Founded in 1960, the group of French-speaking writers who called themselves Oulipo devoted themselves to writing fiction under certain constraints. Most famously, George Perec set himself the challenge of writing an entire novel without using the letter ‘e’.
Perec died a long time ago, but if he was still alive, I reckon I could set him a tougher challenge than that: try writing about pre-Pozzo-era Watford without mentioning Graham Taylor. Judging by TFTV4, I don’t think even Oulipo’s finest could have managed it.
Entertaining and illuminating snapshots of GT crop up throughout the latest volume in the excellent TFTV series. Here he is in 1983, “donning a three-piece suit, bowler hat and stick-on moustache” for a nostalgic friendly against Corinthian Casuals (a game I often think I dreamt, so I’m grateful to have independent verification that it actually took place). Here he is the following year, sitting in a room in an airport hotel in Glasgow, waiting nervously for John McClelland – who has just agreed to join the Hornets – to return from a room down the corridor, where he knows that Aberdeen manager Alex Ferguson is trying to gazump him. Here is again in 1996, on his first day back at the club, giving all the players a piece of paper and a pen and telling them to pick a team for the next game (Tommy Mooney not only picks himself, but names himself as captain). And yet again in 1998, persuading Allan Smart to sign on the dotted line in a series of conversations and messages that make him feel “like the best player in the world”.
The credits for the TFTV series have shrunk over time, from the varied cast of writers employed for the first two volumes (myself included on Volume 1) to the two-handed, interview-themed Volume 3. Volume 4 is a Lionel Birnie solo album, but it’s none the worse for that. That’s largely because of the variety of material covered in the 10 chapters, where extended interviews are interspersed with both topical material (the first three chapters are broadly themed around Watford’s journey to the Premier League) and more nostalgic digressions.
To be honest, the latter were my favourite parts of the book. For instance, the chapter on the friendly games of the early 80s (many of which I attended) makes you realise just how much less seriously professional football as a whole – and Watford in particular – took itself in those days. Can you imagine a team today going abroad to play a friendly just three days before the final game of the season, and one that would determine whether or not they won promotion? That’s what Watford did in May 1979, and that’s not even the strangest part of the story (which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t read the book yet).
I could go on, but you get the point. TFTV4, like its predecessors, is full of wonderful stories and intriguing insights into the club we all love. And pretty much every chapter underscores how lucky those of us of my generation are to have been Watford fans in a period that has encompassed both GT in his pomp (twice!) and the Pozzos.
Showing posts with label Lionel Birnie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lionel Birnie. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 October 2015
Sunday, 19 January 2014
‘Tales From The Vicarage, Volume II’, edited by Lionel Birnie
I never got around to reviewing the first volume of Tales From The Vicarage, mainly because I was a contributor, and thus somewhat lacking in objectivity. Such scruples are unnecessary this time, as I’m not in Volume II, so I’m free to give it both barrels.
Only kidding. Like its predecessor, Volume II is a joyous read for any Watford fan; 13 pieces that cover a range of topics related to our beloved club, all long enough to engage without overstaying their welcome.
Although it’s a miscellany, a couple of themes emerge. One, unsurprisingly, is Watford’s links with Italy. Paolo Tomaselli’s guide to the Pozzos, including interviews with key figures in the regime, is essential reading, and worth the price of the book on its own for its insights into the way the club is likely to develop over the next few years. Someone should send a copy to every journalist and pundit who’s lazily expressed the view that “the Pozzos were Everything That Was Wrong With English Football”.
That’s a quote from the second Italian-themed article, editor Lionel Birnie’s account of Gianfranco Zola’s season in charge of Watford. It’s impassioned and well crafted, though for me it’s too soon after the event to need recapping. The true significance of 2012/13 will take a few years to become clear.
Maybe that time lag explains the proliferation of pieces on the 1990s, the other main theme of the anthology. My favourite of these is Ian Grant’s characteristically droll survey of the ‘doldrums’ of the mid-90s, embroidered with his trademark gift for metaphor. Take this one:
“Games against Luton in the nineties had a private, depressing darkness about them, utterly incomprehensible to the outside world, like a squabble over half a can of cheap lager between two street drinkers descending into squalid, disgraceful wrestling in a suspiciously-coloured puddle.”
I wish I’d written that.
He bookends his story with an impressionistic account of the day we came out of the darkness, the 1999 Play-Off Final victory against Bolton, and his BHaPPY co-editor Matt Rowson provides a complementary piece on the night that made it possible, the semi-final second leg at St Andrew’s. He evokes the tension of the penalty shoot-out beautifully – it took me right back to the pub in Central London where I watched the game with 100-odd Hornets fans, and ended up hugging total strangers.
Also on the 90s theme, Nigel Gibbs picks his Watford ‘dream team’ from those he played with or coached at Vicarage Road. There are no surprises in his selections, but his insights and stories are interesting. One of his selections, Kevin Phillips, gets a whole chapter to himself as Lionel Birnie interviews the striker who ended our Premiership dreams in May. All these years (and clubs) on, it’s salutory to be reminded of the strength of character that took him from part-time football for Baldock to Watford, and eventually the England team.
Away from the 90s, Mike Walters’ memories of his trip to Sofia in 1983 to watch Watford in the UEFA Cup inspired me to watch the grainy footage of the goals on YouTube, though I didn’t really need the extended quotes from Graham Taylor and Neil Price that bulk out the story.
I’m not going to go through every piece, but I can’t end without mentioning Olly Wicken. As in Volume I, he provides the only piece of fiction. His tale of a deceased Watford supporter who ends up in a conflicted Hornet Heaven is surprisingly thought-provoking, asking difficult questions about what we, as fans, take from our club’s past and want for its future. It’s also both touching and extremely funny, with gags that creep up on you unawares. I particularly enjoyed this one:
“He had to make do with thinking the word ‘bugger’ time and time again in the surrounding silence. It felt like sitting in the Upper Rous.”
If that made you smile, buy this book. You won’t regret it.
Only kidding. Like its predecessor, Volume II is a joyous read for any Watford fan; 13 pieces that cover a range of topics related to our beloved club, all long enough to engage without overstaying their welcome.
Although it’s a miscellany, a couple of themes emerge. One, unsurprisingly, is Watford’s links with Italy. Paolo Tomaselli’s guide to the Pozzos, including interviews with key figures in the regime, is essential reading, and worth the price of the book on its own for its insights into the way the club is likely to develop over the next few years. Someone should send a copy to every journalist and pundit who’s lazily expressed the view that “the Pozzos were Everything That Was Wrong With English Football”.
That’s a quote from the second Italian-themed article, editor Lionel Birnie’s account of Gianfranco Zola’s season in charge of Watford. It’s impassioned and well crafted, though for me it’s too soon after the event to need recapping. The true significance of 2012/13 will take a few years to become clear.
Maybe that time lag explains the proliferation of pieces on the 1990s, the other main theme of the anthology. My favourite of these is Ian Grant’s characteristically droll survey of the ‘doldrums’ of the mid-90s, embroidered with his trademark gift for metaphor. Take this one:
“Games against Luton in the nineties had a private, depressing darkness about them, utterly incomprehensible to the outside world, like a squabble over half a can of cheap lager between two street drinkers descending into squalid, disgraceful wrestling in a suspiciously-coloured puddle.”
I wish I’d written that.
He bookends his story with an impressionistic account of the day we came out of the darkness, the 1999 Play-Off Final victory against Bolton, and his BHaPPY co-editor Matt Rowson provides a complementary piece on the night that made it possible, the semi-final second leg at St Andrew’s. He evokes the tension of the penalty shoot-out beautifully – it took me right back to the pub in Central London where I watched the game with 100-odd Hornets fans, and ended up hugging total strangers.
Also on the 90s theme, Nigel Gibbs picks his Watford ‘dream team’ from those he played with or coached at Vicarage Road. There are no surprises in his selections, but his insights and stories are interesting. One of his selections, Kevin Phillips, gets a whole chapter to himself as Lionel Birnie interviews the striker who ended our Premiership dreams in May. All these years (and clubs) on, it’s salutory to be reminded of the strength of character that took him from part-time football for Baldock to Watford, and eventually the England team.
Away from the 90s, Mike Walters’ memories of his trip to Sofia in 1983 to watch Watford in the UEFA Cup inspired me to watch the grainy footage of the goals on YouTube, though I didn’t really need the extended quotes from Graham Taylor and Neil Price that bulk out the story.
I’m not going to go through every piece, but I can’t end without mentioning Olly Wicken. As in Volume I, he provides the only piece of fiction. His tale of a deceased Watford supporter who ends up in a conflicted Hornet Heaven is surprisingly thought-provoking, asking difficult questions about what we, as fans, take from our club’s past and want for its future. It’s also both touching and extremely funny, with gags that creep up on you unawares. I particularly enjoyed this one:
“He had to make do with thinking the word ‘bugger’ time and time again in the surrounding silence. It felt like sitting in the Upper Rous.”
If that made you smile, buy this book. You won’t regret it.
Saturday, 8 September 2012
A brief commercial break
Surprisingly, I seem to have neglected to mention that I’m one of the select band who have contributed to an anthology of new writing about Watford FC, edited by Lionel Birnie and called Tales from the Vicarage. It’s out later this month, but it’s available to pre-order now. You can read full details here, including a list of the contributors and a summary of each chapter.
My piece is more personal than most of the opinionated nonsense I write on this blog, and it was challenging, but fun, to write. (Lionel asked me for around 5,000 words, which is about 4,000 more than the longest piece I’ve ever written about Watford before.) It’ll be the first – and almost certainly the last – time I’ve ever appeared in print alongside an England international, and I’m really looking forward to reading DJ’s and the other contributions. If you’re a Watford fan – and I’d be surprised if you’re not, since you’re reading this – it’s going to be essential reading.
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.
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.
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