Overtaken by events

Over the past couple of months, life has got in the way of my writing nonsense about Watford. My job has taken up an indecently large proportion of my time (as ever), and when I’ve come home from work, I’ve been helping my better half with some academic work (an 8,000-word dissertation, to be precise). During the summer, that wasn’t particularly an issue, but once the season started, I kept having a vague idea about writing something about the Hornets, only for my half-formed notion to be superceded by events.

And then it all went completely nuts. In the space of barely a week, we had the dispiriting League Cup defeat to Doncaster; Troy Deeney’s new contract; the astonishing end to the Huddersfield game; Beppe Sannino’s resignation; the appointment of Oscar Garcia; and the departure of Technical Director Gian Luca Nani. I’d barely formed an opinion about one event when the next one came along.

You’ll have worked out by now that I’m not one to rush to judgement. Years ago, I did a postgraduate journalism course where you could choose to specialise in ‘newspaper’ or ‘magazine’ journalism. Those who took the first option would quite literally chase an ambulance or fire engine up the street to see where it ended up and try to get a story out of it; those who took the second were sat in the pub watching them dash past, airily discussing the 3,000-word features they were going to write some time soon. I was, naturally, in the second group.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that if you’re looking for up-to-the-minute commentary on the latest goings-on at Vicarage Road, you’re better off going to Vital Watford, say. I’ll chip in when the mood takes me, but otherwise I’ll be going off on tangents, as per usual.

Since we’ve got this far, though some quick bullet points to bring us up to date:

• Troy’s new contract is a Very Good Thing in every way
• I feel sorry for Beppe, but if the stories I’ve read about the rifts between him and the players are true, then his departure is also (probably) a Good Thing
• Oscar Garcia seems like a decent appointment
• Lloyd Doyley is still my official Favourite Player, and the sooner he is reinstated in Watford’s defence, the more secure it will be