Both Fulham and Newcastle were in the bottom five at the time, but the managers had different philosophies. Joe Kinnear's teams battle for points without playing pretty football, whereas Cottagers' boss Roy Hodgson likes his team to play attractive football. Michael Owen started on the bench as he was still struggling to prove his fitness and sharpness, so Newcastle's strike-force consisted of Obafemi Martens and Shola Ameobi, but the first effort of note was a weak toe-poke by Jimmy Bullard that the Magpies' goalkeeper Shay Given easily saved after good work by Andy Johnson. Fulham dominated the first quarter of the match. Slightly before twenty minutes had passed Hungarian international Zoltan Gera went close after Bullard's corner gave him the opportunity to head in the opening goal, which was thwarted by José Enrique taking no chances at the expense of another corner.

Norwegian captain Brede Hangeland has adapted quickly to Fulham's system and his progress is being monitored by bigger clubs, but his brash challenge on Martens earned a talking to from referee Martin Atkinson, and shortly afterwards there were loud, but optimistic appeals for a penalty from the crowd after Bullard lost his footing from Bobby Zamora's pass. Five minutes later Fulham deservedly took the lead after Bullard's cross fell to Johnson as Claudio Cacapa's header rebounded off Fabricio Coloccini into the striker's path and Shay Given was left with the task of retrieving the ball from his net. “It was a fortuitous rebound,”said Roy Hodgson. “It happened so quickly.” Meanwhile, Kinnear had a face like thunder.

“I don't believe we started that well,” Kinnear said. “We certainly finished the first half the better side.” However, the Magpies' boss was distinctly unimpressed with the defending that gifted the lead to Fulham. “[Steven] Taylor pulled out at the last minute,” Kinnear said. “He had a groin strain. That first ball that came into the box, Taylor would have put it out of the ground; it's as simple as that.”

Fulham were the better side, but as the half progressed Newcastle came into their own. Joey Barton won his manager's approval with his zeal and drew a fine save from Fulham's keeper Mark Schwarzer after John Pantsil's misplaced pass gave him the opportunity shortly after Shola Ameobi had the simple task of tapping in the equaliser from the six yard box with just over half an hour remaining. The most important incident came with just under twenty-five minutes left, as Johnson was brought down by Fabricio Coloccini's crude tackle. Danny Murphy dispatched the penalty for his hundredth Premiership goal. Newcastle chased an equaliser, but Kinnear was enraged that Atkinson had missed a push on Cacapa just before Coloccini's foul gave the penalty away, although most observers missed it too. Shortly afterwards Martens attempted a spectacular overhead, but despite the introduction of Michael Owen for the last twenty minutes the equaliser failed to come. Owen had a glorious chance that he would normally have buried, but his predatory instinct deserted him when it mattered most to the evident disgust of the watching Fabio Capello. There was still time for Coloccini to fail to make amends by heading over from Barton's free-kick and for Murphy to get himself booked for a needless handball. Fulham won 2-1, but Kinnear was in no mood to hold back his criticism of the standard of officiating.

“I'm really gutted, because we didn't get the result we were looking for,” he said. “I thought in the second half there was only going to be one winner – us. There's so much frustration and there's so much pressure on results. I saw it as a golden opportunity gone past us. I'm just really sick that we didn't get something tonight because we more than deserved to get something. This [officiating] has cost us a point. They don't seem to care; it happens week in week out. They haven't earned the goals. We dominated the second half. If we had a proper referee I think we could have come away with something.” Kinnear labelled Atkinson a 'Mickey Mouse referee,' so where did Kinnear's outburst leave the Respect Campaign?

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (January 19th 2009)