A marriage made in west London

THEY have the best-named fanzine in football – ‘There’s Only One F In Fulham’.

They have the loveliest ground in the Premier League. Their one-time chairman, Tommy Trinder, was a comedian. ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton – ask your mum or dad – is the stadium announcer. George Best and Rodney Marsh played for them – at the same time. And now they have Damien Duff. Really, what’s not to like about Fulham FC? There was always something dreamy, a touch eccentric but entirely admirable about the club whose comfy home in west London is tucked into a bend on the Thames, like a hand in a glove.

In his celebrated account of English football in the 60s, ‘Soccer Syndrome’, John Moynihan captured the essence of the team who wore classic black and white in those increasingly technicolour days: “a Saturday afternoon team, offering a feeling of animated recreation rather than solid professionalism… a side of happy, sometimes comic tries watched by garrulous actors, serious actors, pantomime players, band-leaders, stuntmen, starlets; tweeds, black leather, green leather, pink ankle-length knickers, baggy overcoats over armour-plated suede, cheroots between thumb and first finger.”