It's time for Fulham to channel the spirit of Hamburg
Pack up your sun loungers - it's time to get to work.
On this day 16 years ago, Roy’s boys famously came from behind at Craven Cottage to beat Hamburg and cause a tidal wave on the Thames.
Trailing 1-0 to a Mladen Petric free-kick, it looked like reaching the inaugural Europa League final might be a step too far. But all of us at the Cottage that night remember the birth of “Stand up if you still believe” - the chant reverberating round the old ground and causing everyones’ hairs to stand on end.
The team were up for it - but, crucially, so were we.
I mention all this not only as the hook for this article, but also as proof that Fulham do know how to push on and create special moments in spring. And they need our help to do it.
As Jack mentioned the other week, a late-season implosion from the Whites is becoming a bit of an annual affair, but is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Do we need to snap out of this narrative that Fulham are on the beach in April and May? Sure, it’s great to be free of any relegation scraps, but it’s not as if there’s nothing to play for.
As it stands, four points separate Brighton in sixth and Sunderland in 12th. That is incredible. This level of table congestion is usually reserved for the opening stages of a campaign, before it inevitably “shakes out”.
I have all the sides chasing Europe remaining this tight until the final day - and as you can see, I’m three for three so far in guessing Fulham results. Nostradamus indeed.
I also (with my pessimistic hat firmly on my bonce) predicted us to miss out on goal difference thanks to the final kick of the season - but that doesn’t have to be the story. Marco Silva and the boys still hold the pen.
It starts at Arsenal. A win would not only take the title race out of the Gunners’ hands, but it’d put a rocket under our European push. A point would be just as valuable going into Wolves away, before facing Bournemouth and Newcastle at home.
The win against Villa puts us as close as we’ve actually been to European qualification since we returned to the Premier League. At this stage in 2023/24 we were a full eight points off seventh, which at that stage still could have be a European spot, before Man United won the FA Cup.
And after 34 games last season, though we had three more points, we were still six off Aston Villa in seventh and were clinging onto the possibility that eighth could yield a continental spot. It never did.
This time around, there are no conditions; no complex mathematical permutations; no coefficient technicalities. We’re right in the mix - and anything is possible. So, pack up the sun loungers and fold away the beach towels. The Whites have shown that they’re locking in - it’s vital we do the same.
Stand up if you still believe…