So, how was the pudding?

It’s been two months since my last post – two months in which a hell of a lot has happened. If I haven’t said anything about it, it was partly because I didn’t have anything new to add to the deluge of reaction and opinion to the astonishing climax to Watford’s season, and partly because I was simply too damn busy. Sometimes life gets in the way, and you just have to let others get on with the important task of spouting opinionated nonsense about the goings-on at Vicarage Road.

Talking of opinionated nonsense… Back in July, when the Pozzos took over, I wrote this post about the measures they would be judged against by Watford fans (well, by me at any rate). So I thought it might be interesting to revisit it (I haven’t read it since I wrote it) and see how they did.

These were the five key areas I listed:

1) The ground
Improving the embarrassment that is Vicarage Road should be a priority, I said, and as for the shell of the South-West Corner, “I would now expect work to start before Christmas and for it to be finished in time for next season.”

Well, that clearly didn't happen, and even if they started work now, it wouldn't be done by August. On this issue (and this alone, I hasten to add), the Pozzos have done no better than Bassini. Let’s be charitable and say that it’s obviously not as straightforward as it might appear. I now read that the original plans will have to be rethought anyway, as a result of new Premiership regulations which Watford are hoping they’ll need to comply with sooner or later. In the meantime, at least there's still a handy railing for fans to hang flags from.

2) The traditions
No complaints here. ‘Z Cars’ has remained in its rightful place, and there hasn’t been any hint of any Cardiff-type plans to change the club’s colours or identity. I’m not a fan of the new home kit, mind you. Where’s the red?

3) The fans
“If the Pozzos want to gain the trust of the fans, they should organise a couple of Fans’ Forums fairly early on, and make sure that key personnel attend.”

They did that, and by all accounts it was well worth the effort. All those who’ve met the people now running the club speak warmly of them (which certainly wasn’t the case with Bassini), and that’s reassuring.

4) The players
“I just want to see evidence of some thinking before the dressing room starts filling up with random foreigners,” I said in July.

Some hope. Soon we had a squad of 40+ professionals, and poor Gianfranco was clearly struggling to work out what to do with them all. The stage was set for a chaotic and disappointing season.

That it didn’t turn out that way is a tribute to Zola’s managerial skills. The management have since more or less admitted that, given the timeframe, their best option was to chuck a bunch of players at him and hope he’d be able to fashion a coherent team from them. And it won’t happen again (not least because of the Football League’s peevish change of the rule on foreign loans). So I’ll let them off.

5) The Watford way
The ultimate litmus test (or "Would GT have done that?” as I put it) – and I reckon the new owners have passed it. If the 2012-13 vintage Watford didn’t feel entirely like the club we know and love, it didn’t feel wrong either. It certainly felt strange watching fluid passing movements leading to spectacular goals, week after week, but that’s something I’m happy to get used to. Above all, it felt as if someone had looked at Watford and thought to themselves, “We can improve on that, without losing the essence of the club.”

The proof of the pudding

Following on from my previous post, I’ve been thinking about what it will take for me to be reassured that Watford is in safe hands after the latest takeover. These, for me, are the five key areas:

1) The ground

The Pozzos’ press release acknowledged the need to improve the ground, and I would expect that to be a priority, because at the moment it’s an embarrassment. Bassini kept saying that work to complete the new media centre/changing rooms complex between the Rookery and Rous stands was imminent: I would now expect work to start before Christmas and for it to be finished in time for next season.

2) The traditions

The Pozzos say they understand and respect Watford’s heritage and traditions. If the players don’t run out to ‘Z Cars’ before the first home game of the season, that statement will be shown to be so much hot air. 

3) The fans

If there’s one thing Bassini’s brief spell in charge proved, it’s the importance of communication. Even though LB himself never turned up at a Fans’ Forum, others from the club did, to positive effect. If the Pozzos want to gain the trust of the fans, they should organise a couple of Fans’ Forums fairly early on, and make sure that key personnel attend.

4) The players

Zola started work, and the players returned after their summer break, just yesterday. I’d like to think that the new manager wants to spend some time assessing the players he’s inherited before rushing into the transfer and loan markets. We saw last season how disruptive it can be when you sign practically an entire team’s worth of new players at the start of the season. I’m not saying the current squad can’t be improved - I just want to see evidence of some thinking before the dressing room starts filling up with random foreigners.

5) The Watford Way

There’s been much discussion of what this phrase means on the WML over the past few days, and I’m no more certain of the definition than anyone else. If in doubt, though, I think the phrase “Would Graham Taylor have done that?” pretty much covers it. I haven’t got a recommendation for our new owners here: it’s more a case that we’ll know if they do something that is counter to the Watford Way.

Here we go again

I never felt particularly strongly about Lawrence Bassini. For all that many Watford fans tended to regard him as the devil incarnate, I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt until presented with factual evidence to persuade me otherwise. Maybe the full story will emerge in time and those of us who tolerated Bassini will be exposed as naive fools, as some on the WML insist.

Personally, I was upset that he forced me to sell my Watford shares – even if they were almost worthless by that point – and suspicious of the mystery surrounding his background and the source of his funds, but encouraged by the steady progress the club made during his tenure, both on and off the pitch. I suspect many Watford fans feel the same.

As for the Pozzos, there is no mystery about the source of their funds, which is a big plus point. Equally encouraging is the general perception (presumably being encouraged by the Italians themselves) that they’re not going to throw money at Watford in an attempt to gain instant promotion to the Premiership. That approach rarely works, as we’ve seen all too often.

Set against that is the worry that the new regime will change too much, too soon, and throw the baby out with the bathwater. The mooted replacement of Sean Dyche with Gianfranco Zola is not a good sign, and the scenario that sees Watford effectively becoming a nursery club for Udinese, with a team packed with cheap European and Latin American imports, is not an appealing one.

Then again... Since I started following Watford in 1970, the club has been owned (whatever that word means in a football context) by Jack Bonsor, Elton John, Jack Petchey, Rumi Verjee, Graham Simpson, the Russos, Lawrence Bassini and now the Pozzos. (That’s from memory – I may have missed one or two.) As with managers, it’s noticeable that the turnover of owners has become more rapid over the years.

Curiously, the only one on that list the fans actively protested against was Bonsor. Maybe that’s because we’ve become resigned to the fact that we don’t actually have much say in the matter (particularly now that the club is once again privately owned), but also because we know that if we don’t like this owner, another one will be along soon.

If the Pozzos are still in charge in 10 years’ time, I’ll be surprised (indeed, judging by recent history, they’ll be lucky to last five).  If they are, that will presumably mean that they’ve been successful. If not, Watford will still be around in some form – football clubs are hard things to kill off, as the examples of Wimbledon, Aldershot, Newport, Accrington and others show. That’s because we, the fans, are the club, when it comes down to it. We may not have a bit of paper to say that we’re the legal owners, but that doesn’t stop it being ours.