Captain courageous

For all the excellence of the Tales from the Vicarage Live event last Sunday, on the theme of captains, it was frustrating that host Adam Leventhal never asked the fundamental question: what does the captain of a football team actually do? I’ve been watching the game for nearly half a century and I’m still no closer to a definitive answer.

In other sports, such as cricket, the captain clearly plays a pivotal role. When India go out to bat at The Oval this morning, Joe Root will be responsible for deciding who bowls, when and how, and what fields are set for each batsman. Of course, much of this will have been discussed beforehand with the coach, but the captain still has to react to events on the field and adjust the plans accordingly.

But in football, this is the manager’s role, even if the only ways in which he can influence the game while it is in motion are by (a) making substitutions and (b) shouting and waving a lot. As for the captain, his role often seems largely ceremonial: leading the team out, taking part in the toss for ends. Indeed, some years ago, when there was much agonising in the press about who should be England captain (I think the current incumbent had just disgraced himself), the manager of Germany or France was quoted as saying that they couldn’t see what all the fuss was about: they simply gave the armband to the most senior player as a kind of recognition for long service.

Anyway, back at the Palace Theatre, the interviewees didn’t give many clues. To be fair, Les Taylor only captained the team once – even if was in the biggest game in the club’s history – and by his own admission, he only did so because the obvious candidates were all suspended or injured. As for Wilf Rostron, he was so reticent that it was hard to imagine him leading a class of schoolchildren across a road, let alone inspiring a group of professional sportsmen.

Neil Cox was a more obvious leader, though the main example of this was his role in the famous wage deferral that helped save the club from administration in 2002. This was the captain as shop steward, and perhaps this is how many see their role.

But then, earlier in the day, we’d seen a very different interpretation from Troy Deeney. It’s too simplistic to say that he singlehandedly turned the game round against Spurs, but he certainly had a major influence on it; thundering forward, barging opponents off the ball, scoring a magnificent goal. Was it before the next corner (the one that Craig Cathcart scored from) that Troy picked up a bottle of water from behind the goal and emptied it over his head, like a boxer between rounds? He has a sense of the theatre of the game like no other Watford player I can remember, and the gesture may have helped distract the Spurs defence from the threat of Cathcart.

When he’s on this kind of form, Troy’s performance is the textbook definition of leading by example. Other captains may not see the role that way, or may not be capable of dragging a team over the line the way Troy does, but it’s the best answer I’ve found so far to the question of what a captain does.