“Art Is Like Football … It’s Meaningless, You Know”*

Fulham FC vs. Bristol City - 3pm k-o

Saturday 24th September, 2016 - The Championship

A controversial opening gambit, you think? I should say so! Although I have taken the above title quote about “Context” (deliberately) out of ... errrrm, context; in order to achieve a certain degree of shock and awe. Or - something.

Today (Saturday 1^st October) is the start of a new month; and the unofficial start of my Autumn calendar. So it represents a good opportunity to try and forget last month. Or, at least, last month’s football. Later on, I plan to pick up the baton of my non-league football blog, when Enfield Town host Dulwich Hamlet at 3pm. That promises to be one of the prime fixtures of the Ryman Isthmian Premier League season. In a week that saw “Fat Sam” impale himself on the twin peaks of greed and stupidity (allegedly) - and given Gareth Southgate’s well-publicised aversion to taking on the role permanently - I thought it would also be a good opportunity to run the rule over Bradley Quinton’s credentials to replace Sam in “The Top Job” … and/or, possibly, in front the FA’s disciplinary board. Before that, however, there is the small matter of a Championship match to report on, from Craven Cottage. A game played the day after the last action in the English county cricket season.

It is one of the many, myriad, murky mysteries of the football fan’s fickle fate to ponder just why the “fixture computer” so often throws up random cup games which repeat recent or forthcoming match-ups. Swansea recently played Manchester City in back-to-back cup and league fixtures; Newcastle and Wolves also played déjà vu; and so it was that Fulham faced Bristol City last Saturday in the English second tier last weekend, just three days after throwing away a mid-week lead, a penalty-kick and a place in the last 16 of the EFL Cup against the same opponents … and no, I don’t know what that tournament is, either. So just don’t ask!

In that previous game, league top-scorer Tammy Abraham (on-loan from Fulham’s arriviste, West London rivals, Chelsea) came on as a substitute to score a last-minute winner, which took the scrumpy boys into seventh heaven – and the fourth round. After that defeat, Fulham manager Slaviša Jokanović had set about the task of stating the bleedin’ obvious, with gusto: "You have to play from the first minute to the last in all the games”, before going on to bleat that “We played many minutes of good football and … played very well in the first half" (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37357714). Would the Serbian and his team learn the harsh lessons of 90-minute football - and do better, this time out? Surely they couldn’t make the same mistakes again … could they?

No empty stomachs, here - and no David Bailey's amongst the security staff, either. Somewhere behind us is the oldest stand in the football league - and a game of football.

Luck seemed to fall into place on a couple of fronts, before Saturday’s game. Firstly, friend John P was unable to use his Riverside Stand season tickets on the day – which was good news for me, after I had earlier been offered some seats right down the front of the Hammersmith End, by friend Graham M (thanks anyway, Graham!). Then friend Jez C from Chelmsford was available and coincidentally already planning to be in London, at a loose end for the afternoon. He was, thus, able to join me for one of the day’s big grudge re-matches. We were a little pressed for time, after watching Jez’s daughter complete a lunch-time, open-water one mile swim in The Serpentine, at Hyde Park (well done, Holly!). After which, despite the best efforts of the dyslexic District line and the churlish Circle Line, we made it to the ground with time enough on our hands for a stroll through Bishop’s Park in the warm, afternoon sunshine; to be followed by a quick beer and a bite to eat, in The Chairman’s Club lounge. Which turned out to be just as well, since the fare on offer on the pitch was not best enjoyed on an empty stomach.

Fulham started brightly enough; but it soon became clear that, with the exception of club captain Scott Parker, in central midfield, few of their players could string three passes together – or make the right decisions, going forwards. This can be a problem, apparently, if you are hoping to win a football match. Almost without exception, everybody preferred to check inside or turn backwards, rather than press forwards with pace, or spread play wide quickly, when in possession. The result of which was a comparatively comfortable opening ten minutes for the Bristol defence. The visitors were content to sit back and soak up Fulham’s inept possession; but not for very long. After just 10 minutes “I.T.M.A.” came into play (yes, “It’s That Man Again”). Tammy Abraham (starting the game this time, rather than arriving fresh from the bench, as he had done so successfully, in mid-week) opened the scoring at the denouement of pretty much Bristol's first fast break (it was not to be their last) following a mis-placed pass by Fulham’s  defensive midfielder, MacDonald. This came just as the Whites were, themselves, stepping out and preparing to launch an attack of their own. As a result, when Bristol came a-calling, there was almost nobody home. Abraham finished neatly, but routinely, past Button from a low, driven Jamie Paterson cross. Oh Grandma Tammy, what big feet you’ve got. All the better to score against you with!

Abraham celebrates his opening goal. So lanky, he can't be contained within the frame of an enlarged photgraph.
I won’t bore you here with all the gory details of a blow-by-blow match commentary. Suffice it to say that there were plenty more blows to come (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37392283). Fulham huffed and puffed but couldn’t have blown anybody’s house down. They could easily have reached the half-time break already down by several goals. Mysteriously, Parker (along with “teenage sensation” Sessegnon, one of the few players on the pitch capable of matching Bristol’s endeavour and control) was substituted at half-time. His replacement, Stefan Johansen spent the second half looking for all the world like a man ambling around the Tate gallery, without a floor map, while his opponents got on with the business of securing three league points. Johansen was a strange swap, if made was “for tactical reasons”.

Look closely enough and you will see Jez & I "enjoying"(?) the first-half action.

Jez and I enjoyed the spectacle from the best seats in the house, thanks to Generous John; but it was bewildering to watch Fulham continually make the wrong decisions, when in possession. Almost Jozabed’s first contribution, after coming on as a 66^th minute substitute, with his side already 0-2 down, was to intercept a Bristol pass - only to inadvertently set-up the visitors’ third goal. It summed up inadvertent Fulham’s day. Later, and with only 11 minutes of normal remaining, referee Peter Bankes decided a three-goal cushion might not be enough for City. So he showed Fulham’s bemused and outclassed MacDonald a straight red card, for an innocuous challenge (indeed, barely a challenge at all) on Callum O'Dowda. Unsurprisingly, Bristol subsequently stretched their lead to four goals, even as 10-man Fulham continued to enjoy the majority (63%) of blunt possession. The Whites managed just two on-target attempts (and a strike of the woodwork) to show for it all. At full-time, with much of the home crowd already well on their way to the nearby tube stations, the score-line stood at an embarrassing 0-4. A result which made Wednesday night’s unwanted turn-around defeat look like a tactical masterclass, by comparison. Two worsening defeats in just 3 days, against the same opposition club; but, to be fair, Swansea had fared little better, against Manchester City in their re-maych. Later, I found out that Bristol City's head coach, Lee Johnson, comes from a family who "are very strong Fulham fans". Despite that, his team had, quite rightly, showed no mercy.

Meanwhile, Dulwich has a fine art gallery, you know. Opened to the public in 1817 in a building designed by Sir John Sloane, it is the oldest public art gallery in England. I am hopeful that an Enfield game against the hamlet’s local football side won’t prove to be as entirely “meaningless” as the art contained within said gallery - and within the Fulham squad. Come On, You Towners!

*Culture-Vulture reference: an earth-shattering admission by Simon Wilson (former Tate Gallery Education Officer – and later one of their curators) in “Bricks!”, a BBC Four arts documentary, filmed and broadcast forty years on from the accidental infamy and furore created around Carl Andre's pile-of-bricks sculpture, expensively acquired by London’s Tate Gallery in 1976. You MUST remember all of THAT, surely? To be fair to Wilson, he did add the caveat “if you don’t know the rules … you need to know the context”; and that is a pretty fair summary. Perhaps coach Jokanović and his Fulham players could do with brushing up on those (football) rules and context?
Wilson's fellow contributor to the same arts show (Matthew Collings, described as a “Writer and Artist”) added: “Even Renaissance art isn’t really accessible to everybody, immediately. It’s a pretty difficult thing to know what all those symbols are”. Admittedly, he did then go on to add that, without context, if you’re not interested in having your mind expanded by provocative art, “it feels much better to want to punch it”. And now I’m starting to feel warmer towards that supposed link between fine art and football fandom. Especially after a couple of pre-match pints. Do you think art fans fuel up on pre-gallery pints, too?