From St Andrew’s to Craven Cottage

Well it's Sunday so this seemed appropriate. The following text was posted on TFI during the week and caught my interest. It's advertising a book which examines the origins of Fulham F.C. when we were formed by a local Church. I am always interested in the history of the club and this seems to cover an area of which there was previously little information. Its only a fiver so I will be getting a copy and will report back once I've read through it. For now though here's the ad.

From St Andrew’s to Craven Cottage
How a church’s cricket and football club became Fulham Football Club by Morgan Phillips.

The football club may have outgrown its early ‘holy’ surroundings but St Andrew’s, a thriving church on Greyhound Road, is still very much around and the new book was launched at the church’s Summer Fair on 14th July, 2007.

In June 1879, at the suggestion of the first vicar of St Andrew’s, a curate of the church founded the West Kensington Cricket Club. During the winter of the same year, some of the boys attending the church Sunday School, played football on an area of ground known as the “Mud Pond” and thus what is now Fulham FC, played its first game.

Morgan Phillips, a life long Fulham supporter and unofficial Club historian, has written a fascinating book about these early days up to the move to the Cottage. It wonderfully evokes life at the time, including detail of the players who first turned out for the Club and the first games they played. It also shows how people had to stand up for their rights to maintain their environment even then. If developers of the time had got their way Eelbrook Common & Fulham Recreation Ground would have been built on.

The book is published by St Andrew’s Church Fulham, 2007 and can be obtained at £5 (including postage) from:

10 St Andrew’s Road, London W14 9SX

Or by contacting the church website

http://www.standrewsfulham.com

It is also hoped that the Club will allow copies to be sold in their shops.