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In an attempt to avoid having to translate hoyty toyty talk from yer a West London Tarquins and Sebastian’s, BillytheBee has gone international in finding a F@lham fan to talk to – catching up with Seattle-based Andrew Beck (@arbeck) from Cottagers Confidential about throwing barbs, the Europa League final and Agent Trotta

Seattle … and F@lham. Isn’t that a bit extreme? Shouldn’t you be supporting Seattle Sounders?

Not really. I fell in love with Fulham during the FulhAmerica period and I wake up as early as 4:45AM to watch matches.

So this is the first proper match between us in 16 years. Will it live up to the hype do you think?

Do matches ever live up to the hype? I know the fans are excited. There’s a group of Fulham supporters travelling by boat to the game. How often can one do that? (Er .. For Southend away .. Charlton … Orient ..that one was a bit random .. Millwall … And basically anywhere else on the river. We do it all the time – Ed .). On the pitch though? I have no idea if the game will be anything special.

Fulham fans may think it sad but Brentford fans have been singing anti-Fulham songs weekly for the past 19 years. Do you return the compliment?

I can’t say I’ve ever heard an anti Brentford song coming from the Hammy End, but we do share your proclivity for singing about other teams in the neighborhood. Most of the Fulham songs seem to be throwing barbs at QPR or Chelsea. Because as any proper football fan knows, there’s only one team in Fulham.

But you did sing “Are you Brentford in disguise?” apparently when you played Athletico Madrid in the 2010 Europa Cup Final.

One of the the things I like best about Fulham is the sense of humor our supporters have. We’re not a huge club, we know it, and we don’t care. When we equalized so quickly it just seemed natural. The same way you’ll hear this number when we take the lead on Friday:

“We’re winning away, we’re winning away, how sh!te must you be cause we’re winning away.”

It’s funny and it’s Fulhamish.

Ah. The olde confidence is brewing I see. You weren’t so bullish when “Athletico Brentford” kippered you in that Europa League Final in their red and white stripes.

Did you really have to bring that up? Four minutes from penalties and then… Diego Forlan. I still root against Uruguay and every other team he plays for to this day.

Fulham have had a crap start to the season. Your only win for ages was against our B team in August in the cup. We actually thought Felix was doing a magnificent job. We were disappointed to see him go.

I’m sorry, I had all memories of Felix Magath surgically removed from my brain. I hear he was a crazy person. Something about treating injuries with cheese? Are you telling me this man was really in charge of a football team?

Things have picked up somewhat since Kit Symons took over. What has been the difference do you think?

Well, not being a crazy person is a good start. I’m sure the players are happy to know that they won’t have cheese strapped to their legs anymore. That always makes for a much better work environment.

The other big change is simply picking the best squad. Fernando Amorebieta is a good player. As are Bryan Ruiz, Dan Burn, and Hugo Rodallega. You would think a manager would want to play good players. Instead he played a goal keeper who likes to wear pajamas.

Things still aren’t perfect. The defense is still a little too easy to break and the team always seems to struggle coming out at the second half, but I don’t think there’s a team in the Championship we can’t beat now.

So who should we be looking out for?

Ross McCormack has been worth every penny we paid for him (last I heard from Leeds supporters it was something like a billion pounds). He’s been even more valuable as a creative force than he has been as a goal scorer.

Hugo Rodallega seems to have found his form. He might just be a player that’s too good for the Championship but not quite good enough for the Premier League. Not a great player to have last year, but one that will work wonders for us this year.

Bryan Ruiz is definitely a player too good for the Championship. He’s good enough that he’ll probably be gone in January, but might as well use him while we’ve got him.

Agent Trotta. Was he really sent a command from the Fulham general to make sure he missed that final day penalty?

You were supposed to take the ball of potential that was Trotta and form him into something Fulham would want. Instead three successive managers have decided he’s rubbish. Not even the crazy one wanted him around.

He came good the following season. Obviously he saw the light

He’s seen the light so much that he wants to go to Italy. What did you do to the poor lad to make him hate England so much?

We’re confused. You won’t play Trotta. You won’t let him go. We apparently tried to buy him in the closed season. Strange attitude.

My only explanation is that he’s no good. Only when surrounded by other Brentford players does he seem like he’s worth something. We’re hoping some poor team in Italy will be fooled into taking him. We’ll just point at Pajtim Kasami and Kostas Mitroglou and say “See how great our ex players are? Trotta will be just as good!”

Brentford fans who were there will dine out forever on the 4-0 Sunday promotion win in 1992. What is your fondest Bees derby memory ?

I have to say I don’t have any memories. In 1998, I was living in Oklahoma and lucky to see Premier League highlights at 3 in the morning on some channel that was all in Spanish. I didn’t even know there was a part of London called Fulham. So my favorite memory is the Cup game this year. Being that it was the first competitive win in five months, that was something. In hindsight though I wish we had lost so Magath would have been sacked sooner.

Here’s our Made in Fulham section

(You’ve got) McCormack. Or (we’ve got) Odubajo?

McCormack

Hugh Grant or Pierece Brosnan?

Grant. Brosnan is the worst Bond. I’d rather have Lazenby

Vindaloo or World In Motion?

My wife just made me take her to see New Order in July. They were actually quite impressive. They didn’t play World in Motion though. I’m still bitter. So Vindaloo for me (I think Fulham fan Keith Allen who sang Vindaloo would be happy with that – ed)

Bill Dodgin or Jimmy Hill?

Jimmy Hill wears bow ties. I never trust a man in a bow tie. So Bill Dodgin it is.

Luis Boa Morte or Barry Hayles?

I never actually saw Barry Hayles play, so Luis Boa Morte.

Tarquin or Sebastian?

I have to admit I have no idea what this even means. I have a feeling I’m either missing something wonderful and British or something awful and British.

Head to head, Fulham are just shading it winning 20 games to the Bees’ 16 with 14 games drawn. Do you think you can carry the run on???

This is a far different team than the one you saw in August. I expect a result one way or another. I also expect goals.

Give us a score prediction

I think we probably end the game in a draw. 2-2 sounds likely to me.

And the million dollar question. Will you get relegated??

All the fear of relegation is gone. I think it’s more likely that we make the playoffs than we get relegated. If the team plays at the same points per game pace that they have under Kit Symons, they would finish right around the historical point total of the sixth place team. This team has punched me in the stomach too many times over the years for me to ever expect that, but I think they probably finish top eight.

Thanks to Andrew for giving us the international low-down on Fulham. You can check out Cottagers Confidential by clicking here.