Stoke return to the Cottage fter a short absence of just over four years. The last occasion was in the League Cup on 22 Sep 2015, naturally they beat us 0-1.

Our sides have met 78 times since opening with a 6-1 drubbing we suffered against them at their ground four days before Christmas 112 years ago in Division Two, we'd won the Southern League Division One the previous season.

My mate Rio who attended the game on his 21st birthday, says that we didn't play badly but our keeper, Skene, kept falling asleep.

Our top scorer, Bob Dalrymble scored our sole goal. A month earlier, Newcastle had thrashed us 6-0 in a an FA Cup Semi-Final, however on the bright side, Fulham finished fourth in the League.

Thanks to the late Denis Turner's excellent book 'Fulham The Complete Record' for these nuggets of Fulham's early history, apart for the reference to Rio, I slipped that one in as he swears he reads this site regularly but he clearly doesn't!