Sunday 15 August 2021

Home comforts

Returning to old routines is reassuring, like slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes. It starts, as usual, with lunch at my mum’s, where she still insists on making me fish and chips (the proper way, using a deep fat fryer), as she has done on Saturdays ever since I was a boy, even though she’s now 94 and I’m 58.

Then the short drive from Bushey Heath to Watford, parking as usual in the industrial estate on Whippendell Road (£2 more expensive than it used to be, mind). The walk over the railway bridge, left down Cardiff Road, right up Occupation Road, past the allot... Oh, hang on. Where the allotments used to be is now a building site, with the enormous steel frame of what looks like a warehouse looming up on the hospital side.

From there on in, it’s a mixture of the familiar and the new. Familiar: buy a programme from my usual seller for the usual price. New: queue to use my iPhone to get into the ground. (This early – around 2.15 – the queues aren’t too bad and move quickly, and the technology works perfectly for me and for everyone else, as far as I can see.) New: put on a face mask for the 30-second walk through the concourse. Familiar: discover I’m the first one in my row, and exchange a few words with the old bloke in the row in front who’s always there before me.

From there until kick-off, the level of hysteria gradually rises. The emergence of the three goalkeepers for their warm-up is greeted with disproportionately huge cheers, which are then surpassed when the rest of the team join them a few minutes later.

Once they’ve returned to the dressing room, it all gets rather chaotic. The first showing of the moving montage of Watford fans who didn’t make it through the pandemic is swiftly followed by the announcement of the Graham Taylor Matchday. Is this where we’re all supposed to raise our scarves? Apparently not, but the 1881 take it as a cue to start bellowing the old anthems at a volume which renders the PA inaudible, so I may have missed some instructions. Then the Villa team come out first, followed by the Hornets, though I can’t hear Z-Cars. Do we raise our scarves now? Some do, so I follow suit, but it’s all a bit patchy. Finally, once the hubbub has died down a bit and the players have done that lining up thing, Z-Cars is audible, and all is right with the world.

I won’t bore you with a match report – you can read those elsewhere. But it is worth noting how satisfying it was that all Watford’s debutants distinguished themselves, despite the doom-laden predictions of the many idiots on Twitter who’ve been moaning about the club’s recruitment, as if we’d just picked random names out of a hat. Just because you haven’t heard of a player, it doesn’t mean they’re no good. My instant new favourite of the bunch is Juraj Kucka, who’s built like a bouncer and plays like Valon Behrami on steroids. He’s got ‘cult hero’ written all over him.

Half-time brings another showing of the memorial montage and an impressive parade of NHS staff round the ground - so many that there are still people emerging from the Sir Elton John Stand when the leaders complete their lap. My hands are sore from clapping by the time the last nurse finally disappears, but it’s no hardship. It’s great to see the Villa fans joining in, too – although unless I missed it, they never did raise their scarves for GT.

By the end of the game I’m hoarse from singing and shouting, and my nerves are shot thanks to the late Villa penalty and their subsequent all-out assault on our tottering defence. (We need to get better at closing out games, but that’s an argument for another day.) We held out, though, the final whistle went and delirium was unconfined. In no rush to leave, I waited to applaud the players and then to sing Xisco’s name (we really need a proper song for him).

And then, finally, reluctantly, I left the stadium. My, but it was good to be there again.



Sunday 16 May 2021

Screen break

 I’ve been a Watford fan long enough to witness all but two of the club’s Football League promotions. So many memories: Dad not letting me stay to watch the Divison 4 trophy presentation after the Southport game in 1978 because he wanted to “beat the traffic”; the 4-0 win against Hull on a gloriously sunny May evening the following year; running on the pitch after the win against Wrexham that put us in the top flight for the first time; the bedlam on the terraces at Craven Cottage in 1998 when Jason Lee scored to secure the League 2 title; the emotional turmoil of the play-off final win against Bolton, just 48 hours after my father’s sudden death; the oddly straightforward (and hugely satisfying) dismissal of Leeds in 2006, indoors in Cardiff; and my anger at the way we threw away the chance to win the Championship in the final game of 2015, which almost soured the joy of promotion.

And where was I when the Hornets clinched promotion against Millwall a few weeks ago? Here in my back bedroom, of course, sitting in front of my computer, fending off the cat’s demands for yet more food. I think I yelled “Yes!” and punched the air at the final whistle, which at least got rid of the cat for a few minutes, but it’s not a day that will live long in the memory. I watched the post-match coverage on Hive Live, then went out for a walk and spent the evening watching TV. A few congratulatory texts from friends (including a grudging one from my Brentford-supporting mate) were as close as I got to a communal celebration.

And so this strangest of seasons is over, hopefully never to be repeated. The club have done magnificently on every level, from their support of the NHS to the intelligent recruitment policy, from the superb quality of the pitch to the brave decision to appoint Xisco that probably saved us from the play-offs (or worse). But watching it all on a TV or computer screen was a poor substitute for the real thing, even if I actually got to see more games than in any of my previous 50 seasons as a Hornets fan – I usually only get to half a dozen away games, whereas this year I was able to enjoy pretty much all of them (though enjoyment was in short supply for the first half of the season).

Watching the FA Cup final yesterday (the first for a few years that I’ve watched all the way through) just reinforced the difference that fans make to the football experience. Emotionally, I was there with those Leicester supporters as they celebrated Tielemans’ incredible goal, and then as they chewed their fingernails to the quick while the clock ticked down. And the noise they made – you’d never have guessed the stadium was only a fifth full.

So it was a pleasure to receive the email from the club inviting me to renew my season ticket for next season. By then I will have had my second jab (as will most of the country, with a bit of luck) and it ought to be possible for Vicarage Road to host a proper crowd again. Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.