What an odd man Felix Magath is. I am not talking about the way he jumps around in the technical area when things go wrong on the pitch and then appeals to the dugout as if the physio and team doctor had caused it.

No, what’s strange is that after losing Fulham’s first four games of the Championship season, he has got time to criticize me — someone he has never met — instead of devoting every waking second to putting right his own glaring mistakes.

There is nothing dishonourable about failure, if you face up to it. Mr Magath isn’t the first foreign coach to find the English game hard. What is wrong, and frankly un-English, is to blame someone else instead of taking responsibility for your own actions.

I sold my beloved Fulham on July 13, 2013. If a week is a long time in politics, 13 months is a lifetime in football. Mr Magath was brought in to stave off relegation from the Premier League but instead presided over a meek surrender.

It broke my heart. After 16 years at the helm at Craven Cottage, to see my work destroyed in a season was a bitter experience. To be blamed for that failure, is absurd.

Fortunately, there are 25,000 people who know the truth. The Fulham fans. I am content to be judged by them.

They know that when I bought Fulham, the club had just come out of Division Three. In two seasons, Fulham were champions of Division Two. Two years later, we were champions of Division One with a near record score of points.

Who can forget Louis Saha making goalscoring look easy?

Fulham were in the Premier League for 13 seasons. We played our part in making it the best and most entertaining league in the world. Fulham achieved their highest ever top-flight finish, seventh.

We carried English prestige into the inaugural season of the Europa League, taking Atletico Madrid into extra-time in the final and within five minutes of a penalty shoot-out. What a sight — one end of the stadium in Hamburg black and white. I confess; I was proud.

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Mr Magath says I bought only average players? So who were the men playing that night in Germany? I’ll tell you: titans of the game and every one a hero.

In 2008, we flirted with relegation but had fighters like Danny Murphy, who scored the goal at Portsmouth that kept us in the Premier League. In football, you cannot be an absentee landlord, as I fear Shahid Khan is most of the time. I went on the pitch before games. I met the fans. I talked to the players. I encouraged them. Yes, they are paid a lot of money but they are still young men who need inspiration. People work for people, not anonymous boards of directors. I gave the players gold chocolate bars from Harrods. If they needed to try harder, I handed out blue peppermints and said they were Viagra.

Those players never let me down.

The personal touch is important. Managers need encouragement too. Every manager I chose tried to take Fulham forward. Two of them became England managers.

The Football Association literally begged me to release Kevin Keegan to manage England and I considered it my patriotic duty to comply. Roy Hodgson re-established himself in English football at Fulham and gave us our greatest success.

Would they have worked for me if I had starved them of money? Would they have stayed friends with me? No and no. They had to make the case for expensive acquisitions. But none of my managers left my office without getting the cash for the players they really wanted.

We spent £11 million on Steve Marlet and the same on Bryan Ruiz. Neither worked out as had been hoped but those were considerable fees at the time.

But you do not always have to break the bank to buy good players.

Because Roy knew Scandinavia so well, he was able to tempt Brede Hangeland to the club where he became a noble captain.

But Brede left Craven Cottage bitter, claiming he was sacked by e-mail, and the highly respected John Arne Riise says Mr Magath has “flushed everything the club stand for down the toilet”.

Instead of being resentful, Mr Magath should be grateful to me. I set up Fulham’s highly successful Grade ‘A’ Academy. Without it, he would have more trouble putting a decent side out.

During my ownership, there were no scandals at Fulham. There were a few bad headlines. With fierce press critics always ready to let you know when you are wrong, that’s no mean achievement. Fulham were never the biggest club but they were among the best run in the Premier League.

That’s because I brought in first-class people to run the club. Some have been fired but most are still there. They know whether it is fair to blame me for the club’s parlous state. I bought the old Motspur Park stadium and turned it into a first-class football campus.

I cut ticket prices for youngsters and subsidised away travel. I kept the cost of season tickets down in order to rebuild the club’s fanbase. And I am proud that Fulham were one of the pioneers of “Kick It Out!”

After two years as grateful guests of QPR at Loftus Road, I heard the fans and went “Back to the Cottage”. I made Craven Cottage all-seater and put a roof over the enlarged Putney End, arranging hospitality boxes around the old football ground.

And Fulham always played the game in the right way.

When I handed the club over to Mr Khan, it was debt-free and in first-class condition. Had Mr Khan wanted my help and advice, I would have given it freely. But it was clear that he did not. That is why I have never been back to the Cottage, though I would have loved to have said goodbye to the fans.

No, Mr Magath, blaming other people for your own shortcomings won’t work. Please read a poem called If by Rudyard Kipling. Fulham now need love, devotion and leadership if they are ever to regain Premier League status.

When I was young, there was a cartoon character, Felix the Cat. Whatever happened to him — whether he was run over on the road to Dover or blown up with dynamite — he just kept on walking. If Fulham’s results do not improve, starting with Cardiff tomorrow, perhaps this particular Felix should follow that cat down the road to Dover and then just keep on walking.