Four decades on, he believes his old club has never been in a stronger position.
"Nobody thought there'd be another Mohamed Al-Fayed, but the Khans have done brilliantly."
Gale knows Fulham from a very different era. He arrived as a teenager and played alongside Bobby Moore, George Best and Rodney Marsh, while also seeing the club endure relegation and fight its way back.
His first season remains particularly vivid.
"I was just so lucky that those great times overlapped," Gale has recalled of playing alongside Best. "You think that you're going to be playing with great players like that for the rest of your career — you don't realise at that age."
That was Fulham in Gale's youth: characters, big personalities and a club where the distance between a teenage apprentice and established stars could disappear remarkably quickly.
"George Best was good to us as kids," Gale tells Football Presse. "They were mentors without knowing it. That's how life was then."
He eventually made more than 300 appearances for Fulham, but his path to the top flight was not straightforward. The club were relegated in 1980, returned to the Second Division in 1982 and narrowly missed out on another promotion the following year. Gale finally moved to West Ham in 1984.
The Fulham he sees today is operating in another world.
"The son, when he came into Fulham, he kind of took over the footballing side, Tony Khan, and he had his critics.
"But you can't dispute that they haven't put their money where their mouth is, and they have."
For Gale, the most obvious evidence of that investment is still at Craven Cottage.
"They've built the new stand on the Riverside, over by the river, and that is probably the most spectacular view in the Premier League now.
"I would say that's going to be the best stand in the Premier League."
And he believes the location gives Fulham something money cannot simply manufacture.
"If anybody who's a neutral wanted to watch a Premier League game somewhere, I'd say go to Fulham.
"The surroundings are beautiful. Bishop's Park, Putney, Hammersmith, Fulham Palace Road, Fulham Road. It's beautiful surroundings there.
"And the football's good. Football's good as well."
Gale believes the new development can change the club's financial standing as well as its appearance.
"When the new stand is completed, I think it's going to be in a real good place because you're going to add that corporate support, which brings in extra money.
"And the corporate facilities there are going to hold 2,500 in that one stand. And being on the river, I think you're going to get a new kind of support over at Fulham, and it'll just take them up, take them up a bit further."
That is a very different Fulham from the one Gale knew as a player, but he does not sound nostalgic for the sake of it.
He remembers the old club with enormous affection, yet understands what modern football requires.
"I think it's in a good place. I think it's in a good place."
Perhaps the biggest difference is that Gale's Fulham had to fight simply to remain competitive.
The current club has the resources to think about what comes next.
Gale's own career is a reminder of how far the club has travelled. He began as a teenager in the Second Division, played alongside one of the most gifted footballers England has produced, endured relegation and promotion, and ultimately left because Fulham could not give him the top-flight football he wanted.
Now he looks at the club from the outside and sees something he could scarcely have imagined as a young player.
"I think they're going to be in a real good place."
For someone who once shared a dressing room with Best and Moore, that is quite an endorsement.
Tony Gale's book "That’s Entertainment" is from Reach Sport - which is available here.
