25/11 Fulham 2nd Half

By: Tony Butcher
Date: 26/11/2000

The rain had stopped towards the end of the first half and, at half time, some of the hydrophobic supporters trickled out onto the terrace, such that about half sat and half stood.

Fulham 2 Grimsby Town 1
25 Nov 2000, Nationwide League Division 1

The sky turned from dull grey to a beautiful satsuma colour. The half time DJ (Diddy David Hamilton - I think he probably did) regretfully announced that the live performance of the "new anthem" had been cancelled because of the weather - so they played it twice over the tannoy. You could almost see 10,000 people cringe as one. It's a shocker. The words were printed in the programme and here's a sample "We're not Real Madrid, we're not Barcelona, we are Fulham, Al Fayed's the owner" and "We've got three points, you've got none, Ha-ha-ha-he-he" I half expected the next line to be "I'm the laughing gnome and you can't catch me" Lyrics written by a 7 year old? What's worse Al Fayed "sings" some of it. If you ever meet a Fulham supporter you must confront them with this.

Grimsby Town Coyne McDermott Fostervold Groves Livingstone Butterfield Coldicott Burnett Campbell Donovan Nielsen   Subs Bloomer Jeffrey Croudson Willems D Smith

The football - Bloomer replaced Livingstone at half time. A straight swap, no positional changes. The second half was mostly one way traffic, with Town retreating further and further back towards their own goal. Within a couple of minutes Coyne had to push aside a long range shot from the Fulham right. A couple of minutes later he pushed a Goldbaek curling right foot drive from 20 yards, just to the centre left, onto the bar. Fulham visibly altered their method - they started to shoot on sight, rather than try and pass the ball through and around the Town defence. This forced the Town midfield and defence to push up a bit more, thus creating some space behind and to the sides.

For the first 15 minutes Town kept Fulham down to 3 or 4 shots from outside the area (all of which required Coyne to make saves - 2 parried away when angled across him and two held low to his left), and to over-hit through balls. After 10 or so minutes Saha replaced Goldbaek and they thus had three very fast and strong centre forwards on the pitch. Incidentally Saha has wondrous hair - all beads and plaits blowing in the wind. Within a minute or two Saha twisted and turned on the left edge of the Town area and smacked a shot across Coyne towards the top right hand corner. Coyne leapt horizontally and punched the ball away.

After 60 minutes Fulham finally scored. Campbell slide tackled Clark and the referee gave Fulham a free kick, about 35 yards out on the Town left. Clark took it quickly and the ball eventually looped up to Butterfield near the right edge of the Town area, alone. Butterfield headed firmly high across the face of the Town penalty area , Coldicott and Clark challenged, the ball fell to Clark, who calmly played a through ball between Coldicott and Fostervold, about 5 yards outside the area, on the centre left. Boa Morte, from an outside right position, sprinted onto the through ball and lifted a left foot shot around and above Coyne as he raced out to dive at the feet of BOA MORTE. Silence descended upon the terrace.

Within a few minutes Butterfield was replaced by Jeffrey. This resulted in Donovan dropping back to right midfield, with Jeffrey rampaging around up front. Jeffrey was on the pitch for 25ish minutes, touched the ball perhaps three times and seemed to pick up the Jellyfish's place on the ball avoidance scheme. Conversely, Donovan perked up a bit. Not much, just a bit. Rather than running away from the ball he started to trot towards it. Town had a better attacking shape, until it got to the front two. Nielsen was rarely involved in the second half. Perhaps it was his golden boots that weighed him down. Yes, the Golden Dude was wearing golden boots for his golden years. Jeffrey is Nogan 2000. It's official.

Town had an attack somewhere during the middle of the half. The ball was played around midfield from left to right, then back to the centre to Bloomer, on the half way line. He sold Boa Morte a dummy stepped inside and surged forward into a gap. He kept in surging until he got the edge of the area where he slightly scuffed his shot straight at the 'keeper. The next 15 or so minutes were mainly Fulham possession, with them simply playing the ball across the park until one of their players made a run that wasn't picked up. It was continental style possession football - passing and multiple movements. They always had someone stuck on the opposite touchline, unmarked, of course. Most importantly their forwards were extremely quick off the mark and very strong. It often took two or three Town defenders to stop them when they twisted and turned in the penalty area.

Curiously Fulham didn't have any clear opportunities within the penalty area. At the hint of space some Town players pounced like hungry, hungry hippos. Coyne had several more long range shots to save, it was noticeable that a very high proportion of their shots from outside the area went on target. Coyne had more saves to make in the second half, and they were very impressive for the most part, but they were all from outside the box. The back 4 were good enough to keep them away from the box, or at least to give enough room for Coyne to come off his line and grab the ball off the feet of the strikers (which he had to do two or three times). With about 10-15 minutes left Burnett was replaced by Willems in a straight swap. Willems touched the ball twice - taking two free kicks near the end.

Town did not look like shooting, let alone scoring, so it was just a case of keeping the score down to non-humiliating proportions. If Town were going to score it would require a hug slice of fortune - oh for a comedy own goal, or the 'keeper falling over. Fulham were relentless, they never let the pace of the game go down, and none of them looked tired at the end. In the last 15 or so minutes they had moments of danger principally because Town players started to slow down. They looked worn out. Fulham usually score in the last 15 minutes and, yep, they did so here. Tiredness was probably the root cause of the goal Town broke up a Fulham attack and the ball was rolled to Coldicott, in the middle of the Town half. He played a terrible weak pass straight to Saha about 30 yards out. SAHA sprinted forward and, from the edge of the box, smacked a right footed drive between two defenders legs and into the right hand side of Coyne's goal. Coyne didn't move. It was a hard, fast shot and it seemed that Coyne didn't see the ball.

Town had a bit more possession, though nothing came of any of it. Until a couple of minutes from the end, that is. Donovan received a pass in the middle of the Fulham half with his back to goal. He knocked it to the left and beat his marker, turned inside and ran towards goal. No-one challenged him so he continued, passing two defenders who simply stared at him in amazement ("That's Donovan, he doesn't do dribbles!"). He kept on going into the area and a central defender moved towards him, then backed away, ushering him through. By this time he was on the edge of the 6 yard box. The goalkeeper finally decided to come off his line and DONOVAN rolled the ball under Taylor. Think John Barnes in Brazil - a straight run and no tackles.

Nothing else happened - 3 minutes of extra time during which Town had 2 free kicks, aimed towards Fostervold and Groves, which produced no excitement. The very last moment of the game were a Town attack, 25 yards out. Nielsen released Campbell, 20 yards out with a clear run on goal...and the referee blew for full time.

So there we have it. An unembarrassing defeat to the best team in the division, by far. Or rather the best players in the division. Their forwards always wanted to do a little too much with the ball, allowing Town to get men back, or get organised. The back four (or 5 if you include Livvo) performed quite heroically at times, with Groves having an excellent game, topped only by McDermott. Bloomer played well, matching the Fulham forwards for pace and power. And he brought the ball forward, like Handyside but with pace. Campbell was again busy, neat and a bit of an irritant to the opposition - he falls well. Coyne couldn't be faulted for his performance today, bringing off some trademark show-stopping saves, and even coming off his line well to mop up. His kicking was again wayward, with many going straight into touch. Fostervold didn't seem to do much, but what he did he did well.

Lawrence got what he wanted - a performance. Though the supporters would prefer an awful performance and a point.

Nick0's Man of the Match - despite Coyne's saves, I'll plump for the all round effectiveness of McDermott. For some strange reason Michel Platini gave the MoM award to a Fulham player, and not Danny Butterfield.

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