Fulham FC

Fulham Football Club is a professional football club based in Fulham, in west London, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1879, it has played its home matches at Craven Cottage since 1896. Fulham maintain rivalries, known as the West London derbies, with Chelsea, Brentford and Queens Park Rangers. The club adopted a kit of white shirts and black shorts in 1896, a combination it has used continuously ever since.

Founded in 1879, it is the oldest professional football club in London. It joined the Southern League in 1898, where it won two First Division titles (1905–06 and 1906–07), in addition to two Second Division championships and one Western League title. In 1907 it was admitted to the Football League Second Division. After being relegated, it won the Third Division South in the 1931–32 season, achieving promotion four years after its relegation.

The club was crowned Second Division champion in the 1948–49 season, although it was relegated after three campaigns in the top flight. It returned to the First Division in 1958–59 and, with the outstanding performances of its star player Johnny Haynes, managed to remain among the elite until it suffered consecutive relegations in 1968 and 1969. It was promoted again in the 1970–71 season and reached the 1974–75 FA Cup final.

During the following decades, the club alternated between the second and fourth tiers of English football until its takeover by the businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed in 1997. Under his ownership, Fulham won two divisional titles in three seasons, achieving promotion to the Premier League in 2001. It subsequently won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2002 and was runner-up in the UEFA Europa League in 2010.

After thirteen consecutive seasons in the top flight, Fulham were relegated in 2014. Since then, and under the ownership of the businessman Shahid Khan, the club has alternated between the Premier League and the Championship. Between the 2017–18 and 2021–22 seasons, Fulham changed division in five consecutive campaigns, being relegated after winning the Championship play-off finals in 2018 and 2020. In the 2021–22 season it was crowned Championship champion, establishing itself in the Premier League from 2022.