Fulham 3 v Middlesbrough 1
FA Cup Third Round
This weekend I have mostly been watching the FA Cup Third Round, in three eventful installments, namely: Fulham v. Middlesbrough, Charlton Athletic v. Chelsea and Sheffield United v. Mansfield Town. Having travelled to Kings Cross down the invariably unreliable East Coast Mainline, I caught a Circle Line service to Edgware Road where I crossed the footbridge to get a District Line train to Putney Bridge.
If per chance, you choose this route to get to Fulham FC, DO NOT alight at Fulham Broadway station. There is a football ground there but it’s called Stamford Bridge and it's where Chelsea FC play their home games (and they were playing away at the Valley later today).
Craven Cottage is a ten minute walk through Bishops Park from Putney Bridge. After today’s first game, I travelled back from Putney Bridge to Earls Court, wandered downstairs to the Piccadilly Line, caught the northbound underground to St. Pancras and from there used Platform A, to travel on the Rainham bound train that stops en route at Charlton. There may well be other routes available but the choices detailed above are by far the cheapest and most convenient.
My first port of call was, down by the riverside, at Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham FC. 🎵 “Tommy Trinder used to hide behind his trilby but soon he will be the proudest in the land. He’ll be thinking of his cottage by the river, when we deliver that scoreline in his hand. And there behind, as steady as a rock, that softly spoken tiger, Alex Stock”.🎶
Viva el Fulham! Omg! What a completely ghastly aberration those FA Cup final records were. 🎶“We’ve got to keep on scoring golden goals, it keeps the guv’nor off the old King Cole!”🎵. Oh FFFS! Make it stop!
In the week leading up to FA Cup Third Round weekend Marco Silva’s Fulham beat their local rivals Chelsea 2-1 on Wednesday night to go level with Liam Rosenior’s side on 31 points in the Premier League table.
While Kim Hellberg's Middlesbrough’s 4-0 win over Southampton at the Riverside Stadium on Sunday saw them move to within six points of Championship leaders Coventry City, who lost 3-2 at Birmingham City. The win over Chelsea was the Cottagers sixth unbeaten top-flight game in a row.
Silva himself was banished to the stands this afternoon, serving a suspension for having been yellow carded on three separate occasions. He made seven changes from the team who beat Chelsea. But, following a few second-half tweaks, his side still had enough to in their armoury to get the job done, mostly in the last thirty minutes of the game.
The Magic of the FA Cup - Part 1 - Saturday 10.2.26 (3pm) - FA Cup Third Round - Fulham (0) 3 (Harry Wilson 60 OG, Emile Smith-Rowe 77, Kevin 90+3) v. Middlesbrough (1) 1 (Hayden Hackney 30) - Attendance: 20,675
Fulham: Lecomte, Castagne, Diop, Cuenca, Sessegnon (Robinson 66), Reed (Cairney 56), Lukić, Traoré (Wilson 57), Smith Rowe (Berge 86), Kevin, Kusi-Asare (Jiménez 56). Unused subs - Leno, Andersen, Amissah, Ridgeon
Middlesbrough: Brynn, Browne, Ayling (Fry 80), Malanda, Targett (Hansen 86), Morris, Hackney (Nypan 80), Silvera, Gilbert, Whittaker (Ibeh 81), Conway (Burgzorg 63) Unused subs - Hamilton, Nypan, McLaughlin, McCormick, Kanté.
Having ‘got my steps in’ along both the south and north embankments of the Thames before the game, I entered the turnstiles on Stevenage Road, which were quite a tight squeeze to get through, dressed as I was in several layers of winter apparel (that’s my excuse), to watch the second-half of the Macclesfield v Crystal Palace tie on the TV, in the well appointed bars beneath both the Hammersmith Road and Riverside stands. It needs to be said these facilities are a vast improvement on a lot of ‘fan zone’ type set-ups that have sprung up all over the place in recent years. It's as though someone actually put some thought into it for a (refreshing) change.
I watched enthralled, as Non-league ‘Macc’ beat the FA Cup holders and Premier League club Palace 2-1, in what is being billed as ‘the greatest giant-killing shock of all time’, because the Eagles currently stand 117 places above the sixth-tier Silkmen in the football pyramid.
Crystal Palace!? Giants!? That's stretching a point. But there is a sufficient gulf in status between the two respective clubs for me not to undermine the Cheshire side’s achievements, merely because of of the clichéd wording attached to their massively impressive achievement.
Note* this is Macclesfield FC I’m talking about, who were formed just nine years ago, following the demise of Macclesfield Town, who people have been wrongly referring to the new(ish) club as in the wake of today's result. They play at the same ground and wear the same colours as the old team did, but officially they are a completely different entity.
For the record, “by one of those pulchritudinous quirks of fate that the beautiful game of Association Football often throws up” to coin a phrase I’m wont to use regularly on this blog, this is only the second time that a non-league team have knocked the FA Cup holders out of the FA Cup
In case you are wondering… No! It wasn’t Sutton United against Coventry City in 1989, because Cov had won the FA Cup in 1987 and therefore weren’t the current holders. But in 1909, 117 years ago, by way of a massive coincidence, this afternoon’s fall-guys, Crystal Palace, were still a non-league side when they defeated Wolverhampton Wanderers 4-2 at home in a First Round replay after the initial tie had finished 2-2.
Middlesbrough supporters turned up at Craven Cottage in healthy numbers today and made a proper racket. I hold them (the Boro fans) in very high regard following their recent visit to Charlton Athletic, a few days after a very popular Addicks supporter, Norman Baxter, had taken ill at a home game against Portsmouth and sadly passed away later in the day.
The visiting supporters from Teesside were a complete credit to both themselves and their club that night. And you don't forget stuff like that. It was a highly charged and emotional occasion and the respect and reverence displayed by the ‘Smoggies' that night, acted as a massive comfort to all of those who knew ‘Headphones Norm’.
Today's game started in a lively fashion, with both teams looking to find an opening, amidst the grand backdrop of Craven Cottage’s array of old and new stands. It's a ground that I enjoy visiting, in a traditional setting, with an almost relaxed ambience. Boro, for the most part, were keeping Fulham in check, as the hosts tried to penetrate the final third using the whole width of the pitch, including both flanks.
It took thirty minutes for the opening goal to arrive and when it did come, it was the visitors who claimed it, with no small amount of panache. Sam Silvera exchanged a one-two with Aidan Morris while surging into the hosts area where he ‘nutmegged’ both Ryan Sessegnon and Jorge Cuenca before rolling a slide rule pass into the path of Hayden Hackney, who picked his spot with aplomb.
Shortly before half-time Fulham cane close to grabbing an equaliser, but Luke Ayling cleared Jorge Cuenca's strike off of the line after Harrison Reed had picked out the Spaniard from a corner kick.
The second half continued in the same vein as the first had, with Fulham patiently proceeding with caution, knowing that although they needed to get back into the game, their priority for the time being was not to concede the killer blow of a second goal. But with the hour mark fast approaching, it was becoming imperative that they needed to score themselves as a matter of some urgency if they wanted to be in the ball bag for the fourth round draw.
Cue a triple change, as Harry Wilson, Raul Jimenez and Tom Cairney were sent on from the bench to ‘liven things up a bit’. And what an impressive example of ‘impact subbing’ that turned out to be for the Cottagers, Lillywhites, Whites or whatever they're calling themselves these days.
Within four minutes of entering the fray, Wilson netted from a pearler of a strike, curling the ball into the top corner of the net to level up the score.
Middlesbrough were nearly back in front within minutes, but Tommy Conway’s effort came back off of the crossbar. But the tide had turned now… you go and look how much fuller the Thames looks now than it did earlier, on your way out, if you don't believe me.
Further proof of the tidal variant came in the seventy-seventh minute, when Emile Smith-Rowe found a pocket of space in the visitors area, Tom Cairney found him with a very precise pass and the former Arsenal starlet gave Fulham the lead.
This finely balanced game moved into stoppage time, when Wilson’s cross was forced home from close range by the Brazilian, Kevin Santos Lopes de Macedo, who prefers to just be known as Kevin. There wasn't enough time for Boro to force their way back into the game now and the home side progressed through to the fourth round after turning up late for the game, so to speak.. FT: Fulham 3 v. Middlesbrough 2
