Born: Dagenham, 18 September 1963
Position: Centre forward
Signed: 1 July 1980
Fulham debut: Fulham 2-1 Newport County, 28 March 1981
Fulham appearances: 249
Fulham goals: 73
Sold: 1 July 1987 to Queens Park Rangers (player-exchange with Paul Parker, £200,000)
Dean Coney made his Fulham debut at the age of seventeen and scored nineteen goals in his first full season forging a prolific partnership with the club’s record goalscorer Gordon Davies as the Whites won promotion from the Third Division in 1981/82. He never scored as consistently again in his Fulham career, but stayed in the side as Malcolm Macdonald’s outfit came agonisingly close to a second successive promotion the following year.
Coney relied on reading the game as he didn’t have express turn of pace and finished the 1985/86 campaign as Fulham’s leading goalscorer with thirteen goals as the Whites went down. He hit fourteen in his final season at Craven Cottage before moving to Queens Park Rangers alongside Paul Parker in a deal that helped the club retain its individual identity after the Fulham Park Rangers proposals. The centre forward’s professional career was cruelly curtailed by a cruciate ligament injury at Norwich City in 1991.
