A sunny day at the Beveree

We Watford fans are spoiled these days. When we’re not making repeat visits to Wembley, we watch home games at a spruced-up Vicarage Road that would be all but unrecognisable to anyone who last saw a match there in the 20th century, and away games at a variety of equally smart stadiums (and Selhurst Park).

Listening to Hornet Heaven or reading The Watford Treasury gives a flavour of the no-frills experience that watching football used to be, but sometimes you just need to go back to basics. So yesterday afternoon, finding myself at a loose end on a sunny day and with a full programme of football outside the Premier League, I decided to pay a visit to my local non-league team, Hampton & Richmond Borough, who were hosting Truro City in the National League South. Call it a palate-cleanser ahead of tonight’s game at the Vic.

I say ‘local’; their ground, the oddly-named Beveree, is about eight miles away as the crow flies, but thanks to the random transport generator that is South West Trains it took me an hour and a quarter to get there (and even longer to get home). Arriving just after kickoff, I chose a vantage point in the shade, on the covered terracing that stretches halfway down one side of the ground, and surveyed the scene. The Beveree is a typically ramshackle non-league ground, with the pitch surrounded by a random assortment of structures; a couple of small stands with seats, some covered terracing, a two-storey clubhouse that holds the changing rooms, a bar and various other bits and pieces. I particularly liked the ‘Keith Hussey Stand’ that adorns the away end, consisting of little more than two rows of scaffolding poles with some corrugated iron laid over the top.

Among the fans I spotted a couple of Fulham shirts and a few Hampton ones, in their distinctive colours of red and dark blue stripes. Many were sipping pints, the Beveree being a rare stadium where alcohol is permitted on the terraces. What with the beer and the bank holiday sunshine, the vibe was laid-back, with no one getting too worked up about what was happening on the pitch. This may have been because Hampton had made themselves mathematically safe with a victory on Saturday.

As for Truro, still potentially in danger of relegation, they had decided to play a ridiculously high defensive line (just short of the centre circle), and after a few failed attempts at breaching the offside trap, Hampton finally succeeded and duly scored. A one-nil half-time lead soon became two with a penalty, and that seemed to be that. However, after a combination of the post, the Truro goalie and poor finishing had kept it at two-nil for most of the second half, some classic fannying about in the Hampton defence led to a goal back for Truro, who then piled everyone forward and scored a dramatic injury-time equaliser with a diving header from a deep cross. Cue some chuntering from the home fans, but nothing more. At least the coachload of Truro fans would have had something to celebrate on their 300-mile trip home (though as it turned out, the draw dropped them into the relegation zone).

Perusing the programme at half-time, I spotted a Watford link; among the Hampton squad is a certain Matty Whichelow, who you may remember as one of a number of homegrown youngsters who had a spell in the Hornets first team in the cash-strapped pre-Pozzo era. He hasn’t played much this season (nine starts and 14 appearances from the bench), and he wasn’t in the matchday squad yesterday, so maybe he’s injured.

I liked Matty, a lively winger with an eye for goal. I was convinced that this fertile crop of youth team graduates (Jordan Parkes, Dale Bennett, Piero Mingoia, Sean Murray and others), all of whom looked decent for a while in the Championship, would go on to form the heart of the team for years to come, in the way that an earlier generation (Terry, Gibbs, Jackett, Porter and co.) had done under GT. But clearly, none of them had the X factor that’s needed to become successful in professional football, and I think they’re all playing outside the Football League now.

Whichelow is still only 27, according to Wikipedia. I wonder if he watches Watford games on TV and thinks, that could’ve been me? Equally, you could turn it around and think, that could have been us – still reliant on raw, homegrown youngsters in the absence of the money to buy in experienced players from elsewhere. Like I say, we Watford fans are spoiled these days.