1879–1907: Formation and Southern League years Fulham were formed in 1879 as Fulham
St Andrew's Church Sunday School F.C., founded by worshippers (mostly adept at cricket) at the
Church of England on Star Road,
West Kensington (St Andrew's, Fulham Fields). Fulham's mother church still stands today with a plaque commemorating the team's foundation. They won the West London Amateur Cup in 1887 and, having shortened the name from Fulham St Andrews to its present form in December 1888, they then won the
West London League in 1893 at the first attempt. One of the club's first ever kits was half red, half white shirts with white shorts worn in the
1886–87 season. Fulham started playing at their current ground at
Craven Cottage in 1896, their first game against now defunct rivals
Minerva. The club gained professional status on 12 December 1898, the same year that they were admitted into the
Southern League's Second Division. They were the third club from London to turn professional, following
Arsenal, then named Royal Arsenal 1891, and
Millwall in 1893. They adopted a red and white kit during the
1896–97 season. In
1902–03, the club won promotion from this division, entering the
Southern League First Division. The club's first recorded all-white club kit came in 1903, and ever since then the club has been playing in all-white shirts and black shorts, with socks going through various evolutions of black and/or white, but are now normally white-only. The club won the
Southern League twice, in 1905–06 and 1906–07.
1907–1949: Football League 's redesign in 1904–05 Fulham joined
The Football League after the second of their Southern League triumphs. The club's first league game, playing in the
Second Division's
1907–08 season, saw them lose 1–0 at home to
Hull City in September 1907. The first win came a few days later at
Derby County's
Baseball Ground by a score line of 1–0. Fulham finished the season three points short of promotion in fourth place. The club progressed all the way to the semi-final of that season's
FA Cup, a run that included an 8–3 away win at
Luton Town. In the semi-final, however, they were heavily beaten, 6–0, by
Newcastle United. This is still a record loss for an FA Cup semi-final game. Two years later, the club won the London Challenge Cup in the
1909–10 season. Fulham's first season in Division Two turned out to be the highest that the club would finish for 21 years, until in
1927–28 when the club were relegated to the
3rd Division South, created in 1920.
Hussein Hegazi, an Egyptian forward, was one of the first non-British players to appear in The Football League, though he only played one game for Fulham in 1911, marked with a goal, afterwards playing for non-league
Dulwich Hamlet. During this period, businessman and politician
Henry Norris was the club chairman and curiously he had an indirect role in the foundation of Fulham's local rivals
Chelsea. When he rejected an offer from businessman
Gus Mears to move Fulham to land where the present-day Chelsea stadium
Stamford Bridge is situated, Mears decided to create his own team to occupy the ground. In 1910, Norris started to combine his role at Fulham with the chairmanship of Arsenal. Fulham became the first British team to sell
hot dogs at their ground in 1926. Fulham had several high-profile international players during the 1920s, including
Len Oliver and
Albert Barrett. After finishing fifth, seventh and ninth (out of 22 teams) in their first three seasons in the Third Division South, Fulham won the division in the
1931–32 season. In doing so they beat
Torquay United 10–2, won 24 out of 42 games and scored 111 goals, thus being promoted back to the Second Division. The
next season they missed out on a second consecutive promotion, finishing third behind
Tottenham Hotspur and
Stoke City. A mixed bag of league performances followed, although the club also reached another FA Cup semi-final during the
1935–36 season. Fulham were also to draw with Austria in 1936 before
Anschluss. On 8 October 1938, Craven Cottage saw its all-time highest attendance at a match against
Millwall, with a crowd of 49,335 watching the game. League and cup football were severely disrupted by the outbreak of
World War II in 1939, with the Football League split into regional divisions temporarily, with a national
Football League War Cup and a
London War Cup up for grabs. Craven Cottage was used like many grounds for fitness and training of the army youth reserves. Post-war, a full league programme was only restored for
1946–47. In
the third season of what is now considered the modern era of football, Fulham finished top of the Second Division, with a win–loss–draw record of 24–9–9 (identical to that which won them the Third Division South 17 years previously).
John Fox Watson made a pioneering transfer to
Real Madrid in 1948, becoming one of the first players from the United Kingdom to sign for a high-profile side abroad.
1949–1970: First Division Cottagers Promotion to the
top tier of English football saw the club perform poorly, finishing 17th in their first year and 18th in their second. In only their third season of First Division football, Fulham finished rock bottom of the 22-team league in the
1951–52 season, winning only eight of 42 games. On 20 May 1951, Fulham played one of their first ever games in North America in an exhibition match against
Celtic at
Delorimier Stadium in
Montreal in front of 29,000 spectators. , player number two from right in the front line Possibly the single most influential character in Fulham's history is
Johnny Haynes. "Mr. Fulham" or "The Maestro", as Haynes later came to be known, signed for The Cottagers as a schoolboy in 1950, making his first team debut on Boxing Day against
Southampton at Craven Cottage in the 1951/52 relegation season. Haynes played for another 18 years, notching 657 appearances (along with many other club records too), his last appearance for Fulham coming on 17 January 1970. He is often considered as the greatest player in Fulham history, and never played for another team in Britain. He gained 56
caps for England (22 as captain), with many being earned while playing for Fulham in the Second Division. Haynes was injured in a car accident in
Blackpool in 1962, but by his own admissions never regained the fitness or form to play for England again, missing out on England's victory in the
1966 FIFA World Cup for which he would have stood a chance of being selected. The Stevenage Road Stand was renamed in his honour after his death in a car crash in 2005. despite struggling in the league. The club earned a reputation for constantly battling against relegation most seasons, with numerous narrow escapes; none more so than in
1965–66. On the morning of 26 February 1966, Fulham were bottom with just 15 points from 29 matches. The last 13 games saw Fulham win nine and draw two to reach safety. Eventually, however, the club suffered relegation in the
1967–68 season, having won just ten out of their 42 games. Even that, however, was not as catastrophic as the calamity of next season. Winning only seven in 42, the club were relegated to the
Third Division.
1970–1994: Mixed fortunes outside the top flight The aforementioned Third Division hiatus lasted only two seasons before the club was promoted back to the Second Division as runners-up in
1970–71. This spell also saw Fulham invited to the
Anglo-Italian Cup, which saw the club draw four out of four games in 1972–73 season. This preceded a period of high-profile signings for the club under
Alec Stock in the mid-1970s, including
Alan Mullery and
Bobby Moore. Fulham reached their only FA Cup final to date in 1975, having won their first semi-final in five attempts. The club lost 2–0 to
West Ham United in the
final at Wembley Stadium. This gained the club qualification for another European tournament, the
Anglo-Scottish Cup, where they reached the final, losing to
Middlesbrough.
George Best played 47 times for the club in the
1976–77 season.
Rodney Marsh, who having grown up with Fulham in the 1960s went on to play First Division football and play for England, rejoined the club in the same season, playing only 16 games. This capped one of the most successful eras in Fulham history. The club were relegated again after winning only 11 in 42 matches in the
1979–80 season, which eventually resulted in
Bobby Campbell's dismissal in October 1980, to be replaced by
Malcolm Macdonald. With a strong squad during his 1980–1984 period in charge (with players such as
Ray Houghton,
Tony Gale,
Paul Parker,
Gerry Peyton and
Ray Lewington), they won promotion again in
1981–82 back to the Second Division, although the promotion was overshadowed by the suicide of former defender
Dave Clement a few weeks before promotion was sealed. In 1980, Fulham founded the rugby league club that is now
London Broncos designed to be an extra stream of income for the football club, but which made financial losses every year while linked to Fulham F.C. Then called "Fulham Rugby League", they played at Craven Cottage until moving away from the parent club in 1984. In 1978, Fulham had signed
Gordon "Ivor" Davies who, during two spells at Fulham, became the club's leading goalscorer of all time with a total of 178 goals in all competitions; the record still stands. Fulham narrowly missed out on back-to-back promotions to the
First Division, losing 1–0 to Derby County away on the last day of the
1982–83 season – although the match was abandoned after 88 minutes due to a
pitch invasion and inexplicably never replayed or finished. The side which had shown so much promise was quickly sold off as the club were in debt, so it was little surprise when the club were relegated again to the Third Division in 1986. The club nearly went out of business in 1987 via an ill-advised merger attempt with
Queens Park Rangers. It was only the intervention of ex-player
Jimmy Hill that allowed the club to stay in business by formation of a new company, Fulham FC (1987) Ltd. In 1987, the club took part in what was then the longest penalty deciders ever recorded – it needed 28 spot kicks to sort out a winner between them and
Aldershot following a
Football League Trophy match. Fulham later broke the record when they played at
Championship side
Preston North End in the 2024
EFL Cup in 2024 when it took 31 spot kicks to separate the two team. In 1992, the foundation of the
Premier League, and the resignation of 22 clubs from The Football League, restored Fulham to that league's Second Division. However, the club were relegated to the new Third Division after a poor
1993–94 season, following which
Ian Branfoot was appointed as team manager.
1994–1997: Fulham's lowest ebb After an eighth-place finish in Branfoot's
first season in charge, the club hit its lowest-ever final league position in the
1995–96 season, finishing 17th out of 24. Branfoot was dismissed as manager, but remained at the club in other capacities for a short while. In February 1996,
Micky Adams became
player-manager. Adams oversaw an upturn in form that lifted the side out of relegation danger. The next season, he engineered a second-place league finish, missing out on first place because several years previously the league had dropped the old "goal difference" system in favour of a "goals scored" tally, meaning Fulham finished behind
Wigan Athletic. The club's chairman Jimmy Hill had argued in 1992 that goals scored should decide places of teams tied on points, and the Football League clubs had voted the system in.
1997–2001: Al-Fayed takeover Egyptian businessman
Mohamed Al-Fayed bought the club for £6.75 million in the summer of 1997. The club was purchased via Bill Muddyman's Muddyman Group. pledging that the club would reach the Premier League within five years. After an argument over team selection, Wilkins left the club in May 1998 to hand over the full managerial duties to Keegan. Keegan then helped steer the club to promotion the next season, winning 101 points out of a possible 138, after spending £1.1 million to sign
Paul Peschisolido from
West Bromwich Albion. Peschisolido was top scorer and captained by
Chris Coleman – then the most expensive footballer outside the top two divisions of the English league. In 1999, Keegan left Fulham to become manager of England, and
Paul Bracewell was put in charge. Bracewell was dismissed in March 2000, as Fulham's promising early season form dwindled away to a mid-table finish. Frenchman
Jean Tigana was put in charge and, having signed a number of young stars (including French striker
Louis Saha), he guided Fulham to their third promotion in five seasons in the
2000–01 season, giving Fulham top-flight status for the first time since 1968. Fulham once again amassed 101 points out of a possible 138 in their scintillating title run, which was crowned with an open-top bus parade down Fulham Palace Road. They are the only team to have twice reached 100 points in a season. During the season, Chris Coleman was involved in a car crash that put him out of action for well over a year and eventually ended his playing career after he failed to make a sufficient recovery. Fulham's run through the divisions saw a large turnover of players, with the only player to play for the club in all four leagues being
Sean Davis.
2001–2007: Early Premier League years (blue) in front of Fulham fans in the Hammersmith End Fulham returned to the top division of English football, and competed in the Premier League for the first time. The club finished the
2001–02 season in 13th place. Fulham were the only team to host top-flight football with some standing areas in the 21st century, but due to
restrictions on standing, this was not allowed to continue; clubs promoted from the second division had only three years to make their ground all-seater. Fulham were forced to
groundshare with QPR at
Loftus Road during the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons while Craven Cottage was rebuilt as an all-seated stadium. There were fears that Fulham would not return to the Cottage, after it was revealed that Al-Fayed had sold the first right to build on the ground to a property development firm. In
2002–03, Fulham spent most of the season in the lower half of the table. Chairman Al-Fayed told manager Jean Tigana that his contract would not be renewed at the end of the season. However, with five games left to play and relegation still possible, Tigana was dismissed, and Chris Coleman was temporarily put in charge. Fulham won 10 points from a possible 15 and managed to avoid relegation. Coleman was appointed manager on a permanent basis in the summer of 2003; despite predictions that the inexperience of Coleman would result in Fulham's relegation, he kept the club well clear of relegation, guiding them to a club record ninth-place finish
in his debut season. This might have been greater had the club not come under significant financial pressure to sell Louis Saha to
Manchester United, for whom they received a then-club record £13 million. Fulham lost a legal case against former manager Tigana in 2004 after Al-Fayed wrongly alleged that Tigana had overpaid more than £7 million for new players and had negotiated transfers in secret. Coleman notched up another satisfactory performance in the
2004–05 season and guided Fulham to a secure 13th-place finish. The following season Fulham improved by one place, finishing 12th – the high point of the season was a 1–0 win over local rivals and reigning champions Chelsea in the
West London derby – Chelsea had only lost two games in two and a half years. The
2006–07 season proved to be Coleman's last, as on 10 April 2007, Fulham terminated his contract with immediate effect. His replacement was
Northern Ireland manager
Lawrie Sanchez. Fulham only gained four points from five games with Sanchez as caretaker manager. They ensured top-flight survival that season by defeating a weakened
Liverpool side 1–0 in the penultimate match of the season, and Sanchez was appointed manager. takes a free kick as Fulham players form a defensive wall. , the home of Fulham FC, in 2007.
2007–2010: Hodgson's transformation as manager at Fulham Sanchez received strong financial backing from the board and made a number of signings during the summer break, but, after just two league wins in the first five months of the season and with Fulham in the relegation zone, he was dismissed on 21 December 2007 after a defeat to Newcastle United.
Roy Hodgson was named as the new manager of Fulham on 28 December 2007 and took up his contractual duties on 30 December, just two days before the January transfer window opened. Hodgson's tenure did not start well and it took a month to secure his first win, against
Aston Villa, courtesy of a
Jimmy Bullard free-kick. Fulham continued to struggle and a 3–1 home defeat in April at the hands of fellow strugglers
Sunderland left Hodgson on the verge of tears in the post-match press conference and many pundits writing off Fulham's survival chances. The turning point of the season came in the third-to-last match, against
Manchester City. Fulham trailed 2–0 at half-time and had the Premier League scores at that time become results, they would have been relegated. However, the introduction of
Diomansy Kamara heralded the start of a fantastic comeback—Kamara struck twice as Fulham registered a 3–2 victory. Fulham then won a crucial match against fellow strugglers
Birmingham City at Craven Cottage, leaving survival in the club's own hands. Barring a goal-rush from fellow strugglers
Reading, a win against a
Portsmouth side looking ahead to their fourth FA Cup final would guarantee survival. With 15 minutes to play at Portsmouth, Fulham were drawing, and with Birmingham City and Reading leading comfortably against
Blackburn Rovers and Derby County respectively, they looked likely to be relegated. However, Fulham earned a free-kick with 76 minutes played; Jimmy Bullard's delivery found
Danny Murphy, who headed home the decisive goal, sparking manic celebrations from the travelling fans. Hodgson had ensured survival against all odds, breaking several club records in the process and cementing his place in Fulham folklore. Fulham narrowly missed out on a
UEFA Cup place via
Fairplay by a dubious 0.8 of a point behind Manchester City, who lost 8–1 at Middlesbrough. In the
2008–09 season, Fulham finished seventh, their highest-ever league placing, earning qualification for the inaugural
UEFA Europa League, the second time that the club had entered a UEFA competition.
2009–10 was arguably the most successful season in the club's history. They were eliminated from the FA Cup in the quarter-finals for the second year running, and finished 12th in the Premier League, despite fielding weakened teams in the last few matches. In the inaugural
Europa League season, however, Fulham reached the final, meeting Spanish club
Atlético Madrid, at the
Volksparkstadion in
Hamburg. In their first European cup final, the Cottagers were beaten 2–1 after extra time, having drawn 1–1 after full-time. The achievement of taking Fulham so unexpectedly far, beating famous teams like
Hamburger SV,
Juventus, holders
Shakhtar Donetsk and
Basel in the competition, led to Roy Hodgson being voted the
LMA Manager of the Year by the widest margin in the history of the award. The home match in the round of 16 was arguably Fulham's greatest result in the history of the club. Despite losing 3–1 in the first leg at Italian giants Juventus and falling behind minutes into the second leg at Craven Cottage, Fulham scored four goals with no reply from Juventus. At the end of the season, Hodgson left Fulham to manage Liverpool.
2010–2013: Established in the Premier League On 29 July 2010,
Mark Hughes was named the successor to Hodgson, signing a two-year contract with the club. Hughes resigned as manager of Fulham on 2 June 2011, having spent fewer than 11 months at the club. The Whites had an encouraging finish in eighth position and qualified for the
Europa League via Fairplay. On 7 June 2011,
Martin Jol signed a two-year contract with Fulham, becoming successor to Hughes. Fulham navigated their way with some ease to the group stage in the Europa League through late summer. However, the Cottagers were knocked out with the last seconds of the group stage matches,
Odense Boldklub equalising, leaving Fulham in third place, with Polish side
Wisła Kraków instead progressing to the next round. Fulham's Premier League form in the
2011–12 season was mixed, with the continuing away-record hangover of previous seasons dragging on. In the
2012–13 season, Fulham finished the season in 12th place. scored a club record 50 Premier League goals for Fulham between 2007 and 2012.
2013–present: Shahid Khan's ownership Shahid Khan took over as chairman in July 2013, but after a poor start to the
2013–14 season, having only amassed 10 points from 13 games, Martin Jol was dismissed as manager in December 2013, with
René Meulensteen taking charge as head coach. Meulensteen was replaced by
Felix Magath after just 17 games in charge following no upturn in form, but fortunes did not improve, and Fulham were eventually relegated to the Championship after a 4–1 defeat away to Stoke on 3 May. Fulham broke the
Championship transfer record that summer in a restructuring of the squad by Magath, but after a disastrous start to the
new season, amassing just one point in seven games, Magath was dismissed in September 2014, with
Kit Symons appointed as caretaker manager. Fulham eventually finished the season in 17th place. The team suffered an inconsistent start to the following season and after a 5–2 loss at home to Birmingham City, and lying in 12th place, Kit Symons was dismissed as manager in November 2015. It paved the way for Serbian
Slaviša Jokanović to be appointed on 27 December 2015. Fulham's fortunes did not improve greatly following Jokanović's appointment, but the team finished the 2015–16 Championship season in 20th place, avoiding relegation by 11 points. The 2016–17 season saw huge improvements in both results and performances. Despite an inconsistent start, the team saw a significant improvement from October onwards which saw them secure a 6th-place finish. They entered the
play-offs, but lost to Reading 2–1 on aggregate in the semi-final. During this time, club owner Shahid Khan's son
Tony Khan was named as Vice Chairman and Director of Football Operations, and he also holds the roles of General Manager and Sporting Director. Despite a slow start to the following season, the club went on a club-record 23 game unbeaten run in the league which led to a 3rd-place finish, narrowly missing out automatic promotion. The team went on to win the
EFL Championship play-off final against
Aston Villa to return to the Premier League on 26 May 2018. During the season, the club signed
Aleksandar Mitrović, initially on loan until the end of the season. Mitrović would go on to score more than 100 goals for the club, becoming the eighth player in Fulham's history to do so. Following a poor start to life back in the Premier League, Jokanović was dismissed in November 2018 and replaced with former Leicester manager
Claudio Ranieri. Results ultimately did not improve under Ranieri, as well as him alienating several key players, and he left the club in February 2019. He was replaced by
Scott Parker as caretaker manager who could not save the club from relegation on 3 April 2019. Parker was appointed as manager on a permanent basis on 10 May 2019. In a season that was interrupted by the
COVID-19 pandemic, Parker led the club straight back to the Premier League on 4 August 2020, defeating London rivals Brentford 2–1 in the
play-off final after a fourth-place finish. However, the club would once again be relegated after just a single season back in the top flight after a 2–0 defeat to Burnley on 10 May 2021. In the aftermath of relegation, Parker left the club by mutual consent and was replaced by former Everton manager
Marco Silva. After relegation, Fulham under Silva earned promotion back to the top tier with four games to go, winning the
2021–22 Championship title. Fulham started the
2022–23 Premier League season much better than prior years. At the halfway point, Fulham sat in 6th place, had tallied a 2–1 win over
West London rivals Chelsea, whom they had not defeated in nearly 16 years, and collected a string of four consecutive top-flight victories for the first time since April 1966. The following season saw the club reach the semi-finals of the
EFL Cup for the first time, and in 2024–25 they recorded a new club Premier League record points haul. ==Grounds==