| Zamora - Fulham perspective 09:59 - Feb 1 with 3483 views | Konk |
Without knowing the amount we received for Zamora, it’s difficult to know what I feel. If it was the £4m that’s been reported in some places, then it’s a poor deal for us and a good deal for you. £6-7m and I think we’ve down well to get in decent money for an increasingly injury-prone, 31 year old player who didn’t want to be at the club. If he’s the difference between you staying-up and going down, then £6-7m could be good business for both clubs. Two and a half years sounds about right for a player of his age/physcial condition - not sure what you're paying him, but he was supposed to be on £45kpw at Fulham and I'm sure you've had to improve upon that.
Oh his day Zamora can be immense; he’s physically strong, links play well, has scored roughly 1 in 3 in the Premier League over the past three seasons, and when he hasn’t played, we’ve looked a far weaker side; possibly because without Zamora or a similar player, the whole system stopped working, but undoubtedly also because of what Zamora personally brought to the team in terms of holding the ball up and bringing others into the game, his assists and his goals etc. Zamora was at his absolute peak a couple of seasons ago when we got to the Europa League final — he was unplayable at times and scored some fantastic goals during that run. Last season under Hughes, we struggled really badly without Zamora (all our forwards were injured at the time) and looked a far better side once he came back into the team in the Spring.
This season, Zamora has clearly been unhappy — there have been numerous leaks to the press about he and Jol not getting on, and his demeanour during games has not been one of a bloke enjoying himself - or trying at times. Zamora being stroppy is nothing new for us (or referees); he’s remarkably precious when it comes to his relationship with the crowd - many of whom he alienated by ‘celebrating’ goals with a cupped ear or mouthing off to one or two individuals who’ve had a pop at him in the past, rather than acknowledging the unyielding support he’s had from 90% of the crowd, even during his first season when he only scored two goals and missed countless chances. We even overlooked him being close mates with John Terry — regular text buddies after games apparently.
We had still looked a better side with Zamora in the team, but he has definitely lost some mobility and appears to be increasingly struggling with Achiles and ankle problems (both feet), has been playing with pain killing injections and often appears in discomfort during games. Not sure where his going leaves us: I think the club have made the assumption that we won’t go down (beat WBA tonight and I’ll be a lot more relaxed), good money was on offer (if £6m) and the manager gets to assert his authority by getting rid of an unhappy/disruptive player. This year was always going to be about transition for us and so far we’ve either been excellent or terrible with very little in between. I expect the idea is to spend in the summer when there’s better value to be had, but I’d be lying if I said I was happy to see Zamora go without an adequate or exciting replacement being brought in. As things stand at the moment, it’s difficult to see that Zamora leaving doesn’t weaken our team, whilst strengthening a team only six points below us.
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| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:46 - Feb 1 with 761 views | Juzzie |
Now now... we were all doing so well  |  | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:50 - Feb 1 with 746 views | Konk |
Oh, and if he cups his ear/does his moody stare/starts shouting and jabbing his finger etc at our lot after Rangers score* then I reserve the right to give him loads.
Pav Pog nailed on to be a Peter Moeller style signing for us i.e. look a bit rubbish for 99% of his time at Fulham, but score the winner at QPR with a comedy effort.
*Zamora is 100% nailed-on to score against us. | |
| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:00 - Feb 1 with 720 views | SpiritofGregory |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:50 - Feb 1 by Konk |
Oh, and if he cups his ear/does his moody stare/starts shouting and jabbing his finger etc at our lot after Rangers score* then I reserve the right to give him loads.
Pav Pog nailed on to be a Peter Moeller style signing for us i.e. look a bit rubbish for 99% of his time at Fulham, but score the winner at QPR with a comedy effort.
*Zamora is 100% nailed-on to score against us. |
Funny how things change, we had to endure Fulham's rise when Mo splashed his cash - the Rufus Brevett signing comes to mind. Now the shoe is on the other foot and it's us with the financial muscle and a brighter future. Oh well that's life I suppose, money talks... |  | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:06 - Feb 1 with 712 views | TW_R |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 11:37 - Feb 1 by Metallica_Hoop |
Cheers Konk
A Fulham fan at work yesterday was a bit gutted as he's her favourite player. (though that may not be entirely football related  ) |
Well it's hardly going to be for his good looks, is it!!?  |  | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:17 - Feb 1 with 699 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:00 - Feb 1 by SpiritofGregory |
Funny how things change, we had to endure Fulham's rise when Mo splashed his cash - the Rufus Brevett signing comes to mind. Now the shoe is on the other foot and it's us with the financial muscle and a brighter future. Oh well that's life I suppose, money talks... |
I think you nicking Parker and Coney (yeah, I know) from us for peanuts when we were on our uppers was a bit harder to take than us pinching Rufus.
And I wouldn't get too carried away. We didn't sell Zamora because we needed the money - we sold him because of his disruptive relationship with Jol. If it was £4m then you got a good price, but it's not like us losing Hangeland, Dempsey or Dembele to a similar sized club.
As for financial muscle and bright future - I'm confident that we're pretty prudently run these days - even made a small profit last year, and by and large, Al Fayed doesn't have to dip into his pockets too often these days. We spent £10m on Ruiz in the summer and Jol spent about £20m overall. If we get planning permission, we'll have a 30,000 capacity ground in two years and we'll hopefully still be bobbing along in the middle of the Premier League. For a club of our size, that doesn't sound too bad to me.
Rangers? Difficult to know without knowing how much Mittel is giving his son-in-law to play with. Fernandes is rich, but not ridiculously so in Premier League terms, and you're spending a few bob without much coming in through the turnstiles/corporate etc. How many years away is a new ground? How much is that going to cost? As Mike Ashley and Randy Lerner (and Al Fayed) have discovered, you can spend an awful lot of money and find yourself mid-table at which point what do you do then? Keep pumping more in just to finish 7th? Or does the novelty wear off after a bit? Enjoy yourselves at the moment, but there's nothing to stop you - or us - being the next Pompey/Leeds/WHU. [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:29 - Feb 1 with 683 views | nadera78 |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:17 - Feb 1 by Konk |
I think you nicking Parker and Coney (yeah, I know) from us for peanuts when we were on our uppers was a bit harder to take than us pinching Rufus.
And I wouldn't get too carried away. We didn't sell Zamora because we needed the money - we sold him because of his disruptive relationship with Jol. If it was £4m then you got a good price, but it's not like us losing Hangeland, Dempsey or Dembele to a similar sized club.
As for financial muscle and bright future - I'm confident that we're pretty prudently run these days - even made a small profit last year, and by and large, Al Fayed doesn't have to dip into his pockets too often these days. We spent £10m on Ruiz in the summer and Jol spent about £20m overall. If we get planning permission, we'll have a 30,000 capacity ground in two years and we'll hopefully still be bobbing along in the middle of the Premier League. For a club of our size, that doesn't sound too bad to me.
Rangers? Difficult to know without knowing how much Mittel is giving his son-in-law to play with. Fernandes is rich, but not ridiculously so in Premier League terms, and you're spending a few bob without much coming in through the turnstiles/corporate etc. How many years away is a new ground? How much is that going to cost? As Mike Ashley and Randy Lerner (and Al Fayed) have discovered, you can spend an awful lot of money and find yourself mid-table at which point what do you do then? Keep pumping more in just to finish 7th? Or does the novelty wear off after a bit? Enjoy yourselves at the moment, but there's nothing to stop you - or us - being the next Pompey/Leeds/WHU. [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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The thing with Amit Bhatia is that he sees QPR as a way of doing lots of community work. That's why the QPR Community Trust has been expanded enormously (and it was already pretty good to begin with). And I don't just mean in the local area either, he knows the power of football, the premier league in particular, and is keen to use the club as a vehicle in that regard. That's why we've already had a little toe dipped into Indian youth schemes, etc. That will only increase further in the coming years, and in other locations too. To do that though, he needs QPR to do well.
Re' Fulham, has al Fayed given any indication about what he plans to do with the club in the future? They might be ticking over now, but he's already tipped in £200m. He's certainly not the kind of man to walk away form that sort of money, so how does he plan to recoup it? |  | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:40 - Feb 1 with 665 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:29 - Feb 1 by nadera78 |
The thing with Amit Bhatia is that he sees QPR as a way of doing lots of community work. That's why the QPR Community Trust has been expanded enormously (and it was already pretty good to begin with). And I don't just mean in the local area either, he knows the power of football, the premier league in particular, and is keen to use the club as a vehicle in that regard. That's why we've already had a little toe dipped into Indian youth schemes, etc. That will only increase further in the coming years, and in other locations too. To do that though, he needs QPR to do well.
Re' Fulham, has al Fayed given any indication about what he plans to do with the club in the future? They might be ticking over now, but he's already tipped in £200m. He's certainly not the kind of man to walk away form that sort of money, so how does he plan to recoup it? |
Al Fayed's knocking-on and won't go on forever. No idea what will happen once he's no longer about, but you'd hope he'd have one eye on his legacy. The estimates (which usually come out of the club) are that he's ploughed about £200m of his money into Fulham in the form of soft loans. Whether or not they get pulled when he goes to meet his maker, will, I would imagine, be largely up to his family.
It's been weird though - the one thing I would never expected fifteen years ago, would have been that he'd give us stability. We're firmly entrenched back at a redeveloped Cottage, I'd imagine the new Riverside Stand will bear his name (it ought to) and we're an established Premiership side these days. I'd like to think he's made provisions for our future - at least one of his sons is at the Cottage every week and plays for our Deaf team, so the family have a bond now.
After Al Fayed - who knows, but if the soft loans are written off (he's still got several hundred million to play with - you never know) then we're a decent proposition for anyone looking for an mid-sized, old football club playing at a historic ground - that won't need money spending on it - in an affluent corner of West London.
* When I say we're an 'established PL team', I know full well that we're just as likely to be relegated as anyone - we're not Arsenal - but we're on people's radar now, we've made up for a lost generation of support and the ground issues are hopefully behind us. If/when we do go down, we should be still be in reasonable nick. [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:47 - Feb 1 with 645 views | MrSheen |
As I said yesterday, Fulham fans have lamented the loss of Van Der Sar, Saha, Davis, Papa Bouba Diop, Boa Morte (!) and Bullard over the last decade, and have got along well without them. They've no doubt laughed themselves silly over the subsequent careers of the majority. Who knows how Zamora will turn out, but I imagine Fulham will be fine anyway. |  | | |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:56 - Feb 1 with 624 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:47 - Feb 1 by MrSheen |
As I said yesterday, Fulham fans have lamented the loss of Van Der Sar, Saha, Davis, Papa Bouba Diop, Boa Morte (!) and Bullard over the last decade, and have got along well without them. They've no doubt laughed themselves silly over the subsequent careers of the majority. Who knows how Zamora will turn out, but I imagine Fulham will be fine anyway. |
You're right - and you could include Finnan. Most of those sales weakened the team, but we've gone on and done okay. Depends what Jol does in the summer, but the remit he was giving was to lower the average age of the squad and bring through some youngsters.
We got £7m odd for Boa Morte when WHU's Icelandic owners were spending silly money - they put him on £70kpw or something daft - he'd just had his worst season for us. Half of our support was suicidal when Bullard went to 'ambitious' Hull for £5m, silly wages and a 4 1/2 year deal with no insurance because of his balsa wood knees - turned out better for us than Hull.
It's not like Zamora scored loads of goals himself (can believe how many Helguson has got this year - literally unbelievable), but he is very good at bringing others into the game. Not sure Pav Pog will give us the same and the second half of the season could be hard work, but I'm sure we'll be okay in the long run.
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| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 14:03 - Feb 1 with 608 views | toboboly |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:56 - Feb 1 by Konk |
You're right - and you could include Finnan. Most of those sales weakened the team, but we've gone on and done okay. Depends what Jol does in the summer, but the remit he was giving was to lower the average age of the squad and bring through some youngsters.
We got £7m odd for Boa Morte when WHU's Icelandic owners were spending silly money - they put him on £70kpw or something daft - he'd just had his worst season for us. Half of our support was suicidal when Bullard went to 'ambitious' Hull for £5m, silly wages and a 4 1/2 year deal with no insurance because of his balsa wood knees - turned out better for us than Hull.
It's not like Zamora scored loads of goals himself (can believe how many Helguson has got this year - literally unbelievable), but he is very good at bringing others into the game. Not sure Pav Pog will give us the same and the second half of the season could be hard work, but I'm sure we'll be okay in the long run.
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Don't forget that go-getter Ruiz! |  |
| Sexy Asian dwarves wanted. |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 14:06 - Feb 1 with 599 views | westolian |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:56 - Feb 1 by Konk |
You're right - and you could include Finnan. Most of those sales weakened the team, but we've gone on and done okay. Depends what Jol does in the summer, but the remit he was giving was to lower the average age of the squad and bring through some youngsters.
We got £7m odd for Boa Morte when WHU's Icelandic owners were spending silly money - they put him on £70kpw or something daft - he'd just had his worst season for us. Half of our support was suicidal when Bullard went to 'ambitious' Hull for £5m, silly wages and a 4 1/2 year deal with no insurance because of his balsa wood knees - turned out better for us than Hull.
It's not like Zamora scored loads of goals himself (can believe how many Helguson has got this year - literally unbelievable), but he is very good at bringing others into the game. Not sure Pav Pog will give us the same and the second half of the season could be hard work, but I'm sure we'll be okay in the long run.
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You don't have talk some sense Konk
A refreshing change from other teams supporters |  |
| I've found a team sheet for the weekend - anyone interested ? |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 14:25 - Feb 1 with 564 views | thame_hoops |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 14:06 - Feb 1 by westolian |
You don't have talk some sense Konk
A refreshing change from other teams supporters |
yeah but speediesdouble started out all nicey nicey until we beat them, then he came back with buckets of vitriol. lets see how konk is come the 25th |  | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 15:24 - Feb 1 with 526 views | SpiritofGregory |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:40 - Feb 1 by Konk |
Al Fayed's knocking-on and won't go on forever. No idea what will happen once he's no longer about, but you'd hope he'd have one eye on his legacy. The estimates (which usually come out of the club) are that he's ploughed about £200m of his money into Fulham in the form of soft loans. Whether or not they get pulled when he goes to meet his maker, will, I would imagine, be largely up to his family.
It's been weird though - the one thing I would never expected fifteen years ago, would have been that he'd give us stability. We're firmly entrenched back at a redeveloped Cottage, I'd imagine the new Riverside Stand will bear his name (it ought to) and we're an established Premiership side these days. I'd like to think he's made provisions for our future - at least one of his sons is at the Cottage every week and plays for our Deaf team, so the family have a bond now.
After Al Fayed - who knows, but if the soft loans are written off (he's still got several hundred million to play with - you never know) then we're a decent proposition for anyone looking for an mid-sized, old football club playing at a historic ground - that won't need money spending on it - in an affluent corner of West London.
* When I say we're an 'established PL team', I know full well that we're just as likely to be relegated as anyone - we're not Arsenal - but we're on people's radar now, we've made up for a lost generation of support and the ground issues are hopefully behind us. If/when we do go down, we should be still be in reasonable nick. [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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Lets hope for Fulham's sake that he makes provisions for the furure. £200m is a lot to lose, you'd hope that who ever he leaves the club to, they will have the same level of passion for the club. He is probably going to have to right a huge amount of the debt off, if he wants to sell the club. Even billionaires want bargains.
I noticed that Fulham always package itself as a mid table club with a historic ground by the river whereas Rangers have aspirations to be challenging for honours. That in itself is a massive difference between the two clubs - the level of ambition. We have soccer schools already set up in India and are in the process of acquiring a plot of land, in order to build a centre of excellence. The owners of Rangers want to create a global brand, Mittal has a £16bn fortune and Fernandes was voted Forbes Asian businessman of the year, they aren't individuals who settle for second best.
We seem to see the owners of Rangers as Mittal and Fernandes when in fact there are other additional wealthy owners who like to remain in the background. Fernandes and two others are a consortium. As individual businessmen Mittal owns the largest share. | | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 11:02 - Feb 2 with 469 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 15:24 - Feb 1 by SpiritofGregory |
Lets hope for Fulham's sake that he makes provisions for the furure. £200m is a lot to lose, you'd hope that who ever he leaves the club to, they will have the same level of passion for the club. He is probably going to have to right a huge amount of the debt off, if he wants to sell the club. Even billionaires want bargains.
I noticed that Fulham always package itself as a mid table club with a historic ground by the river whereas Rangers have aspirations to be challenging for honours. That in itself is a massive difference between the two clubs - the level of ambition. We have soccer schools already set up in India and are in the process of acquiring a plot of land, in order to build a centre of excellence. The owners of Rangers want to create a global brand, Mittal has a £16bn fortune and Fernandes was voted Forbes Asian businessman of the year, they aren't individuals who settle for second best.
We seem to see the owners of Rangers as Mittal and Fernandes when in fact there are other additional wealthy owners who like to remain in the background. Fernandes and two others are a consortium. As individual businessmen Mittal owns the largest share. |
You can have all the centres of excellence you want in India, but people overseas generally end up ‘supporting’ a team who win things; hence Man United and Liverpool being massive globally and sadly, Chelsea shirts now popping up all over the gaff. Flooding in Thailand/revolution in Libya; there’s always some clown in a snide Chelsea shirt wandering about in the background. We’re not going to see images of Palestinian kids in snide QPR-monogrammed slippers lobbing stones at Israeli soldiers unless you start winning the league or doing well in the Champions League.
It’s great to have ambition, but you also need a bit of realism; you’re not about to win the league. Abramovich has so far sunk £800m into Chelsea in terms of buying and then subsidising the club — with 40,000+ coming through the gates every week at silly prices, loads of corporate, ridiculous sponsorship and kit deals, Champions League TV money and without the need to finance a new ground. Does Fernandes have those kind of funds? Do his backers? Personally, I wouldn’t want anything to do with mystery backers. And if Mittel wanted to spend that sort of money, wouldn’t he have brought the club outright?
You say your owners are the sort of people to settle for second best, but can you realistically see yourself in the foreseeable future finishing above Man United, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham (especially when they, Liverpool and Chelsea get their new grounds)? In which case, how much money will your board be prepared to blow to finish seventh? Al Fayed could pony up £100m in the summer for new signings and salaries and realistically, where would that get us? Sixth? Seventh? Not exactly value for money when we’ve finished seventh and eighth without that investment in recent seasons. When Al Fayed took over at Fulham — Man United of the South blah, blah, blah — was that ambition or cringe-worthy naivety? He probably thought it would be relatively easy to throw a few bob at a smallish club and compete with everyone; but that wasn’t the case then and it’s certainly not the case since the billionaires got involved.
So you can talk of ambition (and our lack of), but your potential for winning things is probably limited to our ambitions: the cups. If we have a decent finish in the league and one or two decent cup runs, then I’m happy enough with that. What I don’t want us to do is get ourselves in a financial mess striving to finish eighth rather than twelfth. The novelty of the Premier League soon starts to wear off and I would imagine it does so that much quicker when you’re spunking millions of your own cash on a club for a mid-table finish and zero trophies.
Every year we’re in the Premier League we grow as a club; in terms of support, outside perception, attraction to players etc. and with the redevelopment of the ground, our prospects of long term stability are enhanced. So my realistic ambitions are to hopefully see us win the FA cup before I die (not unreasonable), to see us as a self-financing, prudently run club that’s not permanently on the brink of going bust or losing The Cottage, and one or two more European campaigns would be nice. A sad indictment on modern football, but in the Premiership, for most of us it’s either scrapping against relegation — which soon gets tedious — or middle table tedium and hoping for a run in the cups. Of course, there’s also European glory, but the year we qualified by finishing seventh, we finished above Tottenham and Man City — which ain’t going to happen again. In which case, modern football is toss, but the Fair Play league is tops.
Having won no major trophies in 133 years, we’re not really in a position to view/market ourselves as some sort of footballing powerhouse, but in the age of identikit out-of-town meccano stadia, our ground and location are something we can take pride in. We can’t compete in terms of trophies, but there’s something to be said for being London’s oldest club, playing in London’s oldest ground in a picturesque part of town.
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| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 11:54 - Feb 2 with 439 views | Juzzie |
"....... there’s always some clown in a snide Chelsea shirt wandering about in the background" amen to that lol! Though I wouldn't say our slippers are snide, expensive maybe, but not snide.
With regards to our other 'mystery' backers, I don't think it's anything to be concerned about as you suggest. The club has probably been at it's most transparent in over a decade. Mittal is the majority shareholder and therefore doesn't need to be 100%. There might be reasons why the minority amount is split between a few others but I'm confident that on the whole it's being done for the right reasons.
Can we usurp Many U, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs & Chelsea? No, probably not so 7th as you say is probably the summit which is potentially achievable. Not in the foreseeable future but maybe within the decade. Throw in a couple of FA and League Cups, have a few good runs in the Europa League and I think we'd be delighted! After all, that would be dream land compared to the last few decades or even century!
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:10 - Feb 2 with 420 views | SpiritofGregory |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 11:02 - Feb 2 by Konk |
You can have all the centres of excellence you want in India, but people overseas generally end up ‘supporting’ a team who win things; hence Man United and Liverpool being massive globally and sadly, Chelsea shirts now popping up all over the gaff. Flooding in Thailand/revolution in Libya; there’s always some clown in a snide Chelsea shirt wandering about in the background. We’re not going to see images of Palestinian kids in snide QPR-monogrammed slippers lobbing stones at Israeli soldiers unless you start winning the league or doing well in the Champions League.
It’s great to have ambition, but you also need a bit of realism; you’re not about to win the league. Abramovich has so far sunk £800m into Chelsea in terms of buying and then subsidising the club — with 40,000+ coming through the gates every week at silly prices, loads of corporate, ridiculous sponsorship and kit deals, Champions League TV money and without the need to finance a new ground. Does Fernandes have those kind of funds? Do his backers? Personally, I wouldn’t want anything to do with mystery backers. And if Mittel wanted to spend that sort of money, wouldn’t he have brought the club outright?
You say your owners are the sort of people to settle for second best, but can you realistically see yourself in the foreseeable future finishing above Man United, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham (especially when they, Liverpool and Chelsea get their new grounds)? In which case, how much money will your board be prepared to blow to finish seventh? Al Fayed could pony up £100m in the summer for new signings and salaries and realistically, where would that get us? Sixth? Seventh? Not exactly value for money when we’ve finished seventh and eighth without that investment in recent seasons. When Al Fayed took over at Fulham — Man United of the South blah, blah, blah — was that ambition or cringe-worthy naivety? He probably thought it would be relatively easy to throw a few bob at a smallish club and compete with everyone; but that wasn’t the case then and it’s certainly not the case since the billionaires got involved.
So you can talk of ambition (and our lack of), but your potential for winning things is probably limited to our ambitions: the cups. If we have a decent finish in the league and one or two decent cup runs, then I’m happy enough with that. What I don’t want us to do is get ourselves in a financial mess striving to finish eighth rather than twelfth. The novelty of the Premier League soon starts to wear off and I would imagine it does so that much quicker when you’re spunking millions of your own cash on a club for a mid-table finish and zero trophies.
Every year we’re in the Premier League we grow as a club; in terms of support, outside perception, attraction to players etc. and with the redevelopment of the ground, our prospects of long term stability are enhanced. So my realistic ambitions are to hopefully see us win the FA cup before I die (not unreasonable), to see us as a self-financing, prudently run club that’s not permanently on the brink of going bust or losing The Cottage, and one or two more European campaigns would be nice. A sad indictment on modern football, but in the Premiership, for most of us it’s either scrapping against relegation — which soon gets tedious — or middle table tedium and hoping for a run in the cups. Of course, there’s also European glory, but the year we qualified by finishing seventh, we finished above Tottenham and Man City — which ain’t going to happen again. In which case, modern football is toss, but the Fair Play league is tops.
Having won no major trophies in 133 years, we’re not really in a position to view/market ourselves as some sort of footballing powerhouse, but in the age of identikit out-of-town meccano stadia, our ground and location are something we can take pride in. We can’t compete in terms of trophies, but there’s something to be said for being London’s oldest club, playing in London’s oldest ground in a picturesque part of town.
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Your support has grown since joining the Premiership and no doubt, so will ours. We are selling out our league games, at high ticket prices and we have only been in the Premiership for half a season. If we remain in the Premier League and invest further, the support will grow further so we will definitely need a new stadium which the owners will do with involvement with other businesses. I've been on a couple of Fulham boards and noticed a complete refusal by your fans to ackowledge that our support will grow - it happened to you so why not us? We can easily use strategies employed by yourselves such as sign Japanese/American players which will see an influx of people from those communities in particular Japanese as there is a huge affluent Japanese community based in West Acton. Our ground and surrounding areas of West/North West London are amongst the most accessible areas of London by public transport therefore easily accessible to whoever wants to attend a game.
In respect to being London’s oldest club and playing in London’s oldest ground in a picturesque part of town, no one really cares about that apart from Fulham fans. I actually see it as something that will hold Fulham back because you will only ever be able to expand to a certain point. Any new owner will have a view for progression and a running battle with the fans in relation to moving from Craven Cottage, coupled with a £200m debt, will not be viewed favourably.
Anyway, roll on the 25th and lets see which team has improved the most since our last encounter. | | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:13 - Feb 2 with 418 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 11:54 - Feb 2 by Juzzie |
"....... there’s always some clown in a snide Chelsea shirt wandering about in the background" amen to that lol! Though I wouldn't say our slippers are snide, expensive maybe, but not snide.
With regards to our other 'mystery' backers, I don't think it's anything to be concerned about as you suggest. The club has probably been at it's most transparent in over a decade. Mittal is the majority shareholder and therefore doesn't need to be 100%. There might be reasons why the minority amount is split between a few others but I'm confident that on the whole it's being done for the right reasons.
Can we usurp Many U, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs & Chelsea? No, probably not so 7th as you say is probably the summit which is potentially achievable. Not in the foreseeable future but maybe within the decade. Throw in a couple of FA and League Cups, have a few good runs in the Europa League and I think we'd be delighted! After all, that would be dream land compared to the last few decades or even century!
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At £400 a pop or whatever they were, I think they'll have to be snide!
In terms of ambition - I was responding to Spirit of (Fulham fan) Gregory's assertion that your owners won't settle for second best. If your owners are happy to bung in Coates/Stoke style money there's no reason you couldn't be finishing 7-8th in the future, but it would take an awful lot more to do better than that.
As for the cups - why not? A decent run and a bit of luck - the FA cup isn't beyond us or you (well, it has been for 100+ years, but you know what I mean!)
Mystery backers - I keep hearing this about Fernandes and it makes me worry (but not enough to keep me awake at night) | |
| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:20 - Feb 2 with 399 views | Juzzie |
Yeah, I guess it depends on what their definition of 2nd best is. If it's trying to finish above those 7 other teams then I think they're in for a rude awakening. If it's the levels both you and I have mentioned then I think it's reasonably attainable, over a period of time and shrewd work though.
BTW... I'm sure you've heard of the film 'The four year plan'? The supposition is that the aim was to get into the Premiership in four years, Briatore even said so himself early on in it. Well, that was a clever bit of editing added in because Briatore actually stood with a microphone at Loftus Road and said to the crowd (bearing in mind we were in the lower echelons of the Championship) the four year plan was to be playing in the Champions League by then! PMSL! Now that was unreasonable expectations.
edit: Though it gave Briatore & co the excuse to charge ticket, merchandising etc prices as though we were actually there!
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:21 - Feb 2 with 394 views | Stanisgod |
Zammo and Terry " text buddies " Does Anton know ! |  |
| It's being so happy that keeps me going. |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:35 - Feb 2 with 379 views | QPR_Jim |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 11:02 - Feb 2 by Konk |
You can have all the centres of excellence you want in India, but people overseas generally end up ‘supporting’ a team who win things; hence Man United and Liverpool being massive globally and sadly, Chelsea shirts now popping up all over the gaff. Flooding in Thailand/revolution in Libya; there’s always some clown in a snide Chelsea shirt wandering about in the background. We’re not going to see images of Palestinian kids in snide QPR-monogrammed slippers lobbing stones at Israeli soldiers unless you start winning the league or doing well in the Champions League.
It’s great to have ambition, but you also need a bit of realism; you’re not about to win the league. Abramovich has so far sunk £800m into Chelsea in terms of buying and then subsidising the club — with 40,000+ coming through the gates every week at silly prices, loads of corporate, ridiculous sponsorship and kit deals, Champions League TV money and without the need to finance a new ground. Does Fernandes have those kind of funds? Do his backers? Personally, I wouldn’t want anything to do with mystery backers. And if Mittel wanted to spend that sort of money, wouldn’t he have brought the club outright?
You say your owners are the sort of people to settle for second best, but can you realistically see yourself in the foreseeable future finishing above Man United, Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham (especially when they, Liverpool and Chelsea get their new grounds)? In which case, how much money will your board be prepared to blow to finish seventh? Al Fayed could pony up £100m in the summer for new signings and salaries and realistically, where would that get us? Sixth? Seventh? Not exactly value for money when we’ve finished seventh and eighth without that investment in recent seasons. When Al Fayed took over at Fulham — Man United of the South blah, blah, blah — was that ambition or cringe-worthy naivety? He probably thought it would be relatively easy to throw a few bob at a smallish club and compete with everyone; but that wasn’t the case then and it’s certainly not the case since the billionaires got involved.
So you can talk of ambition (and our lack of), but your potential for winning things is probably limited to our ambitions: the cups. If we have a decent finish in the league and one or two decent cup runs, then I’m happy enough with that. What I don’t want us to do is get ourselves in a financial mess striving to finish eighth rather than twelfth. The novelty of the Premier League soon starts to wear off and I would imagine it does so that much quicker when you’re spunking millions of your own cash on a club for a mid-table finish and zero trophies.
Every year we’re in the Premier League we grow as a club; in terms of support, outside perception, attraction to players etc. and with the redevelopment of the ground, our prospects of long term stability are enhanced. So my realistic ambitions are to hopefully see us win the FA cup before I die (not unreasonable), to see us as a self-financing, prudently run club that’s not permanently on the brink of going bust or losing The Cottage, and one or two more European campaigns would be nice. A sad indictment on modern football, but in the Premiership, for most of us it’s either scrapping against relegation — which soon gets tedious — or middle table tedium and hoping for a run in the cups. Of course, there’s also European glory, but the year we qualified by finishing seventh, we finished above Tottenham and Man City — which ain’t going to happen again. In which case, modern football is toss, but the Fair Play league is tops.
Having won no major trophies in 133 years, we’re not really in a position to view/market ourselves as some sort of footballing powerhouse, but in the age of identikit out-of-town meccano stadia, our ground and location are something we can take pride in. We can’t compete in terms of trophies, but there’s something to be said for being London’s oldest club, playing in London’s oldest ground in a picturesque part of town.
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"You can have all the centres of excellence you want in India, but people overseas generally end up ‘supporting’ a team who win things"
I think he was talking about our centre of excellence in London, the India stuff is seperate. Youth development is key to a long term strategy for any real club.
"When Al Fayed took over at Fulham — Man United of the South blah, blah, blah — was that ambition or cringe-worthy naivety?"
That was ambition but not footballing ambition. What he meant was he wants a large fan base and to sell loads of tickets to tourists etc. He achieved that, hence the madame tussauds piece of cr*p statue you have outside your ground.
"The novelty of the Premier League soon starts to wear off and I would imagine it does so that much quicker when you’re spunking millions of your own cash on a club for a mid-table finish and zero trophies."
I can honestly say now we've spunked a load of money on quality players I feel less inclined to go and watch my team! That was sarcasum by the way, bringing in names like Zamora and Cisse instead of Helguson and Boothroyd will attract fans rather than turn them off, what planet do you live on where you'd think that it wouldn't?
Realistically the highest we should ever finish is 7th as there are 6 big clubs spending loads of cash. But if we develope a squad capable of coming 7th thats the best place to be if any of the big clubs slip up, which they will hopefully when the financial regulations come in. If we can develope good youth players with an improved youth setup and have a bigger stadium as well then all the better. The hope of achieving something and building for sucess is what footballs about not what a stadium looks like and what f**king views it has! |  | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:00 - Feb 2 with 368 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:10 - Feb 2 by SpiritofGregory |
Your support has grown since joining the Premiership and no doubt, so will ours. We are selling out our league games, at high ticket prices and we have only been in the Premiership for half a season. If we remain in the Premier League and invest further, the support will grow further so we will definitely need a new stadium which the owners will do with involvement with other businesses. I've been on a couple of Fulham boards and noticed a complete refusal by your fans to ackowledge that our support will grow - it happened to you so why not us? We can easily use strategies employed by yourselves such as sign Japanese/American players which will see an influx of people from those communities in particular Japanese as there is a huge affluent Japanese community based in West Acton. Our ground and surrounding areas of West/North West London are amongst the most accessible areas of London by public transport therefore easily accessible to whoever wants to attend a game.
In respect to being London’s oldest club and playing in London’s oldest ground in a picturesque part of town, no one really cares about that apart from Fulham fans. I actually see it as something that will hold Fulham back because you will only ever be able to expand to a certain point. Any new owner will have a view for progression and a running battle with the fans in relation to moving from Craven Cottage, coupled with a £200m debt, will not be viewed favourably.
Anyway, roll on the 25th and lets see which team has improved the most since our last encounter. |
At the moment, I’d say we probably have core supports of about the same size (here we go again!) — probably about 15,000 — and you have the massive advantage of having your own catchment area, which we don’t due to Chelsea playing in Fulham. Ignoring views, leg room and general comfort, I like Loftus Road, but you can’t go on with an 18,000 stadium if you want to get anywhere close to self-financing; so you need to do something on that front, and a new stadium will undoubtedly see your support grow; it’ll be full of lapsed Hoops, and the tourists and posh West London kids in deck shoes that you currently take the rise out of us for attracting. But I wouldn’t get too carried away with the idea of you becoming some enormous club; 2-3,000 unsold home tickets for Chelsea at home in an 18,000 stadium suggests that there probably aren’t millions of people out there desperate to watch Rangers.
You say no-one other than whites cares about our status as London’s oldest club or having a historic ground in a nice part of town, but I make you wrong on that one. Loads of away fans and journalists cite it as one of their favourite grounds, and if you’ve got any sort of romance in you when it comes to football, surely you have to appreciate the beauty of Leitch’s Stevenage Road stand — with original wooden seats from 1905 — how can you not love that? Players getting changed in a house in the corner? Pint out by the river at half time and all that. Walk through the park up from Putney or along the riverside down from Hammersmith. If you want to grow your support, you have to make people love you; and no-one ever fell in love with Fulham for the contents of our trophy cabinet, but plenty have fallen in love with the Cottage. Craven Cottage is Fulham FC.
I don’t really subscribe to the “If you build it…” theory — George Reynolds did that and I bet 90% of Darlo fans were quite happy at Feethams. We are what we are and I think a 30-31,000 ground will be plenty for us. When we’re inevitably relegated at some point, it won’t be too soul-destroying if we still get half decent crowds and it won’t have 10,000 away fans or tourists in when we play Man Utd, Liverpool etc. When we were playing at your place, Al Fayed mooted a move up to the Dairy Crest site, with plans for a 37,000 capacity stadium; the vast majority didn’t want to go because we belong in Fulham, we have no need for a ground that big and we have something special at The Cottage. Same goes for a move to the Bridge if Chelsea move out. That’s either a lack of ambition on our part of a welcome display of common sense.
You never know what might attract someone to buy a club - Al Fayed bought us when we'd just been promoted from the 4th and the Cottage was in a sorry state, so you never know. My dream would be a Fulham-supporting Steve Gibson clone.
“Anyway, roll on the 25th and lets see which team has improved the most since our last encounter” — well, given how poor you were that day, I would imagine the answer will be your lot! This is Fulham, we never expect anything other than a limp, cack, insipid display away from home. With Hughes and Zamora at your place too, it's a nailed on home win for Rangers.
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| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:03 - Feb 2 with 361 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:21 - Feb 2 by Stanisgod |
Zammo and Terry " text buddies " Does Anton know ! |
They go fishing together too... | |
| Fulham FC: It's the taking part that counts |
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:07 - Feb 2 with 346 views | Juzzie |
Although it was dissapointing we didn't sell out the lack of tickets sold v Chelsea will no doubt be used against us time and time again. I could not for the life of me see 2000 empty seats, honestly.
Arsenal v Villa had empty seats all over the Emirates. Although it was live on TV Sunderland v 'Boro which was also a derby also had loads of empty seats. Same at other games too.
The fact is, the FA Cup just doesn't seem to have the attraction anymore. Throw in £40 tickets, media hysteria over Terry/Ferdinand, a noon kick off and supposed rioting in the streets all contributed to ours.
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| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:13 - Feb 2 with 334 views | GetMeRangers |
For any clubs outside the top six, there is always the chance of raised expectations. We can all see the inflated squads of talented players, some of whom moan at lack to pitch time. With the right owners and team, I genually think it is possible for a team to break into it.
Not quite sure how Newcastle have managed it this season, but they are maintaining their position with out going mad in the tranfer market. The draw of a lesser known club being able to promise realisable ambitions and a near guaranteed game week in and week out gives the smaller clubs one advantage over the top 6.
I cnat really comment on Fulham, but the last six months and in particular Beard, give me confidence that we have the right men at the helm to perhaps move on next year, provided we can stay up. Zamora thinks he is coming to a club aiming for Champions league, if you listen to the slip of the tongue in his interview.
I dont believe it will actually happen, but i like the ambition and hope to enjoy some great football along the way |  | | |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 13:33 - Feb 2 with 313 views | Konk |
| Zamora - Fulham perspective on 12:35 - Feb 2 by QPR_Jim |
"You can have all the centres of excellence you want in India, but people overseas generally end up ‘supporting’ a team who win things"
I think he was talking about our centre of excellence in London, the India stuff is seperate. Youth development is key to a long term strategy for any real club.
"When Al Fayed took over at Fulham — Man United of the South blah, blah, blah — was that ambition or cringe-worthy naivety?"
That was ambition but not footballing ambition. What he meant was he wants a large fan base and to sell loads of tickets to tourists etc. He achieved that, hence the madame tussauds piece of cr*p statue you have outside your ground.
"The novelty of the Premier League soon starts to wear off and I would imagine it does so that much quicker when you’re spunking millions of your own cash on a club for a mid-table finish and zero trophies."
I can honestly say now we've spunked a load of money on quality players I feel less inclined to go and watch my team! That was sarcasum by the way, bringing in names like Zamora and Cisse instead of Helguson and Boothroyd will attract fans rather than turn them off, what planet do you live on where you'd think that it wouldn't?
Realistically the highest we should ever finish is 7th as there are 6 big clubs spending loads of cash. But if we develope a squad capable of coming 7th thats the best place to be if any of the big clubs slip up, which they will hopefully when the financial regulations come in. If we can develope good youth players with an improved youth setup and have a bigger stadium as well then all the better. The hope of achieving something and building for sucess is what footballs about not what a stadium looks like and what f**king views it has! |
You can have all the centres of excellence you want in India, but people overseas generally end up ‘supporting’ a team who win things"
I think he was talking about our centre of excellence in London, the India stuff is seperate. Youth development is key to a long term strategy for any real club.
[KONK] Fair enough — sorry, I read that wrong. Agree about Youth being key and we finally seem to be producing (poaching) a few decent youngsters. My point remains about conquering India — ain’t gonna happen unless you win the league or Champions League.
"When Al Fayed took over at Fulham — Man United of the South blah, blah, blah — was that ambition or cringe-worthy naivety?"
That was ambition but not footballing ambition. What he meant was he wants a large fan base and to sell loads of tickets to tourists etc. He achieved that, hence the madame tussauds piece of cr*p statue you have outside your ground.
[KONK] That’s your interpretation. But as Chelsea have shown, if you start winning stuff, clueless clowns all round the world suddenly start supporting you; personally I think he was referring to winning trophies as it’s difficult to convince people in Shanghai to support you when losing the 1975 cup final is your greatest success. The MJ wax work isn’t outside the ground — it’s inside, stuck round by the burger vans at the back of the Hammersmith End. I sit in the Hammersmith end and I’ve never seen it. Basically, he got it for Harrods, sold Harrods and then had a woeful statue of MJ to dump somewhere; his wife probably put the kibosh on it and so it ended up at our place. We’ll live.
"The novelty of the Premier League soon starts to wear off and I would imagine it does so that much quicker when you’re spunking millions of your own cash on a club for a mid-table finish and zero trophies."
I can honestly say now we've spunked a load of money on quality players I feel less inclined to go and watch my team! That was sarcasum by the way, bringing in names like Zamora and Cisse instead of Helguson and Boothroyd will attract fans rather than turn them off, what planet do you live on where you'd think that it wouldn't?
[KONK] Maybe I wasn’t clear - and with all due respect, you’ve only been back in the top division for half a season - but I was referring to the novelty wearing off for owners who find themselves shelling out millions every year for mid-table finishes and a lack of opportunities to ride round town on an open-top bus. Ask Randy Lerner or Mike Ashley how that feels. But even as a fan, it does get boring. See how excited you are about Blackburn/Everton/Newcastle away or Bolton at home in five years time when all you’ve got to aim for is seventh spot. I wouldn’t want us to go down, but I miss starting a season thinking this could be our year in the league — irrespective of how toilet we’d been the year before.
Realistically the highest we should ever finish is 7th as there are 6 big clubs spending loads of cash. But if we develope a squad capable of coming 7th thats the best place to be if any of the big clubs slip up, which they will hopefully when the financial regulations come in. If we can develope good youth players with an improved youth setup and have a bigger stadium as well then all the better. The hope of achieving something and building for sucess is what footballs about not what a stadium looks like and what f**king views it has!
[KONK] Yeah, I appreciate it’s all about the glory, which is what made our Europa League run so ridiculously brilliant, but modern football is rubbish. QPR ain’t going to finish second again. Ipswich, Burnley and Wolves aren’t about to win the league, and Forest aren’t going to win the European Cup. Pompey fans were very happy winning the FA cup, but don’t seem such a happy bunch these days; I just think it’s very easy to get carried away with unrealistic expectations and before you know it, you’re relegated and you’ve got a load of older players on top money that you find impossible to shift on. Pompey had ‘wealthy’ owners, a capable manager, a strong side etc. I’d sooner we were self-sufficient — I enjoyed our promotion from Div 4 with no money much more than I enjoyed our subsequent promotions. Al Fayed has put us on a decent footing and I’d sooner we now operated sensibly and got where we were under our own steam.
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