Our friends at Fulhamish might have been tipped off about the terrific new away shirt. They changed their logo to green and had a punchy article from editor Drew Heatley ready to go, demanding that fans stop demanding a return to Fulham’s ‘old crest’.
Let me say this, first. I admire the Heatley family. I might be a slightly odd person in that my mum and dad collected every bit of Fulham memorabilia going. Given that they were academics, any book to do with Fulham wasn’t just purchased and devoured within minutes but it had pride of place in the bookcase. Growing up where other parents had the books relating to their field or even tomes they had written themselves, my Dad placed anything by Alex White and Dennis Turner in a prominent position. Other parents had primary school pictures on the mantelpiece or a certificate, my mum used one of those frames to show off a shot of Darren Freeman’s first Fulham goal.
Both of my parents revered Michael Heatley. My mum absolutely loved his ‘Celebrity Spotlight’ column in the programme in the eighties, whilst I got my father a copy of Michael’s Fulham: Match of My Life for father’s day a few years ago. He said it was the best present he’d ever received and I regretted chickening out of asking Michael to sign it when I saw him in Stevenage Road. Drew’s done a brilliant job in matching up the prowess of the podcast with some hard-hitting articles, but I respectfully disagree with the idea that the debate about crests should be consigned to the dustbin.
Drew writes:
“Our badge (or crest, or even logo if you’re that way inclined) is often referred to as “new”, when in fact it’s just celebrated its 24th birthday. We have had it for a shade less than 17% of our whole history. And in that time it’s developed its own history and heritage. Our maiden Premier League season – and the 12 consecutive campaigns that followed. The Intertoto Cup. The Europa League! Wembley in front of the White Wall. It’s been there for some of the finest moments in our 146 years.
That has made it globally recognised. Many neutrals will not have a scooby who this shirt belongs to when it comes out – and that’s fine, this kit is not for them. But the point stands that our badge has done a phenomenal job in helping us pass the instant recognition test across the world.
We have fans who weren’t even alive clamouring for the return of the old badge even though they weren’t even alive when Jean Tigana’s boys bore the crest proudly as we romped to the Division One title. It’s baffling. Then take into account we had this badge (in the form it’s represented on this shirt) for just six years. Six!”
The current badge could also be remembered as being imposed without a word on a fanbase that weren’t expecting it, becoming the symbol of an era where the chairman hatched a plan to sell the club’s historic home to himself to build luxury flats (also without telling anyone) and described the fans who resisted this ridiculousness as people who weren’t true Fulham fans and didn’t understand economics. It could be associated with an owner whose eccentricities haven’t aged well – to put it mildly – and whose alleged abuse of employees and Fulham’s own female footballers represents a dark moment in the history of London’s first professional football club.
Of course, that might be unfair but the idea that a badge won the InterToto Cup, imbued Roy Hodgson’s boys with grit during the Great Escape, the Europa League or inspired the White Wall at Wembley is equally absurd. Where Drew does have a point is that the latest iteration of a club crest is more globally recognised. I’d argue that’s because it has been worn by the players in the Premier League for nearly a quarter of a century, but there you go.
Drew goes on to say:
“When we launched our new badge ahead of our first Premier League season in 2001, we were one of the first clubs to do so. This was before the deluge of clubs shoving any and all of their identifiable icons into a roundel and calling it a rebrand (I’m looking at you, Brentford). The argument from the club was that the move gave it complete control over its identity, with many elements of the previous badge owned by the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The reintroduction of it on this shirt doesn’t change that argument.”
With the greatest of respect, that wasn’t the argument from the club at the time. They claimed that the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham owned the intellectual property and copyright to the badge and that limited Fulham from marketing it. Such a position is as wide of the mark as one of Anthony Knockaert’s shots in the Scott Parker era. The Council said this wasn’t true and that they were willing to discuss this with Fulham and when it was proven to be inaccurate, the club’s explanation for the decision to impose a new crest changed. Remember this the era when Bruce
The current crest may have grown on me, but I still remember it as something that could have been scribbled together in five minutes by marketing director Juliet Slot. A primary school child might have delivered something more aesthetically pleasing.
As Tom Greatrex told Peter Rutzler a couple of years ago:
I don’t like it — it could be the badge of any team whose initials were ‘FFC’. There’s nothing that links it to anything around the club, or the ground or previous badges. I am a traditionalist in some of these things. I think badges should identify with the club, the heritage and maybe the ground.”
The badge it replaced had a special place in our hearts too. It became iconic as the Whites won the right to remain at Craven Cottage and worked their way out of the basement under the watch of Micky Adams and then rose through the leagues memorably. The adoption of a new badge under Al-Fayed broke with Fulham’s traditions and, whatever you think about him or the Khan family, Fulham fans shouldn’t be in the business of censoring debate.
Spot – on – i wear my DEMON iNTERNET with the Fulham crest to most games – my GMB sponsored shirt also – i can’t get over white knickers either and anyone who likes BLUE on any shirt needs t lie down for a bit
What a garbage article. You lot really are scraping the barrel with no transfer news
I tend to look for Hammyend and Fulhamish articles so not clear why this is the second article you guys have “attacked “ them. You both support Fulham!
Maybe the previous comment is right unless we see some activity on new personnel you have nothing much to write about .
Shame.
The comments here are hilarious. Fans need to chill out a bit and let everyone have an opinion. Btw the current badge is s**t.
I have had the old Crest tattooed on my upper arm for many years. Was gutted when it was changed. That was part of our identity as the borough of Fulham before it linked with Hammersmith.
It’s the silly season!
Sorry for the other comments that have been posted personally I love the old badge and this post is not garbage perhaps the one from J iritates me the most unless he is under the age of 24 and thinks that we are not under restrictions from FFP rules and that the Khans are in this to lose all their money. While I agree it is great to see new player come in at the earlier part of the transfer market we all know that this doesn’t happen, we wait for the merry go round to start, yes Marco would love to see this happen but he is not manager of Liverpool yet. Sorry got side tracked I think the old badge is so much better than the one we currently have no we can’t change the colour every year and claim it to be a new shirt the current badge has had 17 changes of colour I believe in 24 years. The crest is like the 3 lions on a shirt for the England team it resembles who we are the crest sits proud on our shirts showing a traditional crest of the first club in London and our heritage long may this badge continue and hopefully soon be on our home strip.
Whilst I’ve grown to accept the current iteration of the crest, I can’t say that I actually like it.
It doesn’t have any character about it and looks like something designed by someone playing around with Photoshop for the first time. Blocky, and no identity to it. Something which had the bare minimum of time, effort and creativity put into it. Like someone gave their kid a tenner to bosh out a logo in half an hour.
It could be a corporate logo for any product from fish fingers to concrete.
I’d rather have either the ’75 Cup Final crest (my preference) or the one being discussed, than the one we’ve been using for the last 20 odd years.
We take pride in being London’s oldest club, so to me it makes sense that we remind others of that heritage at every opportunity.
What this has done is make me think seriously about buying a shirt for the first time in a couple of decades, even though I hate wearing that flimsy polyester rubbish and resent being skinned for something which cost a fiver to make.
It’s a shame that, as far as I know, the crest isn’t being used on any other merch.
And, going off on a tangent, I think the club could be a bit more inventive when it comes to merch. Looking at the online store, all we seem to have is Adidas branded products and nothing specifically by the club for fans.
Sure, there have been some abominations in the past, but there could be more in the way of t shirts, sweatshirts, etc. which aren’t a generic Adidas range with our current badge stuck on (don’t even get me started on the bits of merch where our badge is displaced to the right to make room for the Adidas logo! Grrrr!!).
Other clubs, even those smaller than us manage to do produce interesting, original merch for fans beyond the strip/training kit.
Well said Paul. I grew up in Fulham and the old badge means a lot to me.
Thank you DC I also grew up in Fulham it means a lot to me.
Pride of London with a Crest not a badge that stands for more than any badge.
For what’s its worth I love the old crest and think the new badge is shit, in a poll I think it would be 80% prefer the old, the problem was we wasn’t even consulted in a new badge at the time and was fed bullshit why it had to change…just my opinion if you love the new one then that’s cool
I totally agree. The current FFC-crest looks like Microsoft Office SmartArt. Imagine we’ve put up with that for 24 years. It looks half baked at best.
I like the 24-year old crest & recently when walking the Great Wall of China in a light green top with it on was identified by non-British walker going in the opposite direction as a Fulham supporter. I believe it has its place in our history & is iconic in it’s own right.
I was also born in the area and concur with others: I literally can’t stand our new badge and find it lacks imagination at best. Probably a neat idea from marketing to bring back some nostalgia, i also like the video on the club website(brought back some good memories).
I agree with Franco regarding the merchandise.