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Fulham Football Club is one of London’s most celebrated Premier League sides. Operating from the historic Craven Cottage they can host up to 28,000 fans per match. To keep a venue of this scale safe, coordinated, and always operational, Fulham needed a communication system it could genuinely rely on. Since partnering with 2CL with a six-year Fully Managed Hire, the club now runs 280 Motorola radios across the entire Craven Cottage estate that keeps every team, from matchday security to medics and cleaning staff, connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. |
AT A GLANCE Industry: Stadiums & Events
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About Fulham Football Club
Craven Cottage is one of English football’s most demanding operational environments. On matchdays, the stadium welcomes up to 28,000 supporters following the redevelopment of the Riverside Stand, with security, stewarding, medical, catering, and facilities teams all working in parallel to deliver a safe and smooth experience.
Beyond football, the club is planning to host major music concerts during the off-season, bringing total licensed events to as many as 24 per year. Fulham also operates Motspur Park, its training ground in New Malden, Surrey, and supports additional events such as The Boat Race.
Communication failures at a venue of this scale carry serious consequences. With Craven Cottage’s Grade II listed Johnny Haynes Stand, the multi-storey Fulham Pier building with its reinforced concrete structure, and the complexity of managing teams across a sprawling estate in a dense urban setting, the demands on any radio system are significant. The club needed infrastructure capable of delivering total coverage — not just during 90 minutes of football, but around the clock.
“We’d been let down by ageing equipment and a support contract that stopped at 5pm on a Friday. 2CL didn’t just replace the kit, they took the time to understand our whole business, from the matchday crowds to the cleaning teams working late at night. ”
— John D’arcy, Head of Safety, Fulham FC
The Challenge
When 2CL first engaged with Fulham FC, the club’s existing radio system was no longer fit for purpose, and confidence in it had all but collapsed.
Batteries that didn’t last a matchday
The incumbent radios were running on ageing batteries that routinely gave out before the final whistle. Staff were carrying two or three replacement batteries each just to get through a single matchday. The burden this placed on the team was constant, and the risk to safety operations was real.
No support when it was needed most
The club’s previous maintenance contract covered standard office hours only: 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. But football doesn’t happen during business hours. When a system issue occurred on a matchday evening, the club was left to manage it alone.
An outage during one particularly busy fixture left staff struggling to get answers or assistance, with no engineer available and no clear escalation route. It was a situation that directly undermined the safety operation at one of London’s most high-profile venues.
Obsolete equipment and a growing coverage problem
The radios themselves were outdated and increasingly difficult to maintain. Spare parts were hard to source, and replacement units were simply no longer available. As Fulham expanded its operations beyond the stadium bowl to include Fulham Pier and wider commercial areas, the existing system couldn’t keep pace. Fulham Pier presented a particular challenge: a seven-storey building with heavy concrete construction that blocked radio signals entirely in certain areas.
Radios abandoned in favour of mobile phones
The loss of confidence in the radio system had a direct operational consequence. The Head of Safety at Fulham FC, found that staff were bypassing the radio network entirely – calling using mobile phones or sending WhatsApp messages instead of communicating through the control room. In a busy, noisy stadium environment with variable mobile signal, this was neither reliable nor efficient. Critical communications were being missed, delayed, or lost and the control room was being bypassed.
The Solution
Motorola Solutions recommended 2CL as the partner best placed to address Fulham FC’s needs. Before specifying a single piece of equipment, our team took the time to understand the full scope of the club’s operations. Not just the matchday setup, but the operations at Fulham Pier, and the club’s forward plans for concerts and larger events. The system we designed is built for both today’s needs and the planned future expansion.
Motorola MOTOTRBO Radios
The core of the deployment is a fleet of 280 Motorola MOTOTRBO radios, comprised mostly of the R7, supplemented by R5 units for roles where a simpler device is more appropriate. The R7 is built specifically for demanding operational environments.
Its Adaptive Dual Microphone Noise Suppression cancels crowd noise and ambient sound, ensuring that a security steward can communicate clearly in a packed stand without raising their voice. Intelligent Audio monitors background noise continuously and adjusts speaker volume automatically, so messages are always at the right level whether a team member is in a quiet corridor or at the edge of a full terrace.
Battery performance was a top priority given the failure of the previous system. The R7 uses lithium-ion cells with IMPRES self-calibrating technology, which eliminates the hours of manual conditioning that drain battery life over time. Each radio now reliably powers through an entire shift including the build-up, the match itself, and post-event operations. The three-battery problem is gone.
Motorola repeaters and combiner
Achieving full coverage across Craven Cottage from the stadium bowl and concourses to the seven floors of Fulham Pier and the external perimeter required a carefully designed infrastructure.
We installed four Motorola SLR 5500 repeaters to extend signal reach into every area of the estate, including the concrete-heavy sections of Fulham Pier that had previously blocked communication entirely.
A four-channel combiner brings all frequencies together and feeds a single antenna, simplifying the infrastructure and ensuring clean, interference-free signal distribution throughout the site. The system also incorporates a recording solution, capturing all radio traffic for operational review and evidential purposes.
Desktop radios for the control room
Motorola DM 4600E desktop radios, fitted with foot pedals and D-Shell acoustic tube earpieces, have been installed in the control room. These give the operations team hands-free, instant access to the full radio network, enabling them to coordinate across all user groups simultaneously without interrupting the physical tasks of monitoring CCTV, managing access, or directing crowd flow.
24/7 Fully Managed Hire and ongoing support
Underpinning the entire deployment is 2CL’s six-year Fully Managed Hire agreement. This is a comprehensive managed service that includes 24/7 support, with engineers available to attend site whenever needed. If a problem arises on a Saturday evening before kick-off, the response is immediate. The club is never left to manage a system failure alone.
“Motorola themselves recommended 2CL, and having been through one full season with them, I understand exactly why. The reliability we now have is night and day, and the savings we’ve made along the way were something none of us expected. ”
— John D’arcy, Head of Safety, Fulham FC
The Results
From the stadium bowl to the upper floors of Fulham Pier, every part of the Craven Cottage estate now has reliable, clear radio communication. The coverage challenges posed by the concrete structure of Fulham Pier have been resolved entirely. Staff no longer resort to mobile phones or WhatsApp and all communications flow through the control room, keeping the Head of Safety informed and in control at every moment.
The radio channel runs silently in the background: the system is simply there when it’s needed, without demanding attention when it’s not.
Life-critical response made possible
The value of a reliable communication system is never clearer than when something goes seriously wrong. During one matchday in the club’s first season with the new system, a member of staff collapsed and suffered a cardiac arrest.
The nearest colleague had a radio and was able to call it in immediately. Medical support arrived within minutes. The club believes the speed of that response was a key factor in his full recovery. No technology can guarantee outcomes in a medical emergency but a communication system that works, instantly, when it matters most, can make the critical difference.
20% cost saving against the previous contract
Moving from an outdated, poorly supported legacy system to a brand-new, fully integrated solution with managed support has also delivered a 20% saving against the previous contract. Fulham FC now has more radios, better coverage, superior technology, and round-the-clock support – for less than they were paying before.
Built for growth, ready for concerts
At the planning stage, 2CL ensured the system was designed not just for current matchday operations but for the club’s future ambitions. As Fulham FC begins to host major music concerts and additional large-scale events at Craven Cottage, the radio infrastructure is already in place to support them.
The system has been sized, programmed, and configured to accommodate the expanded footprint and additional user groups that come with a full events calendar.
Staff confidence and trust restored
Perhaps the most telling result is the simplest. The radios are used. The Head of Safety no longer fields calls on his mobile from staff who have given up on the radio system. The team across security, medics, cleaning, operations, and the control room all communicate through the network as standard. Trust in the technology has been rebuilt, and with it, the confidence of the leadership team that the safety operation at Craven Cottage is running as it should.
For more information about how 2CL can support your stadium, sports ground, or multi-use venue with a tailored communication and safety system, call us on 0800 389 2278 or send us a message.