Fulham sign off professional era in style

Charlton Athletic 0 Fulham 3

Fulham marked their final game as the only professional women's team in Europe with the required flourish at Selhurst Park yesterday, overwhelming a stilted Charlton side to maintain their two-year unbeaten record in all competitions.

Having become only the second English team in the history of the women's game to complete the domestic treble of League, League Cup and Cup, the full-time outfit established three years ago with Mohamed Al Fayed's millions – well, thousands – will now return to semi-pro status. With no other teams following suit, the economics have become impossible for them.

Fulham's Norwegian manager, Gaute Haugenes, is returning home – along with his wife, Margunn, a key midfielder – to begin coaching a men's Third Division side. Three other crucial players – the goalkeeper Atrid Johannessen, defender Katrine Pedersen and the England centre forward Kristy Moore, are also taking up more lucrative foreign contracts.

Next season it will fall to the experienced 37-year-old England international Marieanne Spacey to guide the fortunes of a team which has risen in the space of 10 years from the Greater London League Fifth Division to a position as the undisputed top dogs on the domestic scene. Fulham will be able to look back with satisfaction upon a final watched by 10,385 paying spectators and a live BBC TV audience.

Charlton's early optimism was demoralisingly undermined after 19 minutes when a lack of concentration by their defence allowed their opponents to take a lead that was against the run of play. When Rachel Unitt miscued at the far post following a left wing cross from Margunn, Charlton appeared to believe that a ball which had been driven across rather than towards goal was going out of play. So when Margunn retrieved it to replicate her earlier cross the ball sailed straight over the England goalkeeper, Pauline Cope, to the unmarked Moore, who volleyed home at the far post.

Having failed to cope with Fulham's first real attack, the 34-year-old Cope – who had previously won three cup winner's medals with different teams – found herself in even greater distress six minutes before the break. When a speculative ball forward from the half-way line by Unitt arrived in the area, Cope was flattened in a collision with the incoming Moore and the ball trundled on into the empty net, taking a slight touch off the boot of the Charlton defender Karen Hills, who was credited with an own goal.

It was an unhappy way for Hills to celebrate her 28th birthday while Cope's vociferous comments to the referee George Cain earned her the gift of a yellow card.

The contest was effectively finished a minute after the hour by another Charlton own goal following a corner by Unitt. It came, unfortunately from one of the most talented players in the game, the 19-year-old international midfielder Sara Williams, who had only arrived as a substitute three minutes earlier.

Charlton Athletic (4-4-2): Cope; Stoney, Loizou, Hills, Pond; Hunn (Williams, 58), Broadhurst (Smith, 71), Lorton (Whitter, 71), Rea; Barr, Walker. Substitutes not used: Kierans, Abbott.

Fulham (4-3-3): Johannessen; Jerray-Silver, Pedersen, Phillip, Unitt; McArthur, Duncan, Haugenes; Moore (Gibbons, 84), Mwajei (Spacey, 77), Yankey (Therkelsen, 89). Substitutes not used: Smith, Wright.

Referee: G Cain (Liverpool).