The Fulham F.C. vs Southampton F.C. timeline stretches back to the earliest years of professional football in southern England, producing a rivalry that has been contested across more than a century of league and cup competition with the head-to-head record remaining remarkably tight throughout.
The two clubs first met in the Southern League in 1903, with their early encounters played at a time when both were establishing themselves as significant forces in English football’s developing southern heartland.
Fulham posted three wins, two draws and two defeats in those first eight Southern League meetings between 1903 and 1907, giving them an early but fragile advantage in a fixture that would define itself through persistent competitiveness across the decades.
The bulk of their pre-war and post-war encounters took place in the old Second Division, where the two clubs crossed paths repeatedly across a 66-year stretch, with Southampton winning 20 and Fulham winning 13 of their 46 meetings in that era.
Southampton’s 4-0 home triumph in 1938 and their 5-3 victory in 1952, both in Division Two, stand as the largest winning margins in the fixture’s history for the Saints.
The Fulham F.C. vs Southampton F.C. timeline added a cup dimension between 1998 and 1999, when the two sides met in back-to-back domestic cup ties, with Fulham winning each by a 1-0 scoreline — first in the EFL Cup and then in the FA Cup third round the following season.
The Premier League era brought a new chapter, with the two clubs competing in the top flight across 20 meetings since 1992, a phase in which Southampton held a record of four wins, two draws and one defeat from their last seven Premier League encounters at the point the 2024-25 campaign concluded.
Their most recent Premier League meeting on 26 April 2025 saw Fulham win 2-1 at St Mary’s, with Southampton letting a lead slip in the closing stages in a result that proved emblematic of the Saints’ relegation battle that season.
Southampton were relegated from the Premier League at the end of 2024-25, dropping into the Championship, while Fulham remained a solid ninth-place presence in the top flight.
The 2025-26 season produced one of the most significant recent entries in the Fulham F.C. vs Southampton F.C. timeline, an FA Cup fifth-round tie at Craven Cottage on 8 March 2026 that ended 1-0 to Southampton in a famous upset.
With the game goalless and heading for extra time, Finn Azaz stayed onside and was tripped by Joachim Andersen inside the box in the 90th minute, with Ross Stewart hammering the resulting penalty hard and low beyond Benjamin Lecomte to send the Championship side into the quarter-finals.
Fulham, who had made nine changes from their midweek defeat to West Ham, dominated possession at 71.5 per cent and registered 15 shot attempts to Southampton’s two, yet could not convert before the late drama.
Across all competitions the all-time record across 81 meetings stands at Southampton 30 wins, Fulham 25 wins, and 26 draws, a series balanced enough to ensure every meeting carries genuine weight.
The Fulham F.C. vs Southampton F.C. timeline continues to deliver drama in equal measure regardless of which division separates the two clubs.