The man himself

When I started this blog 12 years ago, I was looking for a name that would stand out from the herd. If you’re writing about Watford and you want to make sure you appear in a prominent spot on Google, you just need to include one of the more obvious words associated with the club in your title – yellow, Hornets, Vicarage. But I was looking for something that would signal to Watford fans of a certain vintage that I was one of them – and what better way to do it than by referring to a legendary, comic incident involving one of the more obscure players in the club’s history.

And so Albert McLenaghan’s Throw-In (And Other Stories) was born, giving a web presence to an Irish full-back who made precisely two appearances for the Hornets. Now, bizarrely, his full story has been told, in the form of a feature interview by Adam Leventhal in The Athletic. Adam goes to great lengths to establish the truth about that fateful throw-in (and, in the process, demolishes my vague memory that it involved Albert falling over backwards), but also tells the full story of Albert’s career. It’s a bittersweet read, but I’m not going to spoil it for you if you haven’t already seen it. (It’s behind a paywall, but as far as I can tell, the Watford content Adam has been posting there is of a high standard, so you may think it’s worth subscribing.)

In the spirit of transparency, I should mention that Adam contacted me while researching the article, and included a short quote from me in the final piece. One thing I said that isn’t included is that incidents like Albert’s catastrophic throw-in make up an important part of the texture of being a football fan. Much as the Sky marketing people would have us believe it’s all about spectacular goals, acrobatic saves and crunching tackles, football wouldn’t be half as much fun without the hilarious mistakes, the stupid incidents and the quirky details that often linger in the memory longer than the goals.

Now, when is Adam going to track down Pierre Issa and find out how it felt to be dropped from that stretcher?