To the English press, the Europa League is seen as an inconvenience, but to part-time Northern Irish team Crusaders, the chance to play Premier League Fulham is their dream draw. Ryan Keaney reports on one UK team who can’t wait for their qualifying game.
Last Monday the latest Europa League season kicked off with a typically understated draw for the first and second rounds of qualifying, but with the inclusion of Fulham it garnered more mainstream coverage than usual.
Having qualified courtesy of the UEFA Fair Play table that England topped and their own position as the best behaved team in the Premier League table not to qualify for Europe through other means, Fulham were looked on as the plum draw for the high number of small and part-time teams joining them in the hat.
In the first qualifying round starting on Thursday 30th June the Cottagers will take on NSI Runavik of the Faroe Islands and, assuming they reach the next stage, Crusaders FC of Northern Ireland await.
However, it’s not just their Premier League status that made Fulham appealing to Crusaders’ manager Stephen Baxter but also their location: “Nobody wants to be travelling to Outer Mongolia. You’re looking for something a little bit handier, travel wise, hotel wise, lots of reasons.”
Stephen Bell, the club chairman, was present at the draw in Switzerland and couldn’t believe the pairing when it came out of the hat.
“When the draw was read out, it was an amazing feeling,” beamed Bell. “Fulham and Dundee United were the two teams that would have suited us. To get Fulham out of 120 teams is a dream came true. I couldn’t use my phone for about five or ten minutes until my nerves settled down.”
Just the draw has had an incredible effect on the local community around Crusaders. Forty-eight hours after the draw, Baxter noted an extra level of excitement around the ground as Crusaders took on Wales’ Neath AFC in a pre-arranged friendly. The Welsh side missed out on the glamour tie against the London club and were instead drawn against Norway’s Aalesunds FK for the first round of qualifying.
During the game, Crusaders’ Gareth McKeown noticed his team-mates taking matters more seriously than they may have otherwise done so. “Everybody wants to play against Fulham. There’s a whole lift around the club. You notice people putting in that bit extra. It’s definitely going to pay dividends.”
The players, the coaching staff, the administration staff and the fans are all still pinching themselves about the draw assuming that Fulham avoid a huge upset and make it past the Faroese.
Having qualified for the second round, Crusaders are left in an awkward position that can still see their dream tie taken away by them should the team that finished third in 2010’s Vodafonedeildin shock the footballing world. The uncertainty caused by waiting for the first round to be played out also means that Crusaders have been unable to make any travel plans for a clash set to begin in just over fourteen days’ time.
“I hope Fulham can put four or five past them so we can get a couple of flights booked,” said Stephen Bell, only of course thinking of the logistics.
As for Fulham’s first round opponents, Crusaders aren’t giving them a second thought. When asked about how much he knew or had scouted on NSI, Stephen Baxter was refreshingly honest.
“I know nothing about them and to be perfectly honest, we’ve only been concentrating on Fulham.” A clash with the Premier League side offers so much to the Carling Premiership and Irish Cup runners-up that anything else would deflate the incredible buzz around the area.
“It’d be a big time let-down,” admitted McKeown, the full-back. “It’s going to be a big money earner for the club itself and that’s what everybody is looking forward to. It would be a terrible let-down if something strange did happen.”
At the draw, Stephen Bell met the delegates from the Faroese side and drew a lot of parallels between the two clubs. “They were the only ones in the room with bigger smiles than I had. They’re like us, they are a part-time team and it was a dream come true for them as well. They’re looking forward to the occasion.”
It’s easy to quickly forget the obstacles that part-time teams have to get over in order to prepare fully for some of their fixtures and Crusaders are no different than their peers.
Neither the manager nor his chairman are able to be at the first round match at Craven Cottage when they could scout both of their potential opponents. Stephen Baxter is heading off on his summer holidays early on Friday morning and the chairman can’t avoid his work commitments.
They will not be stopped from being there for what is being talked about as a special night for the club. “Over the last two or three years, we’ve installed new floodlights, new changing rooms, new 4G pitch and now we’ve got new stands. We’re planning on putting new seats in the unreserved stand,” explained the proud chairman.
“The Fulham match will be an official opening for what is basically a new ground. Everything has finally been replaced which was long overdue. Liverpool were invited back in 1980 to open a stand. The timing is perfect for Fulham to do the same.”
The occasion of the clash is something that will be consistently spoken about in the days leading up to Crusaders’ eventual meeting with Fulham and the two men leading the club will know just as much as anyone else how much it means.
In September 1976, Crusaders welcomed Liverpool to Seaview in the first round of the European Cup. The English side went on to claim their first triumph in the tournament that season and both Stephen Baxter and Stephen Bell remember the atmosphere well.
“I was 12-year-old then. I was actually sitting on the pitch and we probably had 10,000 in the ground at that time,” recollects Bell.
“As a kid, I don’t really remember much about the game but games like that go down in the club’s history. Our boardroom is full of the newspaper cuttings and reports from the game. Games like that live long in the memory of the supporters.”
Baxter adds: “I remember being brought out of school by my father. I remember it being the first ever big game I’d ever been at. It was such a big event. Seaview was jam-packed for that game. This is probably the next biggest game in our history, should it take place.”
Since then the two men have been intertwined in the history of Crusaders Football Club. Having had his own career in football cut short by a knee injury at eighteen, Stephen Bell started out as a volunteer at Crusaders manning the turnstiles and putting his skills as a joiner by trade to good use around the ground.
He worked his way up, but even as chairman he still finds himself hanging doors and sorting out tickets. “Born and bred next to the club, I snuck in through the turnstiles like every kid at the game. Now I’m trying to stop people sneaking through.”
Stephen Baxter previously played at Crusaders and knowing that he is charge of first team matters for a historic match is not lost on the former striker, who ended his career just shy of one goal every two games.
“It’s a huge honour for me to be in charge of the team and I’m looking forward to such a big clash. We’ve had wonderful success over the last two or three seasons.
“We’ve galvanised the club. We’ve had some big games but this tops everything. For a part-time football club to be playing the elite of the Premier League is fantastic.”
There is no doubt the entire Crusaders squad will be striving to perform at the height of their capabilities but there will be an added drive for right-back Gareth McKeown to impress, having turned down Fulham at a young age.
As a promising youngster, McKeown spent two weeks on trial at Craven Cottage and was all set to sign for the Cottagers. Having enjoyed his time in southwest London, he took some time to consider his options and received a late offer from Derby County.
“That’s when Fulham were in the First Division, and Derby was in the Premier League. The Premier League made my mind up,” he admitted.
He spent three and a half years at Pride Park before returning to Northern Ireland and laments his decision to this day. “Now I regret it and I would say Fulham would have been a better move. I really enjoyed it down there in London.”
While the clash with Fulham offers so much to Crusaders, the only way the historic game against Liverpool that saw the ground filled to beyond capacity could be usurped by the tie with the London club would have to end in something close to a positive result for the Northern Irish, although Baxter is refusing to rule anything out.
“We have to obviously think confidently. You never enter into a game thinking you are going to get hammered. You have to think positively, prepare well, work hard and give a good account of yourselves. If we do all that, you never know.”
Stephen Bell, Stephen Baxter and Gareth McKeown were speaking exclusively to twofootedtackle.
Tags: Craven Cottage, Crusaders, Europa League, Fulham, Gareth McKeown, Northern Ireland, Stephen Baxter, Stephen Bell