Our sojourn to England`s second city to take on relegated Birmingham City ended in a 1-1 draw.
Surprisingly, considering the attendance was so low, this Championship side had to delay the kick off for fifteen minutes as they couldn`t get everybody in by 15:00 hours.
How shoddy!
Our opponents had won six consecutive pre-season friendlies – shame they couldn`t do that last season in the Premier League – so they were a good test for Roy Hodgson`s rebuilt Fulham side.
For the fixture, our most recent signing, Fredrik Stoor didn`t get a place in the starting line up. There were also several notable absentees from the Fulham squad with Dempsey, Nevland and a few others having turned out for a Fulham XI against Kingstonians last night.
Nevertheless, it was Fulham who started the better with Bobby Zamora going close in the first minute. Prompted by the superb Jimmy Bullard, Fulham should have put their lower league opponents to the sword but too often that final pass wasn`t quite read by the forward running players.
Fulham opened the deadlock when Simon Davies netted on seventeen minutes and the few who had travelled believed it would open the flood gates.
It didn`t.
Instead, we sort of retreated into our shell a little and with time running out in the second half fell to that sucker counter punch – the equaliser.
It came from Seb Larssen who latched onto a Cameron Jerome pass to beat Mark Schwarzer.
Whether it was a fair result or not, you`d better ask a neutral. Suffice to say, we didn`t lose so that has got to be a positive point and Roy will have learned a little more about his side as that vital first game at Hull approaches.
Fulham: Mark Schwarzer, John Pantsil, Paul Konchesky, Brede Hangeland, Aaron Hughes, Simon Davies, Zoltan Gera, Danny Murphy, Jimmy Bullard, Seol Ki-Hyeon, Bobby Zamora.
Subs: David Stockdale, Fredrik Stoor, David Healy, Eddie Johnson, Steven Davis, Leon Andreasen, Toni Kallio.
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