Tim Ream: 300 Not Out

That was Tim Ream’s answer in August 2015 when asked for his aims and ambitions upon joining Fulham. Safe to say, he’s done that.

The Club’s transfer business going into our second season in the Championship saw us bring in a number of individuals who knew England’s second tier well. Ream, fresh from winning consecutive Player of the Season awards at Bolton Wanderers, fit the bill.

Things started well. Thrown straight into the team, Ream tasted victory three times in his first four league outings as Fulham defeated Rotherham United, Blackburn Rovers and Queens Park Rangers, our local rivals who had also fiercely courted Ream during the off-season.

But six weeks later, a 5-2 home loss to Birmingham City cost Head Coach Kit Symons his job. An extensive search for his replacement began, with Peter Grant and Stuart Gray each having a spell in caretaker charge before the appointment of Slaviša Jokanović in the December.

After starting Ream just 10 times in the second half of 2015/16, Jokanović pulled the defender to one side at the end of the campaign to inform him he would not be needed going forward.

“I remember that conversation like it was yesterday,” Ream says. “Sitting in his office and being told that I was surplus to requirements, it’s not something that you ever want to hear as a player.

“But you can take it one of two ways – you can move on and run away from it, or you can face up and make it a challenge. He didn’t make it a challenge to me, I made it a challenge for myself. That’s probably one of my favourite stories.

“And to his credit, after that next pre-season – and, again, I remember this like it was yesterday – he stopped me at the airport at the end of the tour and tells me that I’m not going anywhere, that I’ll definitely have an impact that season.

“I think from Boxing Day onwards, away at Ipswich, I didn’t miss a game. And like I said, credit to him for changing his mind, but I saw it as a challenge and it spurred me on to go and become a better player, to do the things he was asking, to be able to adapt.

It takes a brave man to try and prove Slaviša Jokanović wrong, but the Serbian was happy to hold his hands up, citing Ream’s attitude as an example to the rest of the team.

“I didn’t want Tim in the team,” Slav told next week’s episode of Fulham Fix. “I called him and told him, ‘listen, Tim, you won’t play with me, it’s better for you if you look for another team.’ Day by day he improved. He wanted to show me and explain to me that I was wrong, and show me that he was a good player.

“He did a good job, and was a really, really important player for the style that we played. And I didn’t have any problem recognising this in front of all the team. I said this guy is an example for all of you, because I didn’t want him here, but he deserved to be skipper of the team by the end.

“It was a positive example for me. You have to respect his work, how he improved in this period.”

Two games missed through injury aside in the winter of 2017, Ream played every single minute of our first promotion season. Such was his consistency, he absolutely coasted his way to winning our Player of the Season – some feat considering the exploits of one Ryan Sessegnon that year.

The next four campaigns are well documented, with each of them featuring either a relegation or promotion. 

The last of those – the Championship winning season – was under Ream’s seventh Fulham manager Marco Silva, a man who placed his trust in the veteran defender as we tackled the nation’s elite once more.

After a strong first half of a season which also saw him take in his first World Cup, Ream had a Boxing Day to remember, scoring his maiden Premier League goal just hours before the Club announced he had signed a new contract.

“He's been unbelievable since I joined the Club,” said Silva at the time. “It's been a really impressive 18 months for him. Many people doubted him in the Premier League but he's playing at the same level he did last season. He deserved another year on his contract.”

Ever present last season and this – barring a suspension and a broken arm – and he’s duly reached a milestone that only 28 players have before in our 144 year history.

To add further context, the last time we celebrated a player making his 300th appearance for Fulham was a day that’s best remembered for the result, when Simon Morgan was part of the side that won 2-1 at Carlisle United to all but confirm our promotion from the fourth tier.

Fast forward 26-and-a-half years, and Ream was leading the Whites to a 3-1 top flight victory over Sheffield United, ironically the team he made his debut against 299 appearances previously.

“It’s a great number for him,” Silva said. “It shows what it is to be a top professional. Tim is a top professional, to be able to play this big number of matches with a Fulham shirt. To see him enjoying these moments is even more important, and he deserves the credit.”

Straight after that match, Tim Ream spoke with symmetry to that very first interview he gave, stressing that his motivation – from day one – has been to have an impact here.

“For me, personal milestones are great, right? They’re a great achievement but it’s not something where you go to a club thinking, ‘I want to hit this mark.’ You go to a club and want to have an imprint on the place, have an imprint on the team, on the club as a whole, on the fanbase. That’s kind of the way I looked at it.

“But, at the end of the day, if you do things right, if you’re able to adapt to different styles, different managers, different things that happen, and you stick around long enough, you reach those milestones. It’s not something I thought about in August of 2015.”

When you think of players who have had an imprint on the fabric of our Club in recent years, there’s no doubting that Timothy Michael Ream is right near the top of the list.