There’s a nasty smell alongside the River Thames. The smell of cheese going off. Or of a football club decaying. But there is good news. One of the causes of the smell has been exterminated. The latest manager of Fulham football club has left the building.
Felix Magath was yesterday’s man before the irresponsible and relatively new owner of the club appointed him. The owner who has taken Fulham down, down, down is Shahid Khan. He has a comedy moustache. But loyal Fulham supporters are not amused. They knew their club had been punching above their weight for a while, but they had some good players and they had grown accustomed to life in the Premier League. Their rich neighbours down the road at Stamford Bridge would always get the media attention, but Fulham had held their own in the top flight since 2001. They were an established Premier League club.
The fans had put up with some of the eccentric actions of long time owner, Mohamed Al-Fayed. Not least erecting a statue to his friend, the singer Michael Jackson. But, compared to what has happened since Al-Fayed sold the club, that now looks like the action of a sane man.
Felix Magath is a man who footballers avoid. Players the world over go out ot their way not to play for him.
Fulham had on loan players demand a return to their parent club the moment they heard the German manager was coming to Craven Cottage. They knew better for they had worked with Magath in the past.
The respectable and highly thought of club doctor left Fulham because he could not stand by and watch Magath treat player injuries using a lump of cheese. I kid ye not.
The now departed Brede Hangeland has recalled how his former manager chose to treat him when he picked up a thigh injury. Magath sent the kit man to go to Tesco’s to buy a lump of cheese. Hangeland had to perch on the end of a massage table and spend the entire afternoon in that position with the slab of cheese, soaked in booze, positioned on the part of his thigh that was sore. Magath told the player it would sooth his injury. Cheese and crackers!
It was probably then that the club doctor, Stephen Lewis, decided he’d be better off working for Brighton and Hove Albion. Lewis was highly thought of by the players at Fulham, as confirmed here by Danny Murphy.
The cheese incident wasn’t the only issue to upset Fulham footballers. Two younger players were late for training and McGath did what he did often. He issued fines. But there was a justified excuse for their late arrival at work. The experienced midfielder and team captain Scott Parker pleaded with Magath. He said the sum he had fined the two teenagers was too much. He explained to his manager why the players had arrived late to work. Magath told his captain: “They need to be punished.”
It says much about Scott Parker that he paid the fines himself. Quite why no other club has rescued Parker from Fulham I do not know. True, he’s no spring chicken. But Scott Parker could do a job for another club. One that has been ruined by a couple of damaging managerial appointments.
Al-Fayed pokes fun at new owner Shahid Khan who has since taken the piss out of Fulham!
And to think, I and others were once sceptical about Mohamed Al-Fayed taking over Fulham FC. But it’s since he left that Fulham have plummeted down the leagues. Out of the Premier League, where they spent twelve successive seasons, and immediately down to the foot of the Championship. The new owner Shahid Khan is to blame. He first sacked a respected man of football, Martin Jol. He undermined Jol by appointing Rene Meulensteen as his assistant. But Jol knew all along that Meulensteen was being lined up to replace him.
When he failed, Shaid Khan sacked Meulensteen as Head Coach and replaced him with Magath, who had been out of work for 18 months. Had Khan researched his new appointment he would have discovered that Magath was not well liked by players. One of his nicknames in Germany was ‘Qualix’, meaning ‘to torture.’ When on loan Lewis Holtby heard Magath was on his way to West London, he demanded a return to his parent club, Spurs. Holtby had worked under Magath at Schalke and knew him to be a dislikeable disciplinarian.
Magath trained the players relentlessly. Following one of several defeats, he cancelled a day off and had them come in and play a 90 minute practice match. He had them undergo three training sessions in one day, often simply getting them to run in the manner of Forrest Gump.
His methods remind me of one time Leyton Orient and Sheffield Weednesday coach Peter Eustace. In his forthcoming autobiography, the former Orient player John Sitton reveals how Eustace had the players run through Epping Forest. Over and over again, Eustace had the players run for seven miles or more, often backwards. In winter they did so on snow or a frozen and uneven surface.
In the book Sitton tells of how the players had to avoid protruding trees and potholes and it was all they could do to avoid picking up injuries. Peter Eustace only stopped the players from running when he spotted two mating magpies. He told the players to watch!
It is one crazy story from the John Sitton autobiography you can order via this website.
Clearly Peter Eustace and Felix Magath had much in common. Their coaching and man management techniques belonged to a past age. Sitton tells the story of how Eustace hit one of his own players at half time.
Magath did something else John Sitton is familiar with. When playing for Chelsea, under the watchful eye of manager Geoff Hurst and coach Bobby Gould, Sitton and fellow defender Micky Droy were at different times forced to train away from their colleagues. At Fulham, Magath had players such as Costa Rica International Bryan Ruiz and teammate Maarten Stekelenurg train on their own. Magath fined any other player who was spotted so much as speaking with those he had distanced from the main squad.
Hard to believe now that Felix Magath won the Bundesliga twice with Bayern Munich and once more when in charge at Wolfsburg. But that was a different time and the German league wasn’t exactly the hardest to win back then.
Why didn’t Fulham owner Shahid Khan ask himself this question? How come Magath is not wanted in his home country? Especially at a time when German football was in the ascendancy and home of the World Cup winners. It’s because he is one of an increasing number of foreign owners of football clubs in Britain whose interest has little to do with the sport itself.
I’d be worried were I a Fulham fan. While historic sections of the charming Craven Cottage are Grade II listed, and therefore protected, there is no getting around the fact that the football pitch sits on prime land alongside the River Thames in West London. Khan could have plans to sell the ground and move the club out of London. Or sell parts of it off and have flats built overlooking the ground, as Barry Hearn did at Leyton Orient.
Hearn has left Orient and, when doing so, said he doubted there would be any British owners of English football clubs before very long. He may well be right. A sad state of affairs.
I’m not against foreign owners because they are foreign. After all, there are examples of responsible and caring foreign owners. Not many, but the odd one or two for sure. Tony Fernandes has invested millions of pounds in QPR. See him at a match and you cannot say he is not in love with the beautiful game.
But most foreign owners are in it for the wrong reasons. They know little or nothing about the game. They employ foreign managers who just happen to have the same agent as the owner. In turn, the new manager signs footballers who just happen to have the same agent as… both the manager and owner!
Everton fans have long complained about one of their own, Bill Kenwright, running their club. Kenwright has always said he will not sell the club until such time as he finds a prospective new owner who passes his own fit and proper person test. Quite right Bill. Everton fans should be careful what they wish for.
Bill Kenwright cares passionately for the excellent club that he has supported all his life. Will his eventual successor care as much? Doubtful.
Bill Kenwright
Look at the state of Leeds United. A laughing stock. Look at Fulham, a club in freefall. The Toffees of Everton could themselves come unstuck were Kenwright to sell up to someone as irresponsible as Shahid Khan. A man whose contribution to Fulham so far could best be described as shoddy.
The fit and proper test as presently operated by the footballing authoirities is a joke. Like the Felix Magath style of management and his cheese, it is well past its best before date.
It is time the rules regarding who can take over an English football clubs were made much more stringent. If not, the smell of football clubs going off could become overpowering.
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