Rich has compiled a list of Fulham’s 50 greatest ever players for the Times. I don’t agree with some of his decisions but, having been asked to complete something similar once, I know it’s one hell of an undertaking. The likes of Rodney McAree, Gary Brazil, Nick Cusack, Mark Blake and Mick Conroy might not belong on there but shouldn’t there be some way of recognising their contributions to the club? Also the much-maligned Barry Hayles, who’s still getting amongst the goals for Leicester.
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Dan – funny you should mention that, I did toy with having no.50 as a catch all for important but not really great players who have made telling contributions down the years, but I didn’t want to get too clever and instead tried to stick to the job of finding, ranking, then talking about 50 great players. It actually took a couple of months: first make a shortlist (there’s a roughly equal split between pre 60s players, 60s ‘golden era’ players, post 60s-to Fayed, Fayed-era, which are the four defined eras I can see), then try to find something interesting to say about them all, then work out an order, then change the list, then edit the writing a few times, then shuffle, then look up the appearances/goals, and so on, and so on.
As I said on CCN, by the time I was done I wasn’t even sure I agreed with some of my own choices, but at some point you have to just let go. The most worrying thing was getting the writing sharp: I can defend rankings, etc, but a sloppy article would’ve been a real waste of an opportunity. I’m quite pleased how it turned out, especially now they’ve added all those photographs.