Identity & place
What this club is really about
Fulham's character sits in the collision between intimacy and survival. The club began with local boys at St Andrew's Church, settled at Craven Cottage in 1896 and developed around a ground that does not behave like a standard big-city stadium: park on one side, Thames on another, a Leitch grandstand on the street and a pavilion that looks as though a football ground grew around a house. That setting became more important because it was repeatedly endangered. The 1987 merger and redevelopment crisis, then the 2002-04 exile at Loftus Road, taught supporters that the Cottage could be lost unless they organised.
Place, industry & identity