Why 'the local football team' gaffe has angered many Fulham FC fans
Fulham Pier's description of FFC has caused consternation on social media.
Normally I’ve got my finger to the pulse when it comes to Fulham, but I must admit that on Friday my attentions were firmly elsewhere. I was out in Northern Ireland working at The Open at Royal Portrush, clocking up a hideous amount of steps while trying to frantically cobble together a radio show.
The Open at Portrush was an event that demonstrated local pride in every sense. A hugely welcoming community of people proud to be hosting such a prestigious event and desperate for the local hero, Rory McIlroy, to come out triumphant at the course where he made a name for himself as a teenager.
As demonstrated there, ‘local’ is normally a word used in a good way, but in the frenzy of being at the golf, I missed Friday night’s furore on social media about the word ‘local’ being used in a much less positive fashion.
I am referring to the discovery of a Fulham Pier website article describing Fulham FC as ‘the local football team’ - which was uncovered by Mike Gregg on X. This all came after the club themselves posted a link to the Pier’s website.
At the time of writing, the phrase was still present on Fulham Pier’s website*. In fairness, the article is not aimed directly at Fulham fans - Fulham Pier is the club’s attempt to rebrand the newly re-built Riverside Stand as a friendly and welcoming social destination for local residents to enjoy on non match-days.
The initial branding of Fulham Pier has been an interesting one to observe from a distance. Quite clearly, there has been a determination not to market the facilities to Fulham fans. I would guess that some expensive market research has been conducted, and the conclusion was that the type of clientele that Fulham Pier wants to attract sees the association with football as a potential turn-off.
I’ve followed Fulham Pier on Instagram since it first launched and none of the posts or stories that I have seen have had anything to do with football and/or Fulham. The closest association was the fact famous Fulham fan Example was booked to DJ the opening party.
In all honesty, these choices have hardly kept me awake at night. I don’t live particularly near to Craven Cottage and I’m unlikely to travel there unless its for a match. However, would this be happening at a bigger club? Tottenham Hotspur are brilliant at generating non-football revenue, but they haven’t had to resort to rebranding part of their stadium ‘White Hart Pier’.
I do have a personal dislike for this recent fetish to over-contextualise everything. Whilst many local residents probably can’t name Fulham’s full starting 11, the vast majority know what ‘Fulham Football Club’ is. Even if they don’t, they’ll probably work it out. The Ted Lasso effect of needing to over-explain everything as if we have five brain cells is quite infuriating.
If it was Bishops Park Panthers FC they were referring to I’d understand the need to provide some context, but not for a Premier League football club.
The real reason for the reaction though is because many Fulham fans feel like the hardcore fanbase is right at the bottom of the club’s priority list compared to the hospitality, tourist and casual consumer that FFC are trying to attract. The fact that there is a real football club here followed by a core of 15,000 ordinary, hard-working fans seems like a big old inconvenience to the hierarchy.
When supporting a team like Fulham you realise pretty quickly that the wider football community doesn’t really care about us too much. The small size of the fanbase means that column inches and coverage are prioritised elsewhere, best demonstrated by the fact The Athletic doesn’t have a dedicated Fulham writer anymore despite pretty much every other club in the Premier League having one.
Despite the frustration, I think we all accept that that’s the world we live in - however, that’s why it’s particularly grating when our own club airbrushes Fulham out of the conversation.
I know that an ‘about us’ page on the Fulham Pier website is not exactly like being on the front page of The Times - but it’s the principle that clearly there’s been discussions about how ‘the local football team’ next door must be carefully stage-managed.
None of us mind that Fulham is generating new, exciting revenue, but please don’t ignore the fans that helped you get to this point.
*Since publication, the page on the Fulham Pier website has been updated after consultation with the Fulham Supporters Trust.
(Cover image credit: Arne Müseler / arne-mueseler.com / CC-BY-SA-3.0)