47 Fun Facts About Fulham

Fulham were founded in 1879 by worshippers at which West Kensington church?

St Andrew's churchgoers, most of them handier at cricket, formed the side as a Sunday school team on Star Road; they dropped the church from the name about a decade later.

Which London rival's 2020 claim to an 1861 founding challenged Fulham's long-held title of the capital's oldest professional club?

Crystal Palace traced themselves to an amateur side of the same name formed in 1861 and later put that year on their badge; historians dispute any unbroken link to the 1905 club, so Fulham, born in 1879, still claim the title.

Which right-back, who spent his whole career at Fulham, played every minute of England's 1966 World Cup win?

George Cohen played 459 times for his local club before a knee injury finished him at 29, three years after the final; his statue now stands at Craven Cottage.

Fulham's ground is named for a 1780 cottage built in woods that were once which Tudor queen's hunting grounds?

Anne Boleyn's old woods held the cottage until it burned down in May 1888 after years standing empty; Fulham found the site so overgrown in 1894 that it took two years to get a pitch ready.

Fulham's first ever Football League match, in September 1907, was a 1-0 home defeat to which club?

The first win came days later at Derby's Baseball Ground.

Fulham's 6-0 defeat to Newcastle in 1908 remains a record margin for what?

An FA Cup semi-final at Anfield ended the run: Fulham, in their first League season, had knocked out both Manchester clubs before Newcastle ran riot.

Fulham chairman Henry Norris refused to move his club to which ground, prompting its owner to found a rival?

Stamford Bridge was an athletics ground that Gus Mears had bought to stage football; when Fulham said no, he founded Chelsea in a pub across the road in March 1905 to fill it.

In 1926 Fulham became the first British club to sell what at their ground?

Hot dogs arrived in 1926 with some ceremony: a line of chefs carried them onto the pitch in metal buckets and handed them up to the terraces, and a Pathé newsreel caught the crowd snapping them up.

Which future England manager began his playing career at Fulham and was later sacked as the club's manager in 1968?

Bobby Robson left the Durham coalfield for Fulham in 1950, came back as manager in January 1968 and was dismissed within ten months; Ipswich then took a chance on him and his path to the England job began.

Fulham's record home crowd of 49,335 in October 1938 watched a Second Division match against which south-east London club?

Millwall lost 2-1 to goals from Woodward and Evans, and the record still stands, since the ground now seats under 30,000.

Which Spanish club signed Fulham defender John Fox Watson in 1948, making him the first Scot to play for them?

Real Madrid's English manager Mike Keeping, himself a Fulham old boy, brought him over as player-coach; Watson played a single league match, a 3-1 defeat by Celta Vigo in March 1949, before returning to English football.

When the maximum wage ended in 1961, Fulham paid Johnny Haynes how much a week?

£100 a week was five times the £20 the maximum wage had allowed every player, and with his Brylcreem adverts it made Fulham's England captain the model of the modern star.

A 1962 car crash in which seaside resort ended the England career of Fulham's Johnny Haynes?

Blackpool's crash injured both his feet and a knee; England's captain in 22 matches fought back to play for Fulham until 1970 but was never picked for his country again.

Which club, champions of England in 1962, did Fulham beat 10-1 on Boxing Day 1963?

Ipswich Town had sunk to the bottom inside two years of their title; Graham Leggat hit three in about three minutes, the fastest top-flight hat-trick for half a century, in what is still Fulham's record win.

In 1962 Fulham became the last First Division club to do what?

Install floodlights they finally did in September 1962, and Maurice Cook marked the first night under them with a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday.

Bottom of the table in February 1966, Fulham survived after hiring which coach, later an FA Cup winner as Chelsea manager?

Dave Sexton arrived in January with Fulham sinking; a 2-0 win over champions-elect Liverpool lit the fuse, and nine wins and two draws from the last 13 games kept them up.

Fulham's only FA Cup final, in 1975, was lost 2-0 to which club?

West Ham United won it with two Alan Taylor goals, beating a Second Division side marshalled by Bobby Moore, who had captained the Hammers for a decade; Fulham had needed a record 11 games to get to Wembley.

Which annual sporting event passes Fulham's Craven Cottage, whose Riverside Stand became an official fan zone for it in 2024?

The Boat Race starts just downstream at Putney, so both crews row past the ground early in the course; the first Riverside Stand opened in 1972 with a friendly against Eusébio's Benfica.

The rugby league club Fulham founded in 1980 dropped the Harlequins name for the 2012 season and readopted which one?

London Broncos began as chairman Ernie Clay's new income stream: almost 10,000 saw them beat mighty Wigan 24-5 in September 1980, but the football club cut ties four years on.

Fulham's all-time record scorer, with 178 goals over two spells, is who?

'Ivor' Davies signed in 1978; the record still stands.

Why was Fulham's 1983 promotion decider at Derby abandoned after 88 minutes?

A pitch invasion by Derby fans came with under two minutes left and Fulham, 1-0 down, needing a win to go up; a spectator had already kicked Robert Wilson during play, yet the League refused a replay and the result stood.

Which former Fulham forward led the 1987 consortium that rescued the club from extinction?

Jimmy Hill had played 297 games for Fulham and stayed on as chairman after the rescue; a qualified referee too, he once stepped in to run the line at Arsenal when a linesman was injured.

Which Championship club knocked Fulham out of the 2024 League Cup by winning a record 16-15 penalty shoot-out?

Preston North End won it with the 34th kick: the first 16 penalties all went in, and at 15-15 Timothy Castagne blazed over before Ryan Ledson, who had scored in normal time, sent the keeper the wrong way.

In 1996-97 Fulham finished second to Wigan on the same points because the League ranked teams how?

By goals scored, Wigan's 84 beat Fulham's 72 after both finished on 87 points; on goal difference, the tie-break used today, Fulham's +34 would have pipped Wigan's +33 and made them champions.

Mohamed Al-Fayed, who bought Fulham in 1997, also owned which famous London department store?

Harrods money rebuilt a third-tier club: Al-Fayed promised top-flight football within five seasons and delivered it in four, and he sold the Knightsbridge store in 2010, three years before he sold Fulham.

Al-Fayed's 1997 Fulham 'dream team' paired chief operating officer Kevin Keegan with which former England captain as manager?

Ray Wilkins spent on a scale the third tier had never seen yet only scraped into the play-offs, and was sacked days before the semi-final with Grimsby; Keegan picked the team himself and lost over two legs.

Which French manager, a Euro 1984 winner as a player, won his first 11 league games in charge of Fulham in 2000?

Jean Tigana, the former Monaco coach, turned that start into the title: Louis Saha's 27 goals carried Fulham to 101 points and ended the club's 33-year wait for top-flight football.

Who was the only player to appear for Fulham in all four divisions during their rise?

Chris Coleman's playing career ended after a 2001 car crash; he later managed the club to ninth.

Fulham spent two seasons from 2002 playing home games at which west London ground while Craven Cottage was made all-seater?

Loftus Road, QPR's home, was meant as a stopgap while a 30,000-seat stadium rose by the Thames; residents' legal action helped sink that plan, and Fulham went home in 2004 to old terraces with seats bolted on.

Fulham won the 2002 Intertoto Cup by beating which club from Italy's Emilia-Romagna region 5-3 on aggregate?

Bologna had drawn the first leg 2-2, but Junichi Inamoto, Japan's World Cup star released by Arsenal that summer, scored a hat-trick inside 50 minutes of the return to send Fulham into the UEFA Cup for the first time.

In 2002, Fulham became the first Premier League club to carry what kind of sponsor on their shirts?

A gambling company on a top-flight shirt was a novelty when the betting exchange Betfair signed with Fulham; by 2016-17, half of the Premier League's clubs had a betting brand across their chests.

Whose header at Portsmouth on the final day of 2007-08 kept Fulham up and completed Roy Hodgson's great escape?

Danny Murphy, unmarked, nodded in a free-kick with 14 minutes left; Reading and Birmingham were both winning, so Fulham had been going down until then, and it was their third straight away win, a first for them in the Premier League.

Which club did Fulham beat 4-1 at Craven Cottage in the 2010 Europa League after losing the first leg 3-1?

Juventus scored inside three minutes to lead 4-1 overall, but Bobby Zamora levelled, Fabio Cannavaro was sent off and Zoltan Gera struck twice before substitute Clint Dempsey floated in an 82nd-minute chip.

Fulham lost the 2010 Europa League final to Atlético Madrid in which German city, home of their beaten semi-final opponents?

Hamburg had hoped to host its own side, but Fulham knocked them out in the semi-final; Diego Forlán then won the final with four minutes of extra time left.

Fulham chairman Mohamed Al Fayed unveiled a statue of which entertainer outside Craven Cottage in 2011?

Michael Jackson had watched a single match there, as the chairman's guest in 1999; Al Fayed told fans who mocked the statue they could 'go to hell', and the club's next owner took it down in 2013.

Which American businessman, owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, took over Fulham in July 2013?

Shahid Khan, a Pakistan-born car-parts billionaire who moved to America at 16, bought the club from Mohamed Al Fayed, ending a 16-year reign that had taken Fulham from the third tier to a European final.

Which club did Fulham beat 1-0 at Wembley in the 2018 Championship play-off final to return to the Premier League?

Aston Villa fell to captain Tom Cairney's first-half finish; Fulham, 12th in December, had gone 23 league games unbeaten to reach the play-offs, and they held out with ten men after Denis Odoi's late red card.

Which manager ended Fulham's run of five straight seasons changing division?

Marco Silva inherited a relegated side in July 2021, won promotion at the first attempt and then finished tenth; promoted in 2018, 2020 and 2022 and relegated in between, Fulham had been branded the modern yo-yo club.

In August 2022, Aleksandar Mitrović became only the eighth Fulham player to do what?

Score 100 goals for the club: he got there by robbing Arsenal's Gabriel at the Emirates, the first Fulham centurion in nearly 40 years, having arrived as a hurried deadline-day loan when a return to Anderlecht collapsed.

In January 2023, Fulham beat which neighbours for the first time since 2006, only a fourth win in 53 top-flight meetings?

Chelsea were undone by one of their own: Willian, seven years a Blue, scored first, loan signing João Félix was sent off on his debut, and Carlos Vinícius headed the winner that lifted Fulham to sixth.

Fulham's mascot Billy the Badger wears which shirt number?

79 marks 1879, the year the club was founded; Billy made history of his own in 2008, when referee Chris Foy marched him off for holding up the second half with a breakdance, and he pleaded that badgers are hard of hearing.

At Fulham's Craven Cottage, the corner pavilion and the Johnny Haynes Stand, both dating from 1905, share what protected status?

Grade II listed buildings both, they are the work of stadium architect Archibald Leitch; his stand had no changing rooms, so they went in the cottage in the corner, where both teams still change today.

Fulham's rebuilt Riverside Stand was designed with which unlikely rooftop feature?

A swimming pool tops a stand built to earn its keep all year round: between matches it runs as a private members' club, with a spa and hotel rooms looking over the Thames.

Which club from Hans Christian Andersen's birthplace knocked Fulham out of the 2011-12 Europa League with a stoppage-time equaliser?

Odense were already out and trailed 2-0 at Craven Cottage, yet substitute Djiby Fall headed in with the final move of the match; Fulham had needed to win, and Wisła Kraków took their place in the last 32.

Which manager, the player-boss behind Yeovil's 1949 FA Cup giant-killing of Sunderland, signed Bobby Moore for Fulham in 1974?

Alec Stock, a tank commander wounded in Normandy, paired Moore with Alan Mullery and took Fulham to Wembley; Paul Whitehouse later confirmed that The Fast Show's rambling pundit Ron Manager was based on him.

Fulham drew all four of their group games in which 1973 competition?

The Anglo-Italian Cup ranked each country's clubs in a table of their own, so Fulham, unbeaten with a 0-0 and three 1-1 draws, still finished bottom of the four English sides in their group.

Which player-coach took charge of Fulham in 1996, weeks after they sank to 91st of the 92?

Micky Adams hauled them up to 17th, still the lowest finish in the club's history, then won their first promotion in 15 years a season later, only to be sacked weeks into the next campaign.