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Jimmy Bullard’s return to Craven Cottage is hardly headline news, but it’s a topic dominating Fulham’s message boards this week as the former painter and decorator returns after his record breaking January transfer to Hull City.
Fulham manager Roy Hodgson has already stated that he “wouldn’t like to think that [it] will happen”, but that he doesn’t “know how fans think in those areas.”
What is he worried about?
Well, here are a few choice quotes from those Fulham message boards:
“It would also be great if someone could whack that f***er on the knee with a pipe or bat”; “The guy’s a fk*n scum bag and we will all let him know it”; “The guy is a mullet wearing dumbf**k!”; “**** Bullard, I will be shouting, swearing and yelling abuse at him the whole game. Feel free to join me.“
You get the picture!
Some Fulham fans are quite unhappy with Jimmy Bullard.
How many of these “fans” will actually be going to the game is, of course, debatable. Mo doubt a good percentage of the comments will be from juveniles who’ve just discovered some new swear words and want to look cool.
But the general message is that a lot of people are bitter with his departure.
The irony is that Bullard has been a West Ham fan since childhood and there is certainly no love lost between the Hammers and Fulham.
While he only played three seasons for the Cottagers, he was one of their best players. There was even talk that Fabio Capello had him on his radar for an England call-up, which never eventuated as he suffered another injury on debut with the Tigers.
So now the West Ham fan may make his return against one (he’s played for six in ten years) of his old clubs to jeers from a hostile crowd.
But why?
Gone are the days of one club men. Ryan Giggs and Steven Gerrard are a dying breed as football becomes more commercial and its players resemble mercenaries performing whatever task for the highest bid.
But the fans, it seems, haven’t moved with the times.
Emmanuel Adebayor, a man born and raised 5,000 kilometres away in Togo, was widely abused by the Arsenal faithful in this season’s Man City–Arsenal clash.
This is a man whose transfer netted the Gunners around £25 million (a profit of £21 million), who’d only played three seasons for the North London club, scoring 46 goals for them. And yet the Arsenal faithful saw it prudent to abuse him from the warm-up until the final whistle.
Regardless of the acrimonious circumstances of his departure, what is it that drives football fans to abuse former players of their clubs?
Bullard, like Adebayor with Arsenal, has absolutely no personal connection with the club whatsoever. He didn’t learn his trade at their academy, he didn’t play a huge portion of his career there. He, like many other footballers today, was there for a short period, was successful and helped the club move forward.
He gave his blood, sweat and maybe even tears, was financially compensated, and in return, he can now expect abuse from 25,000 Fulham supporters, whether he gets on the pitch or not.
Bullard’s motivation to move to Hull was probably money, but who can blame him? Fulham aren’t exactly classes above Hull, and the Cottagers aren’t in his heart, so at the age of 30, with two serious knee injuries behind him, he’ll know that his career won’t last forever.
Why shouldn’t he cash in?
It’s time that fans of football embrace the fact that there is a business behind the game. Fulham receiving £5 million from Hull for a 30 year-old Bullard was a tidy bit of business, as were all the deals that sent players to Manchester City in the summer.
It’s a fact of life that players will move on, as it is that players will play for their arch rivals.
This is the modern game and there is no need to vilify players for it.
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