Quarter masters

The quarter-finals of the FA Cup have provided some of the most memorable moments of my Watford-supporting life. Indeed, it was the TV and press coverage of the unprecedented 1-0 victory over Liverpool in the 1970 quarter-final (the first in the club’s history) that first made me, aged eight, aware that there was a local football club I could actually go and watch in person. The rest, as they say, is history.

There have been six further quarter-finals since then, and I’ve been present at all but one (Plymouth in 2007 – family commitments). I was in the away end at St Andrews when John Barnes curled the first goal past a helpless Tony Coton in 1984. I watched with growing glee as Luther Blissett sprinted towards the Hornets fans jammed into the Clock End at Highbury in 1987 while the Arsenal defence stranded up the other end of the pitch belatedly realised that the referee wasn’t going to blow his whistle, and went crazy when Luther slotted the ball into the net (albeit at the second attempt) to make it 3-1. I was at Arsenal’s shiny new ground in 2016 when Adlène Guedioura scored his piledriver. And let’s not forget Stephen Glass’s gorgeous free kick against Burnley in 2003, as covered extensively in yesterday’s programme.

Brilliant goals and dramatic finishes have been the defining feature of Watford’s games at this stage of the competition, then. The game against Palace didn’t really have either of those, to be honest. True, the second goal was a very good one, and it was great to see Roberto Pereyra providing the decisive pass, after being a rather peripheral figure over the past couple of months. But one thing I’ve become increasingly aware of this season is that the majority of Premier League teams are so evenly matched, and so aware of what each other are going to do, that games tend towards the stalemate, decided either by a moment of extra quality or a defensive error. We witnessed both yesterday, and I’m just thankful that the extra quality came from players in yellow and black.

I was interviewed before the game by a couple of guys from the Dream Team website, who asked me about Watford’s Premier League years and where the club goes from here. I said I wanted us to win trophies, which realistically means domestic cups, and to qualify for Europe.

I think I concluded with something like this: “Some fans may turn up their noses at the Europa League, but I love the idea that I might be spending the autumn looking up the times of flights to obscure Eastern European cities.” Those of us who were too young and impoverished to travel to Kaiserslautern, Sofia and Prague in 1983 (I was a student, barely able to afford the coach fare home from college, never mind flights to the continent) have been waiting a long time for a second bite of the cherry. Now we’re just two wins away.