One magical summer: Fulham sign Edwin Van Der Sar
This one was a coup like we'd never seen before.
This was the signing that told everyone we had arrived.
I remember being on holiday with my family somewhere in the north of England and seeing this on the back page of a newspaper while being dragged around some shopping centre.
It’s a core memory for two reasons. One - we were on the back page of a national newspaper. And two - we signed Edwin bloody Van Der Sar!
A lot was made of the fact that Van Der Sar was 30 at the time of his arrival. While many conceded that goalkeepers reached their peak a lot later than outfield players, there was the insinuation that the Dutch number one wouldn’t have opted for the Premier League new boys if he was a year or two younger.
But if you look at the last 10 winners of the IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper award, only four of the last 10 winners were under 30 at the time of winning - and two of those were Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Whatever way you sliced it - this was a hell of a coup for the Whites.
At a reported £7m, it was a steal too - even 25 years ago. EVDS left Juventus after arrival of Gianluigi Buffon from Parma - and who could blame him? Particularly when the Old Lady left him without a squad number and forced him to train with the kids.
He immediately said all the right things, claiming at his unveiling: “The championship is not a realistic ambition this year but maybe in four years' time”.
(We ended up winning the Championship 21 years later. Boom tish.)
Those of us bemoaning our late start in summer (and winter) windows, will be buoyed to know it was ever thus. Edwin was our first summer signing of the window, arriving at Motspur Park on 1 August, less than three weeks before our curtain raiser at Old Trafford.
We weren’t the only club interested, of course. Van Der Sar admitted he spent a day in Liverpool with Gerard Houllier, with the Reds keen on recruiting the European Cup winner. We also had irons in the fire, if reports were to be believed, with Coventry City number one Magnus Hedman on the shopping list.
Van Der Sar, of course, did not disappoint at Craven Cottage. He conceded just 41 goals in 37 appearances during 2001-02, keeping no fewer than 15 clean sheets. Simply incredible. He’d give us four fantastic seasons before heading to Manchester United to win pretty much everything.
The Dutch are known for their honesty and pragmatism and Van Der Sar was no different. Upon signing a new deal at Craven Cottage in January 2005, he openly said if he’d got a phonecall from Sir Alex Ferguson at Man United or Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, then he wouldn’t have signed.
He got his call from Manchester five months later and off he went - but due to his new deal we got a £2m fee, though we received far more than that in Premier League points during his stay.
In a summer when some of the biggest names in world football were bandied about in the same breath as Fulham - Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, and Gabriel Batistuta to name just three - the arrival of Edwin Van Der Sar was the one that make everyone sit up and take notice.
And we were just gettng started.