Fulham programmes over the years
Over the past few weeks I have been clearing out my garage.
In one corner is my collection of Fulham programmes over my years of support, nearly 55 now. These were exactly the sort of stuff you amass in a garage: you don’t want to throw them out but you rarely read them.
So I decided, before they go to the dustbin area, at least to read them one last time.
Programmes, like most things in football, have changed dramatically. Once they were your main line of connection to your club: now you have websites and social media and it has reached the stage that some clubs do not publish one at all. Yet they remain a fascinating archive.
In the past programmes used to be little more than a glorified team sheet in a flimsy booklet with little advertising.
Those were the days before mega stores, with no commercial department, and the average item – say a bobble hat – could cost (in new money) as little as 75p.
The modern Fulham programme owes much to Dennis Turner, a brilliant economist and speaker, who worked for the old Midland Bank and then HSBC.
He contributed a history column and then became programme editor, gathering around him mainly university graduates and Dr Gerard Lyons – who was Boris Johnson’s economic advisor and nominated as Governor of the Bank of England – was one writer. Ian Hawkey, a soccer journalist on The Times was another.
It was an informed quality accompaniment to the match day. Fulham, like most clubs, was still rooted in its working class background. You had testimonials for stalwarts like Stan Brown.
In one article of remarkable prescience Fulham secretary Graham Hortop predicted Sunday football, overseas players and the use of computers (this was well before the internet and mobiles). The match photographs, taken by Ken Coton, were of high quality and the written copy was articulate.
It all changed when programmes became glossy magazines and merchandising catalogues of some 90 pages.
Unpaid volunteers were replaced by a publishing houses and the product became so anodyne that a counter-culture of fanzines emerged.
Fulham’s TOOFiF (“There’s only one F in Fulham”) was written and published by David Lloyd who once wrote for the official programme.
I went down memory lane as I revisited the 1970-1971 season, when Fulham achieved promotion from the old Third Division but then typically lost 0-1 to Preston North End in the last game of the season when only a draw would have won us the Championship.
The following season – in the old Second Division – the building of a new stand all but bankrupted Fulham and music hall comedian Tommy Trinder was out of his depth.
Property developer Eric Miller then joined the board and brought with him his henchman Ernie Clay, who took over after Miller shot himself. Clay wanted to realise the development potential of the Fulham ground by the Thames and other subsequent owners had the same idea.
When it was proposed that Fulham merge with Queens Park Rangers Jimmy Hill launched a consortium to save the club. Hill was on the cover of the programme during his chairmanship and – as Fulham were relegated twice and faced leaving the League altogether – he used his column to attack what few supporters remained for not being supporters.
Things were so bad that a chat line was set up on which you could rant and rail.
With the coming of Al Fayed the programme went glossy again but, although it brought back certain memories as Fulham reached the top tier in 4 seasons, I did not read those programmes with the same boyish enthusiasm.
