IT MAY HAVE BEEN ALMOST overlooked in the past few days, but George Best did not only play for Manchester United. He graced Craven Cottage from 1976 to 1978 during an all-too-brief Indian summer as Fulham, with Best and Rodney Marsh entertaining in tandem, became a sort of English second-division version of the Harlem Globetrotters. Yesterday the crowd observed his passing with the suddenly traditional minute’s applause, then settled back to enjoy a match-winning performance from a very different type of player.

Brian McBride, the United States forward, has few of Best’s attributes, but he was the outstanding player and scored both goals as Fulham won their third successive home match to increase the distance between themselves and the bottom three to five points and was so dominant that Radhi Jaidi, his marker, was substituted before half-time. “What a performance again,” Chris Coleman, the Fulham manager, enthused. “He never stopped running for 90 minutes and it was a pity he didn’t get his hat-trick, because he would have deserved that.”

Bolton Wanderers had a run of four successive Barclays Premiership victories ended and face an automatic £25,000 fine after having seven players booked and El-Hadji Diouf shown a second yellow card — both were for dissent — as the players left the field. The managers agreed that the game had not merited the brandishing of so many yellow cards, but Bolton could still find their chances later in the season damaged as they advance in the Carling Cup and Uefa Cup.

“With the number of games coming up, we could pay a heavy price,” Sam Allardyce, their manager, said. “We needed to have controlled our emotions, if not our tackles. Diouf showed a little bit of immaturity and I’ll deal with that under our code of conduct. Anyone who got booked for mouthing off will be fined, but if they got booked for tackles I won’t touch them.”

It was a failure to challenge that cost Bolton dear in the first half-hour and they were behind after only four minutes with a goal that spoke volumes for McBride’s commitment. First he headed on a throw-in on the left by Liam Rosenior to Tomasz Radzinski, then made up yards of ground to meet a cross by the Canada forward at the near post, getting between Jaidi and Jussi Jaaskelainen to flick the ball home.

Jaaskelainen was furious with Jaidi and the Tunisia defender was at fault again after 18 minutes when McBride doubled the lead. He failed to clear a long kick from Mark Crossley and allowed the ball to bounce on the edge of his penalty area. With Jaidi looking around in vain, McBride was on to it and struck a dipping volley over Jaaskelainen for his fifth Premiership goal of the season.

“We were just getting settled and we allowed Fulham to get two goals up without having to work that hard,” Allardyce said. “Really, it was a major uphill battle for us from then on.”

McBride won every ball in the air against Jaidi, who was substituted after 32 minutes to spare him further punishment, although by then McBride could have scored again. Jaaskelainen could only parry a cross by Rosenior under pressure from Collins John, sustaining a cut head in the collision, but McBride was unable to turn in the loose ball.

Bolton improved a little after the interval and had an appeal for a penalty when McBride blocked Kevin Nolan as the midfield player attempted to convert a header across goal by Martin Djetou, the former Fulham defender. But Fulham looked more dangerous on the break and Ricardo Gardner was twice fortunate not to be ruled to have handled as he intercepted Fulham passes in dangerous areas.

Needless to say, Bolton never gave up and even pulled a goal back in injury time, when Sylvain Legwinski, in trying to prevent Nolan getting in a shot, diverted the ball into his own net. However, although their hopes were briefly raised, an equaliser did not come, and it would have been a gross injustice if it had. “Too little too late, and we’ve lost a game we didn’t expect to lose,” Allardyce said. “If we’d shown the quality of finish McBride did, we might have got something.”

Bolton do not seem to enjoy visiting south-west London these days. Since losing 5-1 to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on October 15, they have recorded victories over three other London clubs, but at Craven Cottage yesterday they were poor again.

“We could have scored three or four but we couldn’t get that third that would have finished it off,” Coleman said. “When they scored I thought, ‘Here we go again’, and I could even see them winning 3-2 after last week. But we held on and we deserved the three points.”