Mohamed Fayed - the 'Phoney Pharaoh' who became Fulham's hero Yet, almost immediately, his actions began to undermine such conjecture. He delivered on a promise to project the club into the Premier League a year early. He did not interfere in dressing-room decisions, giving a succession of progressive managers - Kevin Keegan, Jean Tigana, Chris Coleman - the room to develop. What really changed minds, however, was when he returned the team to a refurbished Cottage in 2004 after a brief ground share at Loftus Road. Now that really did come as a surprise, especially after it was revealed that he had sold the first rights to redevelop the ground as housing for a reputed £50 million. No wonder the fans were soon chanting "give him a passport" in support of his failed campaign to secure British citizenship. Plus there was an eccentric undertow to his ownership that was hard to dislike, one which culminated in 2011 in him erecting a comically hapless statue to Michael Jackson, who had visited the ground once for a game against Wigan Athletic, outside the Riverside Stand. I remember once I arranged to interview him for a magazine profile. But instead of him appearing at the appointed time, his PR adviser - the latterly notorious Max Clifford - showed up. Clifford said that I could ask him anything I wanted and he had been given the owner's blessing to answer on his behalf. There followed the most bizarre half-hour in which Clifford not only used the first person in his answers ("I want Fulham to be the best club in the country") but began to affect Fayed's Middle Eastern accent. By the end of the interview, Clifford was enjoying the idea so much, Rory Bremner could not have carried off a better impression of the Harrods boss. It was the kind of behaviour unlikely to be encountered at Arsenal. There was one thing, though, that the Fayed‑imitating Clifford said that was hard to gainsay. When asked why Fayed had bought the club he said "because I love Fulham from the bottom of my heart and I love the fans even more than they love me." This was what seemed to have happened to Fayed at Fulham: if he bought it for the development possibility, he was quickly seduced by the place's old-school values, with its half-timbered stands and Diddy David Hamilton on the matchday PA. He seemed genuinely fond of the club. And the affection was reciprocated in the stands. You could see that when he made his ceremonial way across the pitch ahead of kick-off, waving a black-and-white scarf above his head, beaming. The regulars - a body who had built up a protective sheen of cynicism over the years of disappointment - cheered him to the echo. And there was a lot to cheer: the Premier League consolidation, the Europa League final in 2010, the succession of gilded players, from Steed Malbranque and Louis Saha to Dimitar Berbatov, all largely secured on the back of the £187 million in interest-free loans he made available. The fact is, what Fayed proved at Fulham over the years was that the Beatles were wrong: in football you really can buy love.