Fair enough. I think MAF’s ‘Man Utd of the South’ comment was one of those outlandish things he said when he brought in Keegan and Wilkins and sacked Micky Adams (unfairly in my view). The media used it as a stick to beat him with when we didn’t take the Premier League by storm, but to be mid-table in the top flight wouldn’t really have been considering underachieving by too many Fulham fans at that time.

Would certainly agree with you about Roy’s results. But to turn us into anything more than ‘little old Fulham’ we’d have to be producing regular top ten finishes and making more frequent journeys into Europe. If we can start outperforming our capital rivals on a regular basis, then maybe we’ll feature a bit higher on the London-centric media’s radar.

Personally, as you can no doubt tell, I’m a bit of a sentimentalist who likes the tradition, the history and the romance of the ground. Of course, when I was first introduced to Fulham, the football was so bad it was almost a sideshow. Look at how far we’ve come!

And perhaps you are correct about the traditions of the club being its image.

But then I would go as far as to say that Roy, maybe for just this year (who knows), has made the put some results behind the tradition. Rather than this ‘little old fulham’ image, perhaps it could be more.

I dunno, I’m going to keep my eye on it.

I think we’re both onto something though…

There’s a case for saying Coleman – as much as I liked the guy – seriously squandered the inheritence. He took Tigana’s team to ninth but failed to kick on from there. Bought a lot of dross in the transfer market, dismantled Tigana’s excellent fitness regime and changed the playing philosophy. The football had become very stale by the end and we were dropping like a stone.

The less said about Sanchez the better.

As for our identity, I think club’s have identities largely through traditions than the evolution of a team. I suspect the rest of the country might just (for the first time since the 60s) be giving us a second look now but we’ve got a gorgeous ground, steeped in history and tradition, friendly fans and we play attractive football. Isn’t that enough?