On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by ...
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Craven Cottage.
Four great walls, and four grey towers,
Overlooking football prowess.
As the floodlight towers of Craven Cottage's footballing Camelot floated magically in the distance, just above the horizon, centre-left, I knew already, instinctively, that those thoughts were about as poetic as the day's events were likely to get. There was a distinct absence "of barley and of rye", "yellow-leaved waterlily" and "green-sheathed daffodilly" and, for sure, "the sedge has withered from the lake", if I may be so bold as to mix my metrical metaphors, momentarily. After all, John Keats would, surely, have been a black-and-whites fan too, had he also lived a century or two later.
Just around the corner from this spot, I found Joe already at the bar of The Crabtree, "palely loitering" at the front of a four-deep crowd of clamouring punters. He was thirsty and hot enough (presumably from the hand-to-hand combat of fighting his way to the front of the queue and getting served) to buy himself two pints. My (single) pint of Guinness provided an easy black-and-white distraction from earlier, loftier black-and-white thoughts - and brought me back to the business at hand,
Before we commenced a final trudge towards the ground, a healthy crowd of friends and acquaintances had gathered, all-too-briefly, in the pub garden, 'near the big umbrella' - as Mike's text had described the spot. A mixture of Norwich (Mike and his son - plus Gary, who'd travelled up from the Isle of White) of Fulham (me, David and his son) and a neutral (Spurs fan Joe) set about tackling some of the bigger footballing questions of the day, over the first few drinks of the day:
Why were we each followers of our respective teams?
Was Mike really determined to inflict lifelong misery and pain on his 7-year-old son?
Could Norwich break a 28-year old hoodoo jinx of failing to beat their bogey team?
Would the threatened October rain hold off?
Who had endured the lousiest journey to the pub? The answer to this last was, incidentally, probably Garry (who'd been held up whilst using trains and boats, though he'd drawn the line at 'planes) rather than Joe (who merely claimed to have got out of the cab that was bringing him to the pub, when what should have been a friendly chat about football escalated unexpectedly into the (Gooner) cabby announcing, repeatedly, that Spurs were "rubbish"). The truth sometimes hurts. As can a long and unexpected walk.
The seven of us split into 3 separate groups to find our respective seats in different areas of the ground. I would sit with Mike and Tom, as I had for the last match between these sides. That was Tom's first ever game, on 12th April, when 25,028 had watched a narrow 1-0 Premier League win by a poor Fulham side over a slightly less poor Norwich side. This time only 20,776 (17% fewer) had made the same mistake, of turning up in SW6 to witness the action; with both sides now playing Championship football. Or, in Fulham's case at least, trying to do so. Of Fulham's starting line-up in that previous game, only Colombian international Hugo Rodallega had survived to play again - although Costa Rican international Bryan Ruiz and former England international Scott Parker, each of whom started this time, were both also important squad members for the club at the time of that last fixture. Meanwhile, Norwich started with no less than seven players who had featured in that previous meeting.
It is a measure of how these two sides have fared in the intervening 8 months (and, perhaps, of the consistency provided by greater continuity in one of the clubs) that Norwich started the day at the top of the table; while Fulham were 22nd - out of 24 teams. Although the away side had, despite that gulf between the two teams' positions in the current table, famously failed to register a win against Fulham in a run of matches consisting of 16 meetings in all competitions over a 28-year period - including 4 last season, alone. It would have been easy to make a lazy assumption about the likely result this time, expecting a break in that poor Norwich barren spell, after looking at the teams' respective recent records. Yes, Norwich had the league's most prolific front line (21 goals 'for' in 11 games); and yes, Fulham had the Championship's leakiest defence (22 goals 'against'). The bookies had taken note and made Norwich firm favourites - BUT Norwich had won only one of their previous five games in all competitions, while Fulham had won 3 of their last 4 games and had also demonstrated a significant upturn in form (especially at the back) since the appointment of popular caretaker-manager Kit Symons. At home they had conceded just four goals in the last 5 league games. Perhaps the lazy bookies hadn't noticed this, since they didn't even fancy a draw.
"Are you ready to rumble, Sir Lancelot?" Kick-off at Camelot.
The game started at a hectic pace, though with a notable absence of finesse. Norwich had the upper hand in early exchanges. When, by the 6th minute, their travelling fans sang "On The Ball, City", the lyric seemed apt for the style of play being demonstrated by both sides: "Kick off, throw in, have a little scrimmage / Keep it low, a splendid rush". Play was fragmented by fouls, frustrating off-sides and a 10th-minute injury to Hoogland (who would last just another 10 minutes before being replaced). As expected, things were not overly poetic. Thirty English Pounds Sterling was starting to look like a high price to have paid for the 'entertainment' now unfolding. As the away fans asked "Is this a Lie - Bre - Ree?" (to the tune of Verdi's "La Donna è Mobile" - those Norwich fans are proper Culture Vultures, not just Canaries) the more erudite home fans might have wished that there were, indeed, a few books on hand to borrow, and to help pass the time.
Despite a significant possession advantage, the BBC later noted (with their normal, malevolent relish) that Norwich "failed to force a single meaningful save from Fulham goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli in the first period". The home side had laid out their stall early: an attritional approach; staying mostly deep, inviting the visitors to come onto them; and threatening on the break. After 15 minutes, Norwich received clear warning of the potential danger posed by this approach. Parker stole the ball off Hoolahan on the right of midfield, on the half-way line, and released it a few yards wider for Hoogland to feed Lasse Vigen Christensen - who is billed as "one of Denmark’s most promising young players" (and who, coincidentally, made his First Team debut for Fulham in the first leg of the FA Cup tie at Carrow Road, Norwich, in January). Christensen quickly fed Rodallega - who was inside and forward of him, on the right of centre. Hugo cleverly disguised his step-over and left the ball for record signing Ross McCormack. The Colombian then sprinted forward into space to receive and return a defence-splitting 1-2 with his Scottish international team-mate. whose right-footed shot looped up and away, into the Norwich fans, via the desperate blocking tackle of Russell Martin. Other yellow-shirted players, with less awareness, were left disorientated by Fulham's quick and clever movement.
Just six minutes later, another break on the right by the home side saw Christensen dispossess Hoolahan and feed Parker. Rodallega collected yet another well-judged pass from Parker, on the run, just inside the Norwich half. This time the Colombian held up the ball and eventually cut inside. It looked for all the world like he'd made the wrong choice and wasted the opportunity; but he'd drawn the defensive cover of Alexander Tettey towards him before releasing a sideways pass left across the middle into space for Christensen, who had covered a lot of ground at pace to make himself available. The Great Dane repeated Hugo's trick: dwelling on the ball momentarily to draw the covering Martin, before sending a 'slide-rule pass' further left for Sean Kavanagh - just as McCormack made a clever, conspicuous, darting run into the middle, which drew right back Steven Whittaker out of position and away from the danger area. Kavanagh consequently received the ball in acres of space. He took a single, cushioned, forward touch, looked up, gauged his range and bided his time, Then the young Dubliner rocketed a sweet left-foot strike, low between the recovering Whittaker and the lunging Dawson; and, critically, beyond the sprawling Ruddy, to finish the elegant, sweeping move with his first senior club goal, in only his 5th appearance. Bosh: 1-0. A score against the balance of possession, perhaps; but hardly against the run of play.
When the anticipated rain finally arrived, after 36 minutes, sending fans from the uncovered areas of the ground scurrying in search of the few remaining unfilled, dry spaces, it was the most excitement we'd seen since the goal; but more was to follow. The smallest man on the pitch, Wes Hoolahan, was called upon twice in the space of a minute to clear goal-bound efforts off the line; the second from a powerful Dan Burn glancing header, after a Ruiz corner, whipped in from Fulham's right. Norwich had done well to maintain just a one-goal deficit, for all their possession advantage.
And so to the half-time break, during which I noticed one of the "VIP"s on the Craven Cottage balcony basking in the faint glory of a passable impression of Daniel Craig - or his dad. It reminded me of the bloke in the White Swan pub on Mill Road, in Cambridge, back in the mid-1980's. He always did his best to look like a low-rent Michael Caine, wore Harry Palmer spectacles, smoked ostentatiously and would give anyone who offered him an enquiring glance a conspiratorial look in return, which seemed to say "yes it IS me, but don't let on - no unwanted publicity, please"; but I digress slightly.
Just 31 seconds after the restart, Cameron Jerome put in his own dramatic performance, tumbling in the penalty area after receiving a pass from Tettey. The slightest of physical contact had caused his legs to buckle and cease functioning, as he went down like the proverbial sack of potatoes / ton of bricks, under a challenge from Giraffe-like Dan Burn. Rather than the expected yellow card for Jerome's 'simulation', a dubious penalty was awarded. Although, conspicuously, no card was shown to Burn for the supposed 'offence', The latter was clearly both astonished and crest-fallen at the referee's decision. Grabban, who had played little positive part in the action so far, placed the ball on the spot and stepped up from distance to strike a right-foot effort with confidence and power ... against the left-side of the cross bar and back out to safety.
"Oops!" Grabban leans back to leather the ball (& Norwich's chance of equalising) against the wood-work. Karma for the (rightly?) aggrieved home side and fans.
A lot of fuss and bluster ensued for the next 45 minutes; mostly with Fulham defending their slender advantage. Neil Adams was forced to replace the injured Hoolahan and chose to remove the ineffective Grabban; but he left on Bradley Johnson, who had the most error-strewn game of anybody. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Adams was unable to find the key to the locked back door at Craven Cottage; but, in his defence, he was missing Northern Ireland hero Lafferty as an attacking option off the bench. Hooper added energy to the front line and Murphy brought pace and guile. The Guardian later claimed that "Johnson’s drive was the closest Norwich came to making amends for Grabban’s miss". They were, as is so often the case, wrong; although, to be fair, fed intelligently by Tettey, Johnson's 71st minute, left-footed, 25-yard effort from a well-worked space, just to left of centre, was quite close. After 80 minutes, substitute Josh Murphy cut in from his wide-left position, smashing a speculative right-footed effort from the corner of the penalty area against the crossbar, with Bettinelli well beaten. That was closer still. Could Fulham continue to hold out? There was still time for a couple of Fulham bookings and their 'keeper was lucky not to also be penalised, for frequent time-wasting. Time enough, too, for a series of Norwich corners and free-kicks and a half-chance header, half-unexpected and seen late at the far post by Michael Turner, from a Redmond cross.
As the final whistle went, many of the Norwich side bolted straight for the players' tunnel exit, just as many of their fans bolted for the congested exits of the Putney End. No doubt they felt frustrated by the result. Perhaps their 62% of possession left them feeling they had deserved more from the game; but 3 on-target efforts to 1 in Fulham's favour spoke volumes about their blunt attack, albeit with two strikes against the woodwork. Scott Parker summed up the home side's view with a welcome economy of words: "it's a bit of a cliché; but we showed some good character ... we probably didn't play as well as we could have done. At times we rushed our passing and never had control of the game; but we showed our fighting spirit. We've come off the pitch not playing nicely and not being a spectacle for our home fans ... but we looked very solid". The home fans may well have sought better entertainment; but Fulham's start to the season, under Felix Magath, had been SO bad that this win was still not enough to lift them out of the relegation zone. They should not, then, be too fussy; happy with three valuable points, which now leave Fulham just 10 points shy of the play-off places, after completing the first of a scheduled 7 games in 21 days. As Mike grabbed up his wilting (and still win-less) son to head straight for the tube, it was time for others to repair to The Crabtree for some well-informed post-match analysis.
Saturday's motley menagerie
So the Badgers beat the bemused Canaries, once again ... courtesy of Norwich's very own "Groundhog Day". Will it forever be the 2nd of February, every time these two teams meet? I do hope so - roll on 29 years!
Fulham (4-4-2 (Diamond))
- 40Marcus Bettinelli
- 2Tim Hoogland
- 6Nikolay Bodurov
- 33Dan Burn
- 32Sean Kavanagh
- 8Scott Parker
- 21Lasse Vigen Christensen
- 3Konstantinos Stafylidis
- 10Bryan Ruiz
- 20Hugo Rodallega
- 44Ross McCormack
Substitutes
- 1Gabor Kiraly
- 4Shaun Hutchinson
- 13Elsad Zverotic
- 14Patrick Roberts
- 27George Williams
- 28Emerson Hyndman
- 25Moussa Dembele
Manager
- Kit Symons
Norwich City (4-2-3-1)
- 1John Ruddy
- 2Steven Whittaker
- 5Russell Martin
- 6Michael Turner
- 23Martin Olsson
- 27Alexander Tettey
- 4Bradley Johnson
- 22Nathan Redmond
- 14Wes Hoolahan
- 7Lewis Grabban
- 10Cameron Jerome
Substitutes
- 26Declan Rudd
- 15Ignasi Miquel
- 8Jonny Howson
- 21Josh Murphy
- 28Gary O'Neil
- 39Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe
- 11Gary Hooper
Manager
- Neil Adams
Line-up graphic from FulhamFC.com
Referee: Graham Salisbury
Next up for Fulham, Rotherham United away on Tuesday night, at the New York Stadium. No, not THAT New York Stadium!
Referee: Graham Salisbury
Next up for Fulham, Rotherham United away on Tuesday night, at the New York Stadium. No, not THAT New York Stadium!
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