The Tanner Report: Fulham 1 Stoke 0

I watched this game with Bob Tickler’s godson in Craven Cottage itself. I don’t like the word “iconic”, but it’s an accurate description of a pavilion unique in football.

It started its life as Anne Boleyn’s hunting lodge in Bishop’s Park, was the place where Lord Lytton wrote Last Days of Pompeii (could not have been a great game that day). 

In the 1880s the Cottage was destroyed in a fire and out of the wilderness the ground was built.

The Cottage itself remained in the corner detached from the Stevenage Road stand and Putney End, housing the dressing rooms on the ground floor and a players’s area on the first floor.

It had a snooker table and physiotherapist room where once Johnny Haynes – England’s captain – was aghast to see Charlie Mitten’s greyhound on the treatment table getting a massage.

It stayed as the area for players and their families until the bringing down of the Riverside Stand this season. It became the Directors’Box and the owners – the Khan family – restored it with sensitivity to Fulham and its traditions.

The only problem is that the viewing of the game area – the Cottage balcony – is behind a corner and its sight line obstructed by cornices and posts supporting the roof.

You do however get a wonderful view of the blood orange  sun setting over the River Thames.

Readers now would have read two paragraphs without any description of the match.

It was in truth forgettable, Fulham had many chances but only took one in the first half  and in the second were hanging on desperately to that one goal lead.

Anthony Knockaert was my man of the match with his intelligent crossing but Cyrus Christie and Bobby Decordova-Reid, with 3 goals in two matches, all put in commendable shifts.

Of worry – as we have Reading at home this Wednesday – were the injuries to Alfie Mawson and Josh Onomah.