Greatest Fulham Players Ever – Top 10 Legends
3. Ronnie Rooke
Ronnie Rooke joined Fulham from Crystal Palace in 1936 and spent the next ten years with the club. At the end of the 1939 season, Ronnie Rooke was 27 years old and had scored 63 goals in 90 games for Fulham. Then came the war. He scored 13 more in 18 games in 1946-47.
Rooke also scored 212 goals in 199 unofficial wartime games for Fulham. During his three decades playing career, he scored at least 929 goals in 1028 official matches, among which more than 763 league goals at all levels. According to the RSSSF, he is the best league goalscorer of all time and the third overall behind Erwin Helmchen and Josef Bican.
2. George Cohen
George Cohen played his entire career at Fulham from 1956 to 1969. One of the original overlapping full-backs, he equally excelled in defending. Very few players got the better of him. He ended his career with 459 appearances for the club, a figure surpassed by only five other players in Fulham’s history.
He was a part of the English World Cup winning team of 1966. George Cohen is one of the greatest Fulham players ever.
1. Johnny Hayes
Haynes is widely regarded as Fulham’s greatest ever player, remaining loyal there for 20 years despite coming no nearer to a major trophy win than two FA Cup semi-final appearances.
Haynes could pass, control and shoot the ball like no other of his era, and although classed as an “inside forward”, he knew where the goal was.
He appeared in the 1958 and 1962 World Cup finals, but a car crash in ’62 robbed him of his pace and his game finally came down to earth. The Johnny Haynes Stand at Craven Cottage is a fitting tribute, and he has been immortalised as a statue outside the ground.