Let me tell you about the Fulham Football Club, which is currently battling relegation.  Basically, relegation works like this — there are 20 teams in the top flight British soccer league, called the Premiership, and the bottom two teams in the standings at the end of the year do not get to play with the big boys next year…they get relegated to the lower division.  The top two teams from the lower division move up at the end of each season. 

Sidebar:  I have always thought that this concept would work for baseball.  Could you imagine the additional drama and compelling television (for everyone except Royals fans)to watch a team like the Kansas City Royals go back and forth between the bigs and AAA every couple of years? 

I still think this concept could get legs — we just need the right commissioner…or any commissioner that is not a figurehead gelding that deliberately worked hand in hand with the players union to allow the steroids era to mushroom out of control, and is not a former owner, or current owner, or majority shareholder, or board member, or whatever his title is in the Brewers organization. 

We could even get a clever, marketable name for the process, since "relegation" would not work over here.  I would suggest that we call it Jeff Loria Insurance.  The way I figure it, if you made that disgrace of an owner spend an extra year or two just getting back to the big leagues after each semi-decade fire sale, maybe he would be motivated to do things the right way and respect the league, the game, and his fans…or better yet, maybe he will just go away and leave those of us who care about the game alone.

Back to Fulham — they are currently in 19th place and in grave danger of relegation.  They have a tiny little stadium (compared to their counterparts) that is very old and they fill that thing up to the brim for every home game.  Their fans are as passionate as any, and they have suffered greatly over the past several decades.  Stop me if any of this sounds familiar, Red Sox fans.

They suffered relegation from the Premiership in the late 60s and never made it back until 2001.  The lowest point of the entire ordeal was a 1996 3rd Division Defeat to Torquay United, who at the time were at the bottom of the standings in the bottom of the entire football league (there are four divisions in the league, the Premiership, followed in order by Divisions 1-3)…and Fulham were just one spot higher in the standings.  So, a once proud club was on the brink of falling out of the league altogether as recently as 12 years ago.

So, why should you care?  They are beginning a dramatic run to retain their place in the Premiership.  They have hired a seasoned, well-travelled coach with the experience necessary to get immediate results while still training the young players to build for the future, and they have spent a bunch of money on players since December.  They are bringing in old veterans to fill the gaps, stave off relegation and start to rebuild a winner.  Not a bad story, eh?

How about this?  Many of their key players are Americans.  Stop me if any of these names sound familiar:  Kasey Keller, Carlos Bocanegra, Eddie Johnson, and Clint Dempsey.  If that wasn’t enough, their Captain is none other than Brian McBride, the elder statesman of the American national team.  They also have a dude named Mike Timlin on their team (he’s from Ireland, but still…Mike Timlin).

So, while it might be tough to follow them over the next several weeks, you may want to look online once in a while and see how the struggle is progressing.  I am fortunate enough to have U-verse at home, so I will be able to watch highlights every week and the occasional full match. 

Watching some of our best American soccer players trying to save a proud English team from relegation could certainly make for some compelling drama.  The Premiership season runs until the middle of May and you can follow along on ESPN (www.soccernet.com), the official Fulham club site (www.fulhamfc.co.uk), the Fox Soccer site (http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer), or wherever else you get your soccer news if you are already a fan.

And if you need some extra drama, the Fulham Football Club is owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed (yeah, THAT Al-Fayed — he is Dodi’s dad), who is pretty much a lowlife scum-bag criminal.  He has attempted to gain British citizenship for years, and he is always denied on the grounds that he is of poor character.  He has attempted to bribe members of Parliament and has left Great Britain recently, settling in Monaco (for the favorable tax laws) after a brief stop in Switzerland.

If you want to learn more about the club or what they are up against, I recommend the Wikipedia Entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulham_F.C.

DISCLAIMER:  I am by no means a Premiership expert and a lot of the background for this article came from researching the club online.  If I have omitted or missed or butchered anything, please feel free to chime in with a comment and set me straight.