THE SCARIEST thing about playing Fulham is 1.94 meters tall, writes children's books, and has been wearing the same shinpads for 17 years.

It is called Mark Schwarzer.

If Schwarzer has a big game, there's not much anybody but God can do to beat his team. And even Robbie "God" Fowler saw a penalty saved by Schwarzer in 2005, a sensational feat which saw Middlesborough go into Europe at the expense of Manchester City.

Ironically, on the day the Gold Coast's date with the London club was confirmed, Middlesborough stand all but relegated from the EPL. Mysterious ways, do you think?

Here's a bit more irony. Schwarzer turned down an offer from Juventus when he moved to Fulham in 2008, mostly because the Italians could not guarantee him the number one spot. Gold Coast keeper Jess Vanstratten took up the Old Lady's offer but has since spent his time in the shadow of Gianluigi Buffon. It's obvious who made the best decision, but who is the better keeper? Pim Verbeek should be watching the GCU v. Fulham game with interest!

Fulham's trip Down under makes a lot of commercial sense. Craven Cottage, which has a capacity just below Skilled Park, is just a few Tube stations from Earls Court, where generations of ex-pat Aussies have dumped their swags and backpacks (I lived there myself for a while, back in the day). Aside from their goalie, Fulham's physio and conditioning coach are also Aussies. Schwarzer also has close links to the Gold Coast, and was here doing promotional visits to Palm Beach FC last year.

Schwarzer is a certain starter for the July 8 friendly. But aside from the big fella, who else will be making the trip to Skilled Park?

Perhaps it doesn't matter too much. Fulham's current squad includes nearly 50 players players, eight of whom are currently out on loan. That's an awesome arsenal of footballing skill. Interestingly for an EPL team, however, they have quite a lot of English players and no really big stars. Expect the promotional material to be something like "Schwarzer versus Culina, Porter, Smeltz and Los Tres Brazileiros".

It is certainly going to be a huge game for the Gold Coast club.

Following the FFA's panicked decision to reschedule our home debut v Roar, this encounter will provide a much-needed local PR boost for the new club on the block. IMHO, Clive Palmer would not have spent the money to bring Fulham out here unless the FFA had swapped the Roar home date. So maybe we should all thank Ben Buckley?

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And now, back to reality. I went to watch the Gold Coast's second local league warm-up match tonight, and it was bloody horrible. After last week's 12-1 drumming of Mudgeeraba, including 9 superb Smeltz goals, tonight the boys could only manage a scrappy 2-1 win over Magic United. I don't even want to remember who scored.

In the cold evening shadows of Carrara Stadium (soon to upgraded for the new Gold Coast AFL team) Miron's squad looked tired, sloppy and bereft of inspiration. Play kept breaking down in the attacking quarter, rubbish passes were a dime a dozen, and by the end of the session the local lads were justified in fancying their chances of pulling off a draw.

Led by Michael Thwaite, the defence was generally solid, with Magic's goal coming from a set piece and very few other shots on target. But Gold Coast's obviously superior technical skills and dominant possession simply would not convert to goals. Smeltz had a few half chances - the same opportunities he was routinely putting away last week - but nothing seemed to be working for the boys in yellow.

If every team has one bad game a season, I hope this was it. I know it was only a practice game, and full credit to the Magic boys for bringing it on, but by the end of it I'm sure everyone was as glad as I was to be going home. I saw Tahj Minniecon heading for the change rooms 5 minutes from full-time (he's still recovering from injury) and suggested to him that Miron would be getting right up the lads for this performance.

"Oooooooh, yeah!!!" he said, rolling his eyes.

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Now I know the usual suspects will be making their usual snarky comments on this blog thread, but I would urge intelligent readers to recognise (if they haven't already) just how hard it is to build a football team out of nothing.

The Fulham game will be the first time our entire squad has even played together. Some big names will be arriving at Coolangatta airport just days ahead of the kickoff. If we can manage even an honourable draw against the Cottagers, it will be a major achievement.

We clearly have a mountain to climb, and nobody should underestimate the challenges ahead of us. But like Jason Culina recently said: "If you can't handle pressure, you are better off not playing at all."

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ADDITIONAL TRIVIA:

* GCU CEO Clive Mensink tells me that Fulham only became available after another A-League team pulled out, but he won't say which team. Smooth, that man is.

* Joel Porter had a great farewell radio show for the Hartlepool faithful after six years at the club. You can listen to it here.

* GCU Memberships are finally on the way out!!! Woohoo!!!

* The new kits should be released very soon. Expect the home strip to be all white. Classic team, classic name, classic colours. Ooooh, yeah, baby.