Remembering Fulham FC

English Premier League club Fulham FC will face Spanish La Liga side Atletico Madrid in the final of the UEFA Europa League in the HSH-Arena in Hamburg tomorrow night.

And this fact makes me a little sentimental as I fondly remember July 22, 2000; the day India were guests of Fulham FC at their home in Craven Cottage.

It was a nice English Saturday afternoon in southwest London with over 5,000 fans present.

The Indian national football team was playing on English soil after 52 long years. The last time India played in England was in the 1948 Olympics.


Aspiring Fulham

The Fulham of summer 2000 was a totally different one then today.

In those days Fulham were planning to get into the Premier League with Craven Cottage being more of an old cottage then a football stadium.

French Coach Jean Tigana had put together a squad of talented youngsters and experienced players, who would get the club promoted at the end of the season. And their season opened against our India.


Our Future had started

It was the year after Baichung Bhutia had signed for Bury FC and I had expectations like many others that Indian football was on the verge of taking off. And this exposure would be part of this process.

We all thought Baichung would make the breakthrough the coming season as he was much more mature then a year earlier when he left India. Further he would open the door to other players to follow. We didn't know then that it would take a decade more before the next player would venture out of India.

Looking at those days in July 2000 we were just naive. Football like everything else in life isn't a one way street which just goes up, but has ups and downs. Sometimes sadly more downs then ups...


The match

Fulham won the game 2-0 through two goals from German striker Karl-Heinz Riedle. India had a strong game with the defence and goalkeeper Virender Singh coming a number of times to our teams rescue.

I had the pleasure of talking to Riedle in German after the game. The 1990 World Cup winning striker was waiting for his family when I approached him. I wasn't as experienced as I am today, so was overawed by the situation still I had a nice conversation with Riedle about football as Riedle wanted chat with me!

Riedle didn't know anything about Indian football before the game, but was interested to know more about the game in our country. I gave him some facts and he said Vijayan had impressed him with his technical abilities.


Here the two team line-ups

Fulham: Maik Taylor, Steve Finnan, Andy Melville, Chris Coleman, Rufus Brevett (Wayne Collins, 70), Kevin Betsy (Bjarne Goldbaek, 78), Sean Davis, Lee Clark, John Collins, Karl Heinz Riedle, Lois Boa Morte (Luke Cornwall, 65).

India: Virender Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Mahesh Gawli, Roberto Fernandes, Daljit Singh, Jo Paul Ancheri (Khalid Jamil, 88), Basudeb Mondal (Hardeep Sangha, 46), Jules Alberto (Hardeep Saini, 46), Renedy Singh, I.M. Vijayan, Baichung Bhutia [CAPTAIN].