Match report

“Showing that he’d learned the lessons from the previous week, Jokanovic switched to a 3-5-2 formation which gave Paredes and Anya more licence to get forward without having to worry so much about their defensive duties. The inclusion of Vydra and Munari – controversially left out against Derby – and the return from injury of Abdi and Angella gave the Hornets a much stronger spine.

“The changes took effect from the start, with Watford tearing forward at every opportunity. Throughout the game, Anya in particular was regularly found with diagonal passes, giving him the opportunity to get the ball in the area. Paredes too repeatedly made probing runs, while the interplay between Deeney, Vydra and Adbi was, at times, reminiscent of the best moments of Zola’s season in charge. 

“As for Cardiff, they were on the back foot for most of the match, and restricted to just a handful of attempts on goal…”

Of course, this imaginary match report on yesterday’s proceedings omits two crucial details: that Cardiff scored in the first quarter of an hour, and that Watford failed to score at all. But my intention (apart from to confuse future readers of this blog) is to demonstrate that, in most respects, this was a dominant Watford performance that, on another day, might well have resulted in a comfortable victory.

It is, of course, the fact that this is the fourth defeat in a row that is causing all the angst on social media, websites, local radio and all the other channels where the only reaction that is valued is a knee-jerk one. If this had been the game after the 3-1 win over Millwall, no one would be complaining too much. Sure, we should have won, but these things happen: a silly defensive error gives the opposition the chance to shut up shop, and when they’ve got one of the best goalkeepers in the country, there’s always a chance they’ll get away with it.

So, a bit of perspective. Jokanovic played what many Watford fans would regard as the best team available to him (though I can’t help feeling sorry for Fernando Forestieri, a rare light in the darkness against Derby and then dropped to the bench against Cardiff), they played pretty well overall and lost 1-0. It happens. It’s not a sacking offence – particularly for a man who’s been in charge for about five minutes. So let’s all take a deep breath and look forward to Craven Cottage on Friday (the only Championship fixture I can walk to from my house).

Nineties nostalgia, pt. 2 – 100 and out

The second programme I’m keeping from my Nineties hoard is from January 1999, and the visit of Sunderland. That may immediately ring a bell with you, but I must admit that it wasn’t until I looked at my annotations on the back cover that I remembered why this particular game was significant. In my usual barely legible scrawl I’ve recorded that Watford won 2-1, with one of the goals coming from Gifton Noel-Williams, who was making his 100th appearance that day. There’s also an asterisk against his name, denoting that he was substituted.

The reason, as most Watford fans will remember, was a horrible challenge by Paul Butler that knackered Gifton’s knee and ruined his career. True, he carried on playing for another decade, but he was never the same player after the injury. It was especially tragic because he had a fantastic game against Sunderland, who were leading Division One at the time (not least thanks to the deadly striking duo of Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips). Still only 19, he was showing signs of becoming a truly great striker, but it was not to be.

The cover of the programme triggers another sad memory. It shows a group of colourfully dressed African dancers performing on the Vicarage Road pitch before the previous week’s home game to welcome fellow Igbo tribesman Ben Iroha to the club. The Sunderland game was his seventh for Watford, but he would only manage another three before problems with bunions stopped him playing, forcing him into retirement little over a year later. When you consider that the team against Sunderland also included Nick Wright, this was, in retrospect, a particularly unlucky XI.

Inside the programme, there’s a big feature on the newly laid Desso pitch, which stopped Vicarage Road becoming a mudbath in the winter – at least until the board of the day neglected to replace it once it had worn out, a fault that was finally rectified last year. There’s also a massive foldout poster of goalie Alec Chamberlain, accompanying an interview which speculates (accurately, as it turned out) that if Watford were to make it to the play-off final, Alec would get “an opportunity to finally play on the hallowed turf after three near misses”.

The other current Watford employee to feature in the programme is – who else? – Lloyd Doyley, in the line-up for the Under-17s in their recent 4-0 win over Peterborough. The fact that the next most memorable name in that line-up is that of Gary Fisken is a reminder of how the odds are stacked against young players when it comes to forging a lasting career in the game.

Difficult second album syndrome

There are only a few standard scenarios where fans get to hear footballers and managers speak, none of them particularly inspiring. There’s the cliché-ridden post-match quickie, of course (“Well, the ball’s come across, and I’ve just headed it in, to be fair”); the set-piece interview where every question, and answer, has clearly been pre-approved by the player’s agent and the club’s PR; and the post-dinner turn, where a long-retired legend trots out a series of tired anecdotes about George Best and Brian Clough.

With the Tales From The Vicarage series of shows, Lionel Birnie and Adam Leventhal are trying to do something a bit different; presenting live interviews with Watford players and managers on the stage of the Palace Theatre in front of an audience of Hornets fans. The first event, in March, was a triumph: would tonight’s follow-up suffer from the phenomenon known to music fans as ‘difficult second album syndrome’?

From the fact that I’m even posing the question, you may suspect that I have some reservations. But first, let me stress that it was a hugely enjoyable evening. As with the first event, the chance to witness key players (and managers) from Watford’s recent history in conversation in a relaxed setting was priceless, and there were many standout moments. Nick Wright was visibly emotional as he relived that goal at Wembley, and the story of how, and how quickly, his career unravelled after that was moving (and new to me); David Holdsworth told a hilarious anecdote about the terrifying consequences for a young player of disobeying Tom Walley’s orders; Tommy Smith was frank about his feelings on being left out of the FA Cup semi-final against Southampton; and Malky Mackay and Ray Lewington both gave fascinating insights into the boardroom turmoil that provided the backdrop against which they were expected to produce winning teams. Funniest of all, though, was Sean Dyche’s response on being asked whether, despite the difficulty Burnley were having winning games, he was enjoying the experience of being a Premiership manager: a vehement, and disarmingly honest, “Am I f**k!”

You’ll notice a lot of names there. Wright, Lewington, Craig Ramage, Holdsworth, Smith and Mackay were all interviewed on stage; Nigel Gibbs spoke from a box on the balcony; Jay DeMerit appeared on a big screen, having dialled in via Skype; and Dyche had apparently been Facetimed, judging by the shaky picture. That’s nine contributors in a little over two hours. By comparison, the first TFTV event featured just three (Dyche, Aidy Boothroyd and Luther Blissett) over a similar time period, and as a result, Adam was able to have an in-depth conversation with each of them.

Inevitably, each contributor to tonight’s event got less time to talk, and at times the conversation dwindled into a series of anecdotes – funny and fascinating anecdotes, it’s true, but that’s not the same as insight. Personally, I’d have been happy to hear more from Lewington, Smith and Gibbs in particular, all of whom are articulate and have, I’m sure, plenty more to say than we heard tonight.

The sheer number of interviewees was probably the reason for the rather self-congratulatory tone of much of the evening, too. I lost count of the number of times someone said “That’s what makes Watford such a special club”, or some such platitude, followed by rousing applause from the audience. We get it, we’re all Watford fans, we all love the club, we love you too… At one point I found myself mentally assembling the cast of an alternative, ‘dark’ TFTV that would guarantee less schmaltz and more bite. How about Dave Bassett, Ramon Vega, Kerry Dixon and David Connolly?

One last thing. I’m happy to applaud Malky Mackay for his achievements as a player, a coach and a manager, and he seems like a lovely bloke, witty and intelligent. I also understand why Adam wasn’t about to ask him any questions about the end of his tenure at Cardiff. But are we all supposed to pretend that the notorious text messages never happened? Or that they did, but it’s okay because he’s a Watford legend? There’s a wider debate here about the difficulty of separating out someone’s achievements and their misdeeds, and this isn’t the place for it. But on balance, if I was in charge, I think I’d have waited another year or two before inviting Malky on stage.

None of this means that I won’t be at the next event, and I’ll be fascinated to see who they can entice on stage. (My wish list would include Tom Walley, Heidar Helguson, Kenny Jackett and Gary Porter.) But I do think that, with events like this, less is more.

Nineties nostalgia, pt. 1 – Silky skills

Clearing out a cupboard recently, I found a box containing what appears to be my entire collection of Watford programmes from the 1990s. Following my ruthless rule, I’m going to chuck most of them out (if you’d like them, by all means get in touch, though I suspect the 90s aren’t long enough ago for programmes from this misfit decade in Watford’s history to be collectable), keeping just one from each season as a representative example.

I do like leafing through old programmes, though, so I plan to share highlights from the ‘keepers’ over the coming weeks. We start with Tuesday’s opponents, Brentford, and a programme from August 23rd, 1997. It’s a colourful publication with a computer desktop theme; titles in tabs at the top of the page and  other design details I vaguely remember from the PCs of the period.

Among the standard fare, one unusual feature is ‘Herts of sport’, a page devoted to sporting news from around the county. The headline story is the performance of Danielle Sanderson in the marathon at the World Athletics Championship, where she finished 35th, and there’s also news from the worlds of swimming, bowls, cricket, umm, karting, and a story simply headed ‘Watford Royals’, who I think must have been a basketball team, given the reference to the signing of a 6ft 8in forward.

The Watford manager is a certain Mr Taylor, freshly reinstalled in the hot seat after Kenny Jackett’s unsuccessful attempt to get the Hornets out of Division Two at the first attempt, and he’s not happy about fans chanting “Taylor, Taylor, give us a wave.” As he complains in his notes, “I thought we were on first-name terms!”

In the news section, GT is pictured shaking hands with new signing Ronnie Rosenthal, and the Brentford game saw his first start in yellow, after coming on as a sub in the previous two games. It’s a curious line-up, comprising a mixture of bona fide club legends – Alec Chamberlain, Richard Johnson, Tommy Mooney, Steve Palmer – and bit-part players such as Dai Thomas and Lars Melvang. More remarkably still, the Danish full-back was one of the scorers in a 3-1 win, along with Jonno and Keith Millen, netting against his former team.

The other picture that caught my eye was on the ‘21 and under’ page, where an almost unrecognisable Tommy Smith, with a truly awful hairstyle, is praised for his ‘silky skills’ in a youth team game against Millwall. Funny to think that, 17 years later, he could potentially play against us on Tuesday night.

The Brentford line-up for the game is unremarkable, with only Marcus Bent ringing any bells; a former Bees trainee, he would go on to play for another 13 clubs. And that result is also unremarkable. As my long-suffering best friend Stuart, a Bees fan, ruefully reminded me recently, Brentford haven’t beaten Watford in a competitive fixture since 1977. Here’s hoping the run continues on Tuesday.

The least worst option

As I mentioned a couple of years ago, in middle age I’ve adopted a ruthless policy with regard to matchday programmes. At the end of each season, I select one specimen to add to the archives, and the rest go in the recycling. That specimen is generally the programme from a particularly memorable match, or one that is significant for some reason.

So, a few weeks ago I finally got around to clearing out the box where I’d stored last season’s programmes. Which one to keep? It turned out that it wasn’t an easy decision. I should explain that assorted commitments meant that I missed our biggest home wins of the season: the 6-1 against Bournemouth in August, the 4-0 against Millwall on Boxing Day and the defeat of Blackpool by the same margin in March.

Instead, most of the programmes I leafed through commemorated the increasingly desperate series of autumnal defeats that led to Gianfranco Zola’s resignation, or the limp conclusion to the season. In the end, I was left with a meagre shortlist: the Capital One Cup 3rd round game against Norwich, where our second string came so close to beating a Premier League side and Javier Acuna briefly looked like a top-class striker; the FA Cup 3rd round tie at Manchester City, where we once again went 2-0 up against a top-flight team, only to have our hopes cruelly dashed; the 3-0 home win against Leeds in April (because, let’s be honest, beating Leeds never gets old); and the league game away at Reading in August.

I finally plumped for the Reading programme; partly as a silent protest against the meagre quality of the football I saw at Vicarage Road for most of last season, and partly because it represented the honeymoon period of the season where it seemed our hopes might actually be realised. Okay, we didn’t actually win the game, but in coming back from 2-0 down, and then 3-2, to draw 3-3, we showed a spirit that boded well for the rest of the season. Diego Fabbrini came on as a substitute and changed the game, and Davide Faraoni scored as well. I also remember that afternoon for the superb support from the Watford end (complete with flares), an early example of the 1881 in action.

I remember walking back to my car on a high, thinking that if we could come back like that against one of the leading clubs in the division, at a time when our team was still getting into its stride, the future looked bright. Which only goes to prove, once again, that football fans know nothing.

Overtaken by events

Over the past couple of months, life has got in the way of my writing nonsense about Watford. My job has taken up an indecently large proportion of my time (as ever), and when I’ve come home from work, I’ve been helping my better half with some academic work (an 8,000-word dissertation, to be precise). During the summer, that wasn’t particularly an issue, but once the season started, I kept having a vague idea about writing something about the Hornets, only for my half-formed notion to be superceded by events.

And then it all went completely nuts. In the space of barely a week, we had the dispiriting League Cup defeat to Doncaster; Troy Deeney’s new contract; the astonishing end to the Huddersfield game; Beppe Sannino’s resignation; the appointment of Oscar Garcia; and the departure of Technical Director Gian Luca Nani. I’d barely formed an opinion about one event when the next one came along.

You’ll have worked out by now that I’m not one to rush to judgement. Years ago, I did a postgraduate journalism course where you could choose to specialise in ‘newspaper’ or ‘magazine’ journalism. Those who took the first option would quite literally chase an ambulance or fire engine up the street to see where it ended up and try to get a story out of it; those who took the second were sat in the pub watching them dash past, airily discussing the 3,000-word features they were going to write some time soon. I was, naturally, in the second group.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that if you’re looking for up-to-the-minute commentary on the latest goings-on at Vicarage Road, you’re better off going to Vital Watford, say. I’ll chip in when the mood takes me, but otherwise I’ll be going off on tangents, as per usual.

Since we’ve got this far, though some quick bullet points to bring us up to date:

• Troy’s new contract is a Very Good Thing in every way
• I feel sorry for Beppe, but if the stories I’ve read about the rifts between him and the players are true, then his departure is also (probably) a Good Thing
• Oscar Garcia seems like a decent appointment
• Lloyd Doyley is still my official Favourite Player, and the sooner he is reinstated in Watford’s defence, the more secure it will be

A question of expectation

So it’s that time of year again, and I find myself entering my 45th season as a Watford fan. That’s 45 years of hope and despair, elation and desolation, anticipation and disappointment – and, let’s be honest about this, an awful lot of middle-of-the-road mediocrity. I’m sure most football fans would say the same, whoever they support.

Of the 44 seasons I’ve lived through, just six ended in Watford gaining promotion, and two of those were through the playoffs. What’s more, I don’t remember many of those promotions being greeted with a nonchalent shrug by Hornets fans, as being no more than they expected. For all the growing sense of confidence and ambition around the club in the late 70s, the three promotions under Graham Taylor the first time round all seemed to come more quickly than anticipated, while the play-off wins under GT mark two and Aidy Boothroyd came out of left field (and catapulted us into a Premier League we weren’t remotely ready for – but that’s another story). Arguably, only the Division Two title in 1997/98 was expected, after GT had ridden back into town like the heroic sheriff in a Western.

But, significantly, that sense of expectation had been equally great the previous season, when Kenny Jackett had taken the reins after relegation from Division 1 – and when we’d ended up 13th. Indeed, the following season apart, the only seasons when I can honestly say I expected Watford to gain promotion were those immediately following a relegation. Again, that’s par for the course for football fans everywhere. According to their (our) warped logic, if we were in a higher division last season, it stands to reason that we’ll get back there as quickly as possible.

Since the arrival of the Pozzos, though, Watford fans’ expectation levels have risen. Not immediately, not across the board – but then Gianfranco Zola’s achievement in reaching the playoff final in his first season stoked the fires. I was certainly swept up by the tidal wave, even going so far as to put cold hard cash on our winning the Championship title last season. This time, expectation was rewarded with 12th place. There’s £40 I’ll never see again.

And now we’re at that point again, and I’m sure plenty of Watford fans think this has got to be the season when we finally crack it. A decent squad, strengthened by significant arrivals over the summer; not the strongest set of rivals we’ve ever faced (though in the Championship, who knows?); a solid core of players who know now what this league is all about – Deeney, Doyley, Abdi, Anya, Pudil, Ekstrand, Forestieri, Battochio.

Me, I’m not so sure. I worry that we’ve signed too many players: how long is it going take Beppe Sannino to find his best starting eleven, his best formation? How long will it take the likes of Paredes, Tamas and Ighalo to adjust to Championship football, if indeed they ever do? Who’s going to score the goals if Deeney leaves and Vydra turns out to be the player we had in the second half of the season before last, not the first half?

I’m not saying we can’t do it, I’m just saying that I’m going to reserve judgement until I’ve seen a few games. And I’m certainly not putting money on it this time. If there’s one thing for sure, it’s that there are no sure things in football.

Those weren’t the days

For the past couple of years I’ve been training my 11-year-old niece, Susie, to be an apprentice Hornet. She gamely froze her little backside off at the Vic last season during the 4-0 win against Huddersfield (featuring that goal), and on Saturday she enjoyed the Ipswich game – I think it helped that we were sitting directly behind the 1881, so the atmosphere was good. Anyway, she’s keen to go again.

Her parents have no interest in football, but they do live a stone’s throw from Stamford Bridge, so they keep an eye on Chelsea’s affairs. The other week, when I was round there for dinner, my sister-in-law anxiously brought up a story she’d read about Chelsea fans going on the rampage in Paris en route to their Champions League game with PSG. So Susie naturally asked why anyone would do that, and soon we were trying to explain the concept of hooliganism to her.

Inevitably, she eventually asked how much football-related violence I’d actually seen. For those of us of a certain age, this is the equivalent of ‘What did you do in the war, Grandad?’ I automatically played it down, but afterwards I found myself trying to remember what I had actually witnessed. This is what I remember:

• Standing on the Vicarage Road End terrace once when everyone suddenly started moving away from the central section, because the away fans had apparently ‘taken’ it
• The home game against West Ham early in our first season back in Division Two, when the Hammers fans invaded the pitch and police horses were used to clear them off
• My one and only trip to Kenilworth Road, when we emerged after the game to find bricks and bottles raining down on us and had to leg it back to the car

And that’s pretty much it, to be honest.

Much more prevalent, though was the sense of threat that accompanied football matches in the 70s and 80s – especially away from home. It meant that, on visits to grounds like Upton Park and Highbury, we tied our scarves around our waists, under our coats, and didn’t get them out until safely inside the home end; that, on trips to the Midlands, we didn’t dare talk too loudly on the way to the ground, for fear that our accents would betray us to the local psychos; and that we spent a lot of time being escorted to and from grounds by files of grim-faced policemen.

It all seems a long time ago now, in this age of Champions League pomp and circumstance and Sky’s relentless promotion of football as fun for all the family. But the habits acquired in those years have never really worn off. When I went to see the Hornets play at the New Den a couple of weeks ago (travelling on public transport), I didn’t dare wear my Watford shirt or scarf – just in case...

Meanwhile, in the past couple of years, I’ve had a couple of nerve-wracking train journeys in carriages packed with Palace fans where the sense of menace has been palpable, and it felt as if certain individuals just needed the slightest provocation to turn nasty.

And now I read that Watford fans visiting Loftus Road on Monday were subjected to 80s-style police escorts and searches. I was going to say that I hope that, if Susie does go on to become a football fan, her experience of matchdays is free from even the threat of violence. But, even after all these years, I’m not that optimistic.

Telling tales

Back in the late 80s, I regularly attended meetings of the London branch of the (now defunct) Football Supporters’ Association. It was a forum for debating the issues of the day and featured guest speakers from the football world.

At some point in the proceedings, one particular member would invariably stick his hand up and ask a question pertaining to Dulwich Hamlet, who he supported with a rare passion. (I seem to remember that he wore a club scarf, rosette and badges to these meetings.) Indeed, he didn’t seem to be interested in any footballing issue except insofar as if affected Dulwich Hamlet.

Most memorably, he angrily inquired of a senior executive from the BBC why the classified results on Grandstand (readers under 40, ask your parents) didn’t include the Isthmian League Division 1 South, or wherever Dulwich were plying their trade at the time. The chap from the BBC gave a perfectly reasonable answer, but Mr Dulwich wasn’t to be pacified, and it took some time to get the meeting back on track.

He was an extreme example, but I’ve come to realise over the years that most of us football fans have our hobby horse – the issue that we care so passionately about that we lose all sense of proportion when talking about it. For some, it may be the lack of attention given to their club; for others, a particular player, manager or referee. Mine, as you can tell by looking at the Labels column to the right, is Lloyd Doyley: specifically, the persistent failure of the world in general, and successive Watford managers in particular, to recognise the supreme quality of his defensive play.

Bearing this tendency in mind, anyone organising an event where football fans come into contact with real people from the football world runs the risk of it being hijacked by one or more of these single-issue obsessives. On my way to Tales From The Vicarage Live at the Watford Palace Theatre a couple of weeks ago, I was a little nervous as it how it might pan out. I had no concerns about Luther Blissett, a gold-plated club legend, and Sean Dyche is generally well thought of. Aidy Boothroyd was another matter entirely, though. Would he be booed as soon as he walked on stage? Heckled, even? (“Where’s your Plan B, Boothroyd?”)

I needn’t have worried on that score; Aidy got as warm an ovation as his fellow panellists, and there was no heckling. But some of the questions directed at him in the second half of the evening had a definite edge to them, and threatened to cast a chill over the benevolent warmth that characterised the show as a whole. It’s a tribute to his self-deprecating charm that the atmosphere remained light and good-humoured, even when discussing the catastrophic signing of Nathan Ellington. At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking that he still talks a better game than he plays – a theory that his career at Watford, and his subsequent downward spiral through the divisions, would appear to support. It’s a shame that Adam Leventhal never got round to asking him, as promised, about his new job in charge of England’s Under-20s.

Adam’s role as MC was central to the success of the evening. I’d previously only seen him sat behind a desk on Sky Sports News, trying to look excited about the latest half-arsed football transfer rumours, but here he was the perfect chat show host, funny and inclusive and acting as a sympathetic bridge between the fans in the stalls and the club legends on the stage.

Others will have made extensive notes on the content of the evening, and a fortnight later, I can’t recall many details of the conversations on stage. A few things stick in the memory, though. For instance, Luther’s obvious, and ongoing, obsession with scoring goals, as revealed in a series of anecdotes. (And I never knew that he won the Golden Boot as the top scorer in the whole of Europe in our first season in the First Division. In my defence, it was my first year at university, and in those pre-internet days it was easier to miss such items of incidental football news.)

Aidy, as mentioned, was funny and charming throughout. But the star of the show was Sean Dyche, who should seriously consider a career in entertainment if football management doesn’t work out for him. (Though I’m pretty sure it will.) Drily witty and quietly serious by turns, he was an enthralling presence on stage, and I doubt there was a single person in the audience that night who didn’t leave thinking more highly of him than they had done before.

I arrived at the Palace not sure what to expect, but TFTV Live turned out to be a joy from start to finish.   Who knew that a live football chat show could be such fun?

You can prove anything with statistics

The excellent news was announced this week that Lloyd Doyley’s contract has been extended by another year. The only puzzling thing is why the club has kept offering him one-year contracts for the past few seasons, rather than tying him down to a longer deal. Maybe they just take him for granted.

They, and we, shouldn’t. Recently I came across a section of the club website that I hadn’t looked at properly before, the Stats page, and the figures for central defenders make interesting reading:

Angella - 35 games, 42 fouls, 6 yellow cards, 1 red card
Cassetti - 32 games, 35 fouls, 8 yellow, 0 red
Ekstrand - 30 games, 27 fouls, 10 yellow, 0 red
Doyley - 23 games, 6 fouls, 1 yellow, 0 red

I’d say that fouls and yellow cards are a pretty good yardstick by which to measure a defender’s skill: after all, if they get their positioning right and time their tackles correctly, they don’t commit fouls and don’t get booked. Now I rate all four of these players highly, but the stats clearly show who the best defender is. Angella commits an average of 1.2 fouls a game and gets booked once every six games: Cassetti has a similar fouls/game average, 1.1, but gets booked once every four matches: and Ekstrand is on 0.9 fouls a game, but one booking every three (which isn’t going to make him popular with the manager – sorry, Head Coach).

Now look at Lloyd: 0.2 fouls a game (or, to put it another way, one every five games) and just one yellow all season. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why he is indisputably the best defender at the club (and has been for years). Angella may score more goals, Cassetti may have a better beard, Ekstrand may speak better Swedish (okay, I’m struggling here), but if you want someone to actually stop the opposition scoring goals, Lloyd’s should be the first name on the teamsheet every week.