COTTAGE THREES!

The story of Fulham’s first team coaching trio and their roots in our Academy set-up.

- Billy Shaw

When ScottParker and his coaching team took Fulham back up into the Premier League in last season’s delayed Championship play-off final at Wembley in August, more than a few smiles were raised among the tenured players and staff in the Academy wing at Hotspur Way.

For it was a mere two seasons prior that the men who masterminded the Cottagers’ promotion were cutting their coaching teeth out on the grass at our Training Centre, in charge of our Under-18s.

Scott’s story is well-known. A highly-respected former England international, the all-action midfielder represented Charlton, Norwich, Chelsea, Newcastle and West Ham, and made 63 appearances for us between 2011 and 2013 before spending the final years of his playing career as captain of Fulham.

But when he hung up his boots in the summer of 2017 and returned to us for his first taste of life in the dugout, having been appointed as our new Under-18s Coach, fate brought him together with two former young Spurs professionals who served as his trusty lieutenants on those chilly Saturday mornings in Enfield – and still do now, on an altogether more high-profile stage.

MattWells, also an ex-midfielder and the grandson of legendary 1961 Double-winner CliffJones, spent 11 years as a player here from the age of nine, progressing through the youth age groups to make it to reserve team level in the mid2000s, before turning his hand to the coaching side of the game at an early stage, having endured his fair share of injury problems during his young career. Spells at Stevenage and the Nike Academy preceded his return to the club as an analyst and eventually a coach in the higher age groups of our youth system.