a (quite) famous comedian called Tommy Trinder. Only Fulham could have a professional comedian as chairman.
Fulham's escape from the drop into what I will always call the second division took me back a few years. I was the only Fulham supporter in my class at school and it seemed that every year they were plumb bottom of the old First Division at Christmas and I was getting a lot of teasing. But then they would start clawing their way back up the table and the great escape was completed in the last week or two of the season.
So it was quite like old times this year. The only fear is that when they did finally run out of luck and were relegated they kept on going down and came close to dropping into the conference one year. For the full history see: http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/ClubHistory/HistoryOverview.aspx
But just remember - England has never won the World Cup without a Fulham player on the pitch. (Think about it - first correct answer to chris@ryanlaw.co.uk will be awarded as much free consultancy time as Fulham took to score against Portsmouth last Saturday.)