Bradford City at home in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup? That will do me just fine.
Over the past decade or so, we’ve drawn a series of Premiership teams in the 3rd Round, most of them from London: since 1999 we’ve gone out at the first time of asking to Tottenham, Arsenal, Everton, Fulham, Bolton and Chelsea (twice). The board may have been grateful for the gate money, but the logic doesn’t hold. Surely the whole point of a cup competition is that the further you progress, the more money you make?
On the occasions when we’ve been presented with a fairly straightforward 3rd Round draw, it’s been a lot more fun. A 2-0 away win at Macclesfield in 2003 was the start of a run that led us all the way to the semis, as was a 4-1 home defeat of Stockport in 2007. Both were both more enjoyable, and more profitable, than losing in the 3rd Round to a Premiership club that can’t even be bothered to play their best team in the early rounds, as so often happens.
So bring on Bradford, 22nd in League Two at the time of writing, and surely beatable by a Watford team that slowly seems to be finding its feet. And after that, let’s have another easy home draw in the 4th Round, and so on for as long as possible. Because that’s the other thing about cup runs: once the FA Cup is over for another year, no one remembers who you beat and by what score, only what round you reached. That’s the only figure that matters.
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Sunday, 27 November 2011
‘The 100 Greatest Watford Wins’ by Lionel Birnie
To be honest, I’m not a big fan of list books. Whether it deals in fiction or fact, I like a book that tells a story – a book you’re reluctant to put down because you’re desperate to find out what happens next. Books that list things, however informatively or amusingly, tend to get kept by the loo in my house.
However, The 100 Greatest Watford Wins is a superior example of the genre. That’s because Lionel Birnie has avoided the temptation to cut corners. It would have been easy to fill the book with match reports recycled from newspapers, topped up with personal reminiscences and a bit of empty rhetoric. Instead, as in last year’s Enjoy The Game, Lionel has clearly spent a great deal of time interviewing primary sources – the players and managers who were involved in the matches he features.
From Tom Walley talking about key games in the late 1960s to Lloyd Doyley on his debut goal a couple of years ago, the contributions are uniformly entertaining and enlightening. To pick just one example, Ray Lewington’s detailed explanation of the financial constraints he had to work under makes the cup runs he masterminded even more remarkable in retrospect than they were at the time.
The other main strength of the book is the variety of treatment afforded to the 100 games. Some get one page, others five or six, depending on how much there is to say about them. A wide range of statistics help to put the games in the context of the season when they occurred, and of Watford’s overall history. There are league tables, details of cup runs, lists of bests and worsts and lots more, often with accompanying commentary.
Then there are panels on relevant issues, like the sad story of Lewington’s sacking, or the more amusing one about the letter writer to the Watford Observer in the summer of 1998 who complained vociferously about the signing of “a couple of Carlisle rejects”. The pictorial treatments also vary, from action shots to post-match celebrations and programme covers. Even the headlines that introduce each match are in a range of different typefaces.
A book like this isn’t going to find much of an audience beyond the Hornets faithful, but for that audience it is pretty much perfect. If it has a fault it is that, as with most lists of this kind, there is an inbuilt bias towards the recent past. Given that Lionel describes the book in the introduction as featuring “Watford’s finest post-war victories”, I can’t help wondering whether there really wasn’t a single game between 1945 and 1960 that merited inclusion. Last season’s 6-1 win at Millwall is included, presumably in the category of “a right hammering that came out of the blue and lifted everyone’s spirits”, but there must have been equivalent games in the 50s. A quick flick through Trefor Jones’s Watford Season By Season reveals that we had two 6-1 wins in 1953/54 alone, and a 7-1 the following season.
But now I’m being churlish. Much of the pleasure of this book comes from the memories it stirs up, and there aren’t many Watford fans left who can remember the 50s. I was at six of the top 10 games in Lionel’s list, and 12 of the top 20, and he evokes them all beautifully.
However, The 100 Greatest Watford Wins is a superior example of the genre. That’s because Lionel Birnie has avoided the temptation to cut corners. It would have been easy to fill the book with match reports recycled from newspapers, topped up with personal reminiscences and a bit of empty rhetoric. Instead, as in last year’s Enjoy The Game, Lionel has clearly spent a great deal of time interviewing primary sources – the players and managers who were involved in the matches he features.
From Tom Walley talking about key games in the late 1960s to Lloyd Doyley on his debut goal a couple of years ago, the contributions are uniformly entertaining and enlightening. To pick just one example, Ray Lewington’s detailed explanation of the financial constraints he had to work under makes the cup runs he masterminded even more remarkable in retrospect than they were at the time.
The other main strength of the book is the variety of treatment afforded to the 100 games. Some get one page, others five or six, depending on how much there is to say about them. A wide range of statistics help to put the games in the context of the season when they occurred, and of Watford’s overall history. There are league tables, details of cup runs, lists of bests and worsts and lots more, often with accompanying commentary.
Then there are panels on relevant issues, like the sad story of Lewington’s sacking, or the more amusing one about the letter writer to the Watford Observer in the summer of 1998 who complained vociferously about the signing of “a couple of Carlisle rejects”. The pictorial treatments also vary, from action shots to post-match celebrations and programme covers. Even the headlines that introduce each match are in a range of different typefaces.
A book like this isn’t going to find much of an audience beyond the Hornets faithful, but for that audience it is pretty much perfect. If it has a fault it is that, as with most lists of this kind, there is an inbuilt bias towards the recent past. Given that Lionel describes the book in the introduction as featuring “Watford’s finest post-war victories”, I can’t help wondering whether there really wasn’t a single game between 1945 and 1960 that merited inclusion. Last season’s 6-1 win at Millwall is included, presumably in the category of “a right hammering that came out of the blue and lifted everyone’s spirits”, but there must have been equivalent games in the 50s. A quick flick through Trefor Jones’s Watford Season By Season reveals that we had two 6-1 wins in 1953/54 alone, and a 7-1 the following season.
But now I’m being churlish. Much of the pleasure of this book comes from the memories it stirs up, and there aren’t many Watford fans left who can remember the 50s. I was at six of the top 10 games in Lionel’s list, and 12 of the top 20, and he evokes them all beautifully.
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Noise annoys
The ins and outs of yesterday’s win against Portsmouth are already being dissected in other forums, but one thing no one has mentioned yet is the extremes of noise we witnessed at the Vic yesterday.
At one extreme, the deafening volume of the new tannoy in the Rookery drowned out all attempts at pre-match chat with my neighbours. It was like being in one of those nightclubs where the music is so loud that conversation is reduced to miming and sign language.
Sure, it’s nice to have some proof that Mr Bassini is actually spending some of his money on the club. At the same time, as the bloke next to me said (this was after the match had started and the ringing in our eardrums had stopped), if you’d made a list at the start of the season of all the things at Vicarage Road that needed money spending on them, the tannoy would barely have scraped into the top ten.
Maybe the entire home end had been stunned by the volume of the pre-match entertainment, because once the game started, there was a depressing lack of any kind of singing, or even shouting, from the Hornets fans. Even a second-minute goal barely roused us from our collective torpor. I know we’re not renowned as one of the more passionate sets of fans in the Championship, but this was ridiculous.
I thought the announcement of the formation of the Yellow Order at the start of the season might go some way towards improving the situation, but since they moved to the bottom left-hand corner of the Rookery, it’s actually got worse. They seem to throw in the towel the minute they realise they’re outnumbered: “Look, lads, they’ve got a bloke with a bell, and someone who can play the trumpet out of tune for 90 minutes. We can’t compete with that. Maybe if we win a corner in the second half, we can have a go at ‘Come on you ’orns’…”
The thing is, I love singing, and will happily join in pretty much anything if it spreads to my part of the stand (near the middle, about halfway up). But in too many matches this season, the Rookery has sat in silence while the away end sings and chants throughout the match. Frankly, it’s getting embarrassing.
At one extreme, the deafening volume of the new tannoy in the Rookery drowned out all attempts at pre-match chat with my neighbours. It was like being in one of those nightclubs where the music is so loud that conversation is reduced to miming and sign language.
Sure, it’s nice to have some proof that Mr Bassini is actually spending some of his money on the club. At the same time, as the bloke next to me said (this was after the match had started and the ringing in our eardrums had stopped), if you’d made a list at the start of the season of all the things at Vicarage Road that needed money spending on them, the tannoy would barely have scraped into the top ten.
Maybe the entire home end had been stunned by the volume of the pre-match entertainment, because once the game started, there was a depressing lack of any kind of singing, or even shouting, from the Hornets fans. Even a second-minute goal barely roused us from our collective torpor. I know we’re not renowned as one of the more passionate sets of fans in the Championship, but this was ridiculous.
I thought the announcement of the formation of the Yellow Order at the start of the season might go some way towards improving the situation, but since they moved to the bottom left-hand corner of the Rookery, it’s actually got worse. They seem to throw in the towel the minute they realise they’re outnumbered: “Look, lads, they’ve got a bloke with a bell, and someone who can play the trumpet out of tune for 90 minutes. We can’t compete with that. Maybe if we win a corner in the second half, we can have a go at ‘Come on you ’orns’…”
The thing is, I love singing, and will happily join in pretty much anything if it spreads to my part of the stand (near the middle, about halfway up). But in too many matches this season, the Rookery has sat in silence while the away end sings and chants throughout the match. Frankly, it’s getting embarrassing.
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Colin who?
One of the pleasures of reading Lionel Birnie’s excellent book The 100 Greatest Watford Wins, as I am at the moment, is looking at the team line-ups for each game and picturing that team in action.
Over the past 40-odd years I’ve watched hundreds of players representing the club, and in most cases where they played more than a handful of games, I can conjure up some kind of mental image of them. Sometimes it’s their appearance – a hairstyle or moustache, say – that I recall, sometimes a facial expression, sometimes just the way they ran, or jumped, or celebrated a goal. Sometimes it’s just their sheer uselessness that makes them stick in the memory. (Yes, Jamie Moralee, I am looking at you.)
But there are a few who remain resolutely anonymous, no matter how hard I stare at their name in a team line-up. Here are five of them, in order of the period when their Watford career took place:
1) Tony Geidmintis (60 games + 1 substitute appearance, 1976-78)
These were key years in my Watford supporting story, as the misery of successive relegations gave way to the joy of the GT era. I can picture most of the players from this period as clearly as if they were in the room with me now – Pollard, Downes, Mayes, Mercer, Rankin, Pritchett, Bolton, Jenkins… – but I have no memories of Tony Geidmintis. A right-back, according to Trefor Jones’s The Watford Football Club Illustrated Who’s Who; maybe anyone who had to step into Duncan Welbourne’s shoes was destined to pale by comparison.
Over the past 40-odd years I’ve watched hundreds of players representing the club, and in most cases where they played more than a handful of games, I can conjure up some kind of mental image of them. Sometimes it’s their appearance – a hairstyle or moustache, say – that I recall, sometimes a facial expression, sometimes just the way they ran, or jumped, or celebrated a goal. Sometimes it’s just their sheer uselessness that makes them stick in the memory. (Yes, Jamie Moralee, I am looking at you.)
But there are a few who remain resolutely anonymous, no matter how hard I stare at their name in a team line-up. Here are five of them, in order of the period when their Watford career took place:
1) Tony Geidmintis (60 games + 1 substitute appearance, 1976-78)
These were key years in my Watford supporting story, as the misery of successive relegations gave way to the joy of the GT era. I can picture most of the players from this period as clearly as if they were in the room with me now – Pollard, Downes, Mayes, Mercer, Rankin, Pritchett, Bolton, Jenkins… – but I have no memories of Tony Geidmintis. A right-back, according to Trefor Jones’s The Watford Football Club Illustrated Who’s Who; maybe anyone who had to step into Duncan Welbourne’s shoes was destined to pale by comparison.
2) Joe McLaughlin (53 + 0, 1990-92)
I know he was a centre-back and that we signed him from Chelsea, but his Watford career seems to have passed me by. I’m astounded to learn from Trefor Jones that he was actually the club captain in 1991/2.
3) Gerard Lavin (141 + 6, 1992-95)
Another right-back, and in this case it may be the fact that he apparently took Nigel Gibbs’s place during his long period out with injury that has induced some kind of amnesia. I’m looking at his picture now in Trefor’s book and it stirs no memories whatsoever. Presumably he must have something about him to play nearly 150 games, but I’m damned if I can remember a single thing he ever did.
4) Paul Okon (14 + 1, 2002)
Okay, maybe it’s stretching a point to call 15 games a ‘career’ at Watford, but Okon really was the epitome of an anonymous player. I remember watching games when he was playing and wondering where he was on the pitch and what he was doing. You could come away from a match and rack your brain for hours trying to remember a single thing he’d done in the 90 minutes. The most pointless of Vialli’s many pointless signings.
5) Jermaine Darlington (34 + 1, 2004-05)
It’s not that long ago, but beyond a vague memory that he played on the wing, his year at Watford seems to have vanished from my memory, even though I must have seen around half of those 34 games. The most interesting thing about him was the fact that he shared his surname with another football club. Sadly, he never played for Darlington.
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Books do furnish a room
A conversation with Lionel Birnie on Twitter today reminded me that I meant to finish off my inventory of the Watford-related items in my home with a list of the relevant section of my bookshelf. So here it is, in no particular order:
Drawn Game – Terry Challis
A selection from 25 years of weekly cartoons in the Watford Observer. The sports pages still don’t seem the same without them.
The Official Centenary History of Watford FC – Oliver Phillips
A magisterial (and often moving) account of the club’s history. I’m shocked to realise that it’s now 20 years since this came out. High time for an update.
Four Seasons – Lionel Birnie & Alan Cozzi
Subtitled ‘The remarkable story of Watford Football Club from 1997 to 2001’. In hindsight, maybe that should have read ‘Where did all the money go?’
You Are My Watford – various
A compilation of memories in aid of WST. Includes an account of the incident that gave this blog its name.
The Golden Boys – Oliver Phillips
Another lovingly crafted and beautifully produced official work from Oli. It’s a shame the club doesn’t commission books like this any more.
Watford: A Tale Of The Unexpected – Geoff Sweet & Graham Burton
The story of the 1982-83 season – much of which I missed by virtue of it being my first year at university.
Watford FC On This Day – Matt Rowson
On this day in 1889, Watford Rovers beat Buckinghamshire side Schorne College 2-1 in an FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round tie. I love the fact that I can find that out from a book.
Enjoy The Game – Lionel Birnie
A great tale, superbly told. I refer you to my review.
Watford Season By Season – Trefor Jones
One of the standard works of reference for any Watford fan. Only goes up to the end of the 1997/98 season, though, so another that could do with an update…
The Watford FC Illustrated Who’s Who – Trefor Jones
… As could this, the other standard reference book, published in 1996. In an ideal world, the club would fund the publication of updated editions at regular intervals – say, every 10 years.
Team Shirts To Ticket Stubs – Nick Davidson
A real gem to finish with; a great idea, lovingly realised.
Although they’re not strictly books about Watford FC itself, honourable mentions also go to Nick Corble’s novel Golden Daze, and to Dave Hill’s thought-provoking biography of John Barnes, Out Of His Skin. As far as I know, it’s still the only biography of a player who is mainly associated with the Hornets. (All right, I know Liverpool have a claim too, but we had him first.)
As to what’s missing, the obvious gap in the market is for a biography of Graham Taylor, which would make for fascinating reading. Or maybe an autobiography, which would be even better – but maybe we’d better let GT concentrate on running the club for the time being.
Drawn Game – Terry Challis
A selection from 25 years of weekly cartoons in the Watford Observer. The sports pages still don’t seem the same without them.
The Official Centenary History of Watford FC – Oliver Phillips
A magisterial (and often moving) account of the club’s history. I’m shocked to realise that it’s now 20 years since this came out. High time for an update.
Four Seasons – Lionel Birnie & Alan Cozzi
Subtitled ‘The remarkable story of Watford Football Club from 1997 to 2001’. In hindsight, maybe that should have read ‘Where did all the money go?’
You Are My Watford – various
A compilation of memories in aid of WST. Includes an account of the incident that gave this blog its name.
The Golden Boys – Oliver Phillips
Another lovingly crafted and beautifully produced official work from Oli. It’s a shame the club doesn’t commission books like this any more.
Watford: A Tale Of The Unexpected – Geoff Sweet & Graham Burton
The story of the 1982-83 season – much of which I missed by virtue of it being my first year at university.
Watford FC On This Day – Matt Rowson
On this day in 1889, Watford Rovers beat Buckinghamshire side Schorne College 2-1 in an FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round tie. I love the fact that I can find that out from a book.
Enjoy The Game – Lionel Birnie
A great tale, superbly told. I refer you to my review.
Watford Season By Season – Trefor Jones
One of the standard works of reference for any Watford fan. Only goes up to the end of the 1997/98 season, though, so another that could do with an update…
The Watford FC Illustrated Who’s Who – Trefor Jones
… As could this, the other standard reference book, published in 1996. In an ideal world, the club would fund the publication of updated editions at regular intervals – say, every 10 years.
Team Shirts To Ticket Stubs – Nick Davidson
A real gem to finish with; a great idea, lovingly realised.
Although they’re not strictly books about Watford FC itself, honourable mentions also go to Nick Corble’s novel Golden Daze, and to Dave Hill’s thought-provoking biography of John Barnes, Out Of His Skin. As far as I know, it’s still the only biography of a player who is mainly associated with the Hornets. (All right, I know Liverpool have a claim too, but we had him first.)
As to what’s missing, the obvious gap in the market is for a biography of Graham Taylor, which would make for fascinating reading. Or maybe an autobiography, which would be even better – but maybe we’d better let GT concentrate on running the club for the time being.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
And the winner is…
Having just entered the competition on Lionel Birnie’s website to choose my top 10 post-war Watford wins, it seemed like a good idea to try to narrow it down to a personal top five:
5) Watford 1 Liverpool 0, FA Cup 6th Round, 21/2/70
The game that effectively turned me into a Watford fan. Up to that point, I vaguely supported Spurs, simply because my best friend did. (I should point out that I was only seven at the time.) I wasn’t even aware that there was a team in my local area until I saw the front-page story in the Watford Observer about the forthcoming FA Cup quarter-final against Liverpool. Dad wouldn’t take me, but once Watford had won, I was hooked enough to be upset when we got thrashed by Chelsea in the semis. I made my first visit to Vicarage Road the next season, and that was that.
4) Manchester United 1 Watford 2, League Cup 3rd Round, 4/10/78
Another seminal cup tie that I didn’t attend. But I managed to avoid hearing the score (it was much easier in those days) so that I could watch the highlights on Sportsnight without knowing the result. I can still remember my elation as Luther scored the two goals that launched him as a true Hornet hero, and the tension as I prayed that we could hold on. We did, and the feeling that Graham Taylor was creating something really special was starting to grow.
3) Watford 8 Sunderland 0, 1st Division, 25/9/82
This result (still astonishing nearly 30 years later) had much the same effect. Watford had started their first season in the top flight well, with four wins out of six, but this score made the country sit up and take notice. With four goals for Luther, two for Ross and two for Cally, it serves as the examplar of every demolition of unsuspecting opponents GT’s team unleashed in those glorious years. It was also the last game I went to before leaving for university – not a bad send-off.
2) Watford 2 Bolton Wanderers 0, 1st Division Play-off Final, 31/5/99
I’ve written about the personal significance of this game elsewhere, so let’s just celebrate the achievement of Aidy Boothroyd’s team in building a late run to the play-offs that culminated in what was actually a fairly comfortable win over a Bolton team that never really turned up. Nicky Wright’s overhead kick is the best goal I can remember a Watford player scoring in a high-pressure game, while Allan Smart’s second relieved that pressure in the most glorious, cathartic way imaginable.
1) Watford 7 Southampton 1, League Cup 2nd Round, 2nd Leg, 2/9/80
Again, I’ve already noted this as my most memorable game, all the more so for coming a week after we’d succumbed 4-0 in the away leg. If I ever forge a career as a motivation speaker (which is highly unlikely, frankly), I will use this tie as a prime example of the importance of not accepting the inevitability of failure when things go against you initially. And yet the same team lost heavily again in the 5th Round of the League Cup that season, 5-0 in a replay at Coventry (who were, admittedly, a 1st Division club at the time), as if to remind us that they were only human after all.
5) Watford 1 Liverpool 0, FA Cup 6th Round, 21/2/70
The game that effectively turned me into a Watford fan. Up to that point, I vaguely supported Spurs, simply because my best friend did. (I should point out that I was only seven at the time.) I wasn’t even aware that there was a team in my local area until I saw the front-page story in the Watford Observer about the forthcoming FA Cup quarter-final against Liverpool. Dad wouldn’t take me, but once Watford had won, I was hooked enough to be upset when we got thrashed by Chelsea in the semis. I made my first visit to Vicarage Road the next season, and that was that.
4) Manchester United 1 Watford 2, League Cup 3rd Round, 4/10/78
Another seminal cup tie that I didn’t attend. But I managed to avoid hearing the score (it was much easier in those days) so that I could watch the highlights on Sportsnight without knowing the result. I can still remember my elation as Luther scored the two goals that launched him as a true Hornet hero, and the tension as I prayed that we could hold on. We did, and the feeling that Graham Taylor was creating something really special was starting to grow.
3) Watford 8 Sunderland 0, 1st Division, 25/9/82
This result (still astonishing nearly 30 years later) had much the same effect. Watford had started their first season in the top flight well, with four wins out of six, but this score made the country sit up and take notice. With four goals for Luther, two for Ross and two for Cally, it serves as the examplar of every demolition of unsuspecting opponents GT’s team unleashed in those glorious years. It was also the last game I went to before leaving for university – not a bad send-off.
2) Watford 2 Bolton Wanderers 0, 1st Division Play-off Final, 31/5/99
I’ve written about the personal significance of this game elsewhere, so let’s just celebrate the achievement of Aidy Boothroyd’s team in building a late run to the play-offs that culminated in what was actually a fairly comfortable win over a Bolton team that never really turned up. Nicky Wright’s overhead kick is the best goal I can remember a Watford player scoring in a high-pressure game, while Allan Smart’s second relieved that pressure in the most glorious, cathartic way imaginable.
1) Watford 7 Southampton 1, League Cup 2nd Round, 2nd Leg, 2/9/80
Again, I’ve already noted this as my most memorable game, all the more so for coming a week after we’d succumbed 4-0 in the away leg. If I ever forge a career as a motivation speaker (which is highly unlikely, frankly), I will use this tie as a prime example of the importance of not accepting the inevitability of failure when things go against you initially. And yet the same team lost heavily again in the 5th Round of the League Cup that season, 5-0 in a replay at Coventry (who were, admittedly, a 1st Division club at the time), as if to remind us that they were only human after all.
Sunday, 4 September 2011
A house full of hornets
The guys from From The Rookery End are currently on a mission to identify 100 objects that define Watford FC. Their quest reminded me that I’ve been meaning to compile an inventory of all the Watford-related objects in my house – so here it is, room by room.
Kitchen
4 coffee mugs
Bedroom
3 replica shirts
2 scarves (striped)
2 bobble hats (striped)
1 BSaD 10th anniversary T-shirt
1 pair of football shorts
Red, naturally. Not worn for many years.
1 tie
Black with narrow red and yellow bands. I can’t imagine when I’ll ever wear this.
1 pair of cufflinks
Worn at my wedding.
Study
1 flag
Given out free at a game during Aidy Boothroyd’s reign; his signature adorns the bottom right-hand corner.
1 clock
Shaped like the club badge, complete with moose. Another of Mum’s purchases in the market.
1 plaque
About 4in square, with a reflective surface. One of the oldest items in my collection, and almost certainly the most pointless.
1 ashtray
Also pointless, as I don’t smoke and never have. Another of Mum’s Christmas presents.
1 framed photograph
Depicting Nick Wright’s goal in the play-off final against Bolton, and mounted with my ticket from the game.
1 water bottle
Given away at a home game a few years ago, adorned with the slogan ‘Watford ’til I’m dry’. I actually use this quite often, whenever I go on a long walk.
1 fragment of Vicarage Road terrace
Encased in perspex. Number 436 of a limited edition of 500.
1 key fob
2 videos
I’m not going to list them all here – a topic for a separate post, I think.
12 seasons’ worth of programmes
The other 28 seasons’ worth are in my Mum’s attic.
A pile of fanzines
Sundry badges and pens
Kitchen
4 coffee mugs
- A white one mug with yellow stripes, with the old ‘angry hornet’ logo on one side. Early 70s?
- A black one, originally with gold and red trim, probably from the 80s. The gold has all washed off
- A yellow 1992-92 Official Centenary mug listing that season’s fixtures in red and black lettering. In this case, it’s the red that has faded to near invisibility
- A mug depicting Watford strips through the ages, which my Mum bought me last Christmas from a stall in Watford Market
Bedroom
3 replica shirts
- The classic long-sleeved yellow shirt from the early 70s, when I started watching Watford
- A yellow home shirt with the CTX logo and a red stripe down the right, from the late 90s
- A white away shirt with the Phones4U logo, from a couple of seasons later
2 scarves (striped)
2 bobble hats (striped)
1 BSaD 10th anniversary T-shirt
1 pair of football shorts
Red, naturally. Not worn for many years.
1 tie
Black with narrow red and yellow bands. I can’t imagine when I’ll ever wear this.
1 pair of cufflinks
Worn at my wedding.
Study
1 flag
Given out free at a game during Aidy Boothroyd’s reign; his signature adorns the bottom right-hand corner.
1 clock
Shaped like the club badge, complete with moose. Another of Mum’s purchases in the market.
1 plaque
About 4in square, with a reflective surface. One of the oldest items in my collection, and almost certainly the most pointless.
1 ashtray
Also pointless, as I don’t smoke and never have. Another of Mum’s Christmas presents.
1 framed photograph
Depicting Nick Wright’s goal in the play-off final against Bolton, and mounted with my ticket from the game.
1 water bottle
Given away at a home game a few years ago, adorned with the slogan ‘Watford ’til I’m dry’. I actually use this quite often, whenever I go on a long walk.
1 fragment of Vicarage Road terrace
Encased in perspex. Number 436 of a limited edition of 500.
1 key fob
2 videos
- The Golden Boys – a compilation of clips of Watford on TV from 1969 to 1992, ie the days when these things were quite rare
- … And Finally – the complete play-off final against Bolton from 1999. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually watched this
I’m not going to list them all here – a topic for a separate post, I think.
12 seasons’ worth of programmes
The other 28 seasons’ worth are in my Mum’s attic.
A pile of fanzines
Sundry badges and pens
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Ten years burning down the road
New season, same old favourite player. Of course it’s Lloyd Doyley. Do you even need to ask?
Yesterday’s performance was classic Lloyd. Solid, athletic defending; a few exciting forays up the wing (an increasingly important part of his game in the last couple of years), one of them ending with an exquisite cross to the far post that Craig Forsyth almost converted; and, yes, a couple of embarrassing slip-ups, though they didn’t do any harm.
Even though Lloyd seems to have been around forever, it still seems amazing that this is his testimonial season, celebrating 10 years as a professional. I think it’s because I associate testimonials with players who are close to retiring, whereas Lloyd could be around for a fair few years yet. He’s still only 28, after all.
While waiting for his second goal, I’ll be spending this season watching his progress up the Watford all-time appearance list. With 336 to his name, he’s now level with Fred Gregory in 15th place. He should overtake Skilly Williams, Frank Smith and Stewart Scullion in the next few weeks, but then it’s a long haul to Charlie Williams in 11th place, with 380. After that, who knows?
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
The rule of five
It was good to see two of Watford’s new signings scoring on Saturday. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll turn out to be successful at Vicarage Road (I still remember Johann Gudmundsson scoring twice on his debut – the very definition of a false dawn), but it’s a start.
I have a theory, honed over 40 years of watching football, that the fate of every batch of new signings will cover the whole gamut from success to failure. More precisely, out of every five signings, you can reasonably expect to get one of each of the following:
McLenaghan – dear old Albert stands as the exemplar of the player who is signed and then disappears, rarely (if ever) to be seen again. We’ve had plenty of these over the years, visible only to the keen-eyed, or those who attend reserve matches. Richard Flash springs to mind, mainly because his name promised so much. Then there’s Sietes, Andy Ferrell, Adrian Bakalli… You can’t help wondering what happens: does the manager genuinely expect them to make an impact, only to be gravely disappointed? Or are they just the result of a cheap punt that doesn’t work out?
Mayo – one step up from the McLenaghan is the player who does at least get a run in the first team, only to be discarded again and vanish from view. Like Paul Mayo, who played 27 games at left back before Ray Lewington decided he wasn’t worth playing just for his long throw. A variation on the Mayo is the player whose Watford career is fatally hampered by injury, like David Barnes or ‘Bunion’ Ben Iroha.
Mackay – our former manager epitomises the middle of the range: the player who is neither a huge success nor a complete failure. Someone who plays a fair number of games, but never becomes an automatic choice, either because of age, injury or competition. Someone who divides the fans, in some cases – a Nordin Wooter, say (though I’ll forgive him anything for that goal against Norwich), or a Danny Webber.
Millen – this is what you want all your signings to be, really: a player who arrives at the club and does exactly the job they were intended to do. Like Keith Millen, who quietly racked up nearly 200 appearances in the centre of defence without ever becoming anyone’s favourite player. Marcus Gayle was another, though in his case he ended up doing a very different job from the one we’d signed him for. They don’t always stay so long, of course. Don Cowie was arguably a Millen, for example.
Mooney – and then, if you’re lucky, one of your five signings will go on to be a club legend. A Tommy Mooney, a John McClelland, a Heidar Helguson – add your own favourites here.
Obviously, this is all highly subjective, but it does provide a yardstick against which to judge a manager’s performance in the transfer market. Let’s look back at the summer of 1997, for example, when GT signed Micah Hyde, Peter Kennedy, Ronny Rosenthal, Jason Lee and Lars Melvang: I make that a Mooney, two Millens, a Mackay and a McLenaghan – an above-average return on our investment.
Now look at Aidy Boothroyd’s first batch of signings, in the summer of 2005: Marlon King, Jordan Stewart, Adam Griffiths, Martin Devaney, Sietes and Ben Gill: a Millen, a Mackay and four McLenaghans. He got better at picking players, obviously, but it wasn’t an encouraging start.
Right now we have six new players. Which will be a Mooney and which a McLenaghan? Only time will tell.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Confessions of the world’s worst ballboy
Over the past 40-odd years, I’ve watched football matches from all four sides of Vicarage Road, and in varying degrees of comfort, from the rib-crushing exhilaration of a packed terrace to the cosseted luxury of an executive box. But only once have I watched a game while standing on the hallowed turf itself, and it’s an occasion my thoughts often turn to at this time of year.
It was the summer of 1973, I think, which would make me 10 years old. My father was in the Air Force and we lived on the RAF estate in Bushey Heath, a few roads away from a colleague of Dad’s who was a qualified football referee, and who had a son of about my age. In those days, Watford used to train at RAF Stanmore, and that summer they invited a team from the base to provide some gentle opposition for a pre-season friendly at Vicarage Road.
I only became aware of this unlikely combination of circumstances when Dad came home from work one day and asked if I would like to be a ballboy at a Watford game. His friend was going to be refereeing the friendly, and his son and I could help out if we liked. Well, as a Watford fan, I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity like that, even if I was a bit hazy on the details of what a ballboy was actually supposed to do.
The details of the day itself are equally hazy at this remove, but I clearly remember being stationed at the Vicarage Road End and instructed to return the ball to the appropriate team if it went out either side of the goal: to the goalkeeper if the attacking team had touched it last, and in the direction of the corner flag if it had come off a defender.
All this I understood. What I hadn’t bargained for was the wall that ran along the front of the Vicarage Road terrace. It wasn’t a particularly high wall: however, I should confess at this point that I wasn’t a particularly athletic 10-year-old. (This won’t come as a shock to anyone who knows me.) In my orange Adidas rip-off tracksuit – two stripes instead of three – I looked a bit like a basketball with arms and legs.
The first time a shot fizzed over the crossbar and onto the terrace, I ran up to the wall and tried to vault over it. Then I tried again. And again.
It was no good. I couldn’t get my leg up on top of the wall so that I could swing over it, and I certainly didn’t have enough upper body strength to pull myself up and over. It was a pattern that would be repeated ad nauseam in gym lessons when I got to secondary school, where I never once managed to vault over the horse or climb a rope. But for now, I was just embarrassed when one of the players got bored of waiting, hopped effortlessly over the wall and retrieved the ball so that play could continue. This happened several more times during the course of the game, to the point where I stopped even pretending to try to get over the wall.
What else do I remember? It was a warm day, and during half-time my fellow ballboy and I sheltered from the sun in the Main Stand, where we were introduced to the manager’s son, who was slightly older than us and apparently quite good at football. In my memory he was called Kevin, but I’ve just checked and Kevin Keen would only have been six in 1973, so it can’t have been him. Maybe he had another son, or maybe I’ve just been harbouring a false memory all these years.
We kept to the same ends in the second half, so I never got a chance to discover whether I could have made it over the wall into the Rookery End. The match ended 4-2 to Watford – for some reason, I’m certain of that, though I’ve never been able to check. Afterwards, the referee told us to wait in the corridor outside the dressing rooms while he changed, and I took the opportunity to get out my autograph book (which, up to that point, had only seen service at the annual pro-am tournament at Hartsbourne Golf Club) and accost the Watford players with it as they emerged.
I’ve looked at the collection of scrawled signatures I gathered that day many times since, but I’ve never managed to match a single one with the name of a Watford player. This isn’t entirely surprising, since (as you’ve doubtless guessed, though I didn’t realise till much later) this was a reserve fixture. I mean, come on – it’s true that Watford were on the slide in the early 70s, but they weren’t so bad that they would have played a first-team match against a side from a local RAF base, and on a midweek morning at that.
I did make it onto the playing surface a couple of times in subsequent years – but only as part of mass pitch invasions when the Hornets had just sealed promotion. And so, all these years later, I still look back fondly on my day as a ballboy. Even if I was absolutely rubbish.
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