The relegation game

One of the benefits of having been a Watford fan for nearly half a century is that you can see patterns across the years and decades. It also lessens the pain of relegation, to a certain extent; I’ve seen it happen before, and doubtless I will again.

In fact, all but one of Watford’s relegations have happened since I started supporting them in 1970. I can’t tell you much about the club’s descent from Division 1 of the Southern League to Division 2 in 1902-03, and Oliver Phillips’ centenary history of the club doesn’t explain what went wrong. He does make it clear, though, that relegation had been coming, with the club finishing 14th out of 15, and then 13th out of 16, in the previous two seasons.

In that respect, it sounds similar to the first relegation I witnessed, from Division 2 in 1971-72. Having finally achieved the longed-for promotion to the second tier three seasons earlier, the Hornets had found the step up a struggle from the start, and didn’t have the money to invest in the quality of players they needed to be competitive. Successive finishes of 19th and 18th out of 22 were followed by last place in a dismal season.

Watford’s first two ventures into the Premier League both ended in similar fashion, albeit after a single season. In both 1999-2000 and 2006-07, we’d been promoted before we were really ready for it, couldn’t afford transformative signings, and injuries to key players sabotaged any hopes of survival.

Our other relegation from the top division, in 1987-88, is also easily explained. In just a few months, Dave Bassett managed to undo pretty much all the good work Graham Taylor had done over the previous decade, weakening the backroom staff and the playing squad and deploying an unappealing brand of football based on the long ball and the offside trap. Despite Bassett’s departure in January, replacement Steve Harrison couldn’t stop the ship sinking.

The reasons for the other two relegations are harder to pin down. In 1974-75, the Hornets followed a season when they’d finished 7th in Division 3 with relegation, and from Oliver Phillips’ account (I was only 12 at the time, and the nuances passed me by), it seems that they sleepwalked into it. Despite the presence of several players who would come back up under GT a few years later (including Jenkins, Garner, Downes and Joslyn), and despite only needing seven points from the last 11 games to be safe, they went down by a single point. (By the way, one of the teams that went down with us was Bournemouth. Like I say, patterns keep recurring.)

Likewise, in 1995-96, we went down from what was then called Division 1 (ie the second tier) after a 7th-place finish the year before. Injuries were certainly a factor here, as was a lack of investment from notoriously cautious Chairman Jack Petchey. Roeder was replaced with a returning GT with 17 games to go, giving us all hope. But Ian Grant catches the mood well in his piece in Tales From The Vicarage Volume II: “Had we conjured up any kind of form, any kind of running start for our dramatic late surge, we almost certainly would’ve escaped; instead, we seemed caught in a hopeless conundrum, as if imprisoned in a windowless room with only a trapdoor for escape.” It went down to a final home game against Leicester where we needed to win and hope other results went our way. We didn’t, and they didn’t anyway.

So how does 2019-20 stack up against these previous examples? We certainly can’t blame underinvestment, given the current value of the squad (though a bit more money spent on defenders last summer might have helped). Likewise, injuries haven’t been a major factor; we’ve had a few, but not nearly as many in previous Premier League seasons, recent and otherwise. We do have to mention the pandemic, though. Who knows how things would have turned out without a lengthy break just after our famous victory over Liverpool?

Overall, though, this year’s relegation most closely resembles 1975 and 1996. At the start of the season, as we did then, we seemed to be on an upward trajectory, with an 11th-place finish and an FA Cup final appearance. But whether through complacency, or lack of focus, that forward momentum not only stopped, but slammed into reverse at a speed that proved impossible to halt. The lesson seems to be that the time of greatest danger for a football club is when it appears to be on the rise. Let’s hope we learn that lesson if and when we get back to the Premier League.

Captain courageous

For all the excellence of the Tales from the Vicarage Live event last Sunday, on the theme of captains, it was frustrating that host Adam Leventhal never asked the fundamental question: what does the captain of a football team actually do? I’ve been watching the game for nearly half a century and I’m still no closer to a definitive answer.

In other sports, such as cricket, the captain clearly plays a pivotal role. When India go out to bat at The Oval this morning, Joe Root will be responsible for deciding who bowls, when and how, and what fields are set for each batsman. Of course, much of this will have been discussed beforehand with the coach, but the captain still has to react to events on the field and adjust the plans accordingly.

But in football, this is the manager’s role, even if the only ways in which he can influence the game while it is in motion are by (a) making substitutions and (b) shouting and waving a lot. As for the captain, his role often seems largely ceremonial: leading the team out, taking part in the toss for ends. Indeed, some years ago, when there was much agonising in the press about who should be England captain (I think the current incumbent had just disgraced himself), the manager of Germany or France was quoted as saying that they couldn’t see what all the fuss was about: they simply gave the armband to the most senior player as a kind of recognition for long service.

Anyway, back at the Palace Theatre, the interviewees didn’t give many clues. To be fair, Les Taylor only captained the team once – even if was in the biggest game in the club’s history – and by his own admission, he only did so because the obvious candidates were all suspended or injured. As for Wilf Rostron, he was so reticent that it was hard to imagine him leading a class of schoolchildren across a road, let alone inspiring a group of professional sportsmen.

Neil Cox was a more obvious leader, though the main example of this was his role in the famous wage deferral that helped save the club from administration in 2002. This was the captain as shop steward, and perhaps this is how many see their role.

But then, earlier in the day, we’d seen a very different interpretation from Troy Deeney. It’s too simplistic to say that he singlehandedly turned the game round against Spurs, but he certainly had a major influence on it; thundering forward, barging opponents off the ball, scoring a magnificent goal. Was it before the next corner (the one that Craig Cathcart scored from) that Troy picked up a bottle of water from behind the goal and emptied it over his head, like a boxer between rounds? He has a sense of the theatre of the game like no other Watford player I can remember, and the gesture may have helped distract the Spurs defence from the threat of Cathcart.

When he’s on this kind of form, Troy’s performance is the textbook definition of leading by example. Other captains may not see the role that way, or may not be capable of dragging a team over the line the way Troy does, but it’s the best answer I’ve found so far to the question of what a captain does.

‘Tales From The Vicarage: Volume 4’ by Lionel Birnie

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.

10 reasons why it’s great to be a Hornet

I’m sure I’m not the only Watford fan who is still utterly incapable of calm, dispassionate analysis of our season or the implications of yesterday’s results for the club’s future. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I keep spontaneously breaking into a rendition of ‘Tommie Hoban’s having a party...’ and finding myself grinning stupidly at inappropriate moments.

Still, I had to mark the moment somehow, so here’s my list of 10 reasons why it’s great to be a Hornet right now:

1) The Pozzo family...

2) ... thanks to whom we finally have a proper four-sided ground again, complete with stands rightly named after the two people who did more than anything to establish the Watford FC we know and love today

3) We’ve got Lloydinho...

4) ... and, possibly more importantly for the outcome of this season, Troydeeneyo

5) The 1881, who’ve achieved the improbable feat of making Vicarage Road a cauldron of noise

6) The many and varied media channels that comment on and support the Hornets, all of them unfailingly classy and intelligent: the Watford Observer’s simultaneously passionate and objective reports, the brilliant From The Rookery End podcast, the always shrewd and witty BHappy blogs, the ever-growing archive of Watford lore that is the Tales From The Vicarage series of books, plus other bloggers and tweeters too numerous to mention

7) Goals galore. While Chelsea fans watch their team bore their way to the Premier League title, we’ve seen lots and lots and lots of fabulous goals this season. And I write as someone who missed the home win against Blackpool

8) Slav. A different kind of manager, and exactly what we needed this season. Focused, intelligent and fearless. Deserves a shot at the big time

9) We will hopefully never again have to play our supposed rivals from a horrible town in Bedfordshire that I can’t bring myself to name, who are currently, and deservedly, marooned in League Two

10 Last, but most certainly not least... We are going up, I said we are going up!

‘Tales From The Vicarage: The Interviews’ by Lionel Birnie & Adam Leventhal

When I heard that the third volume in the excellent Tales From The Vicarage series was going to consist solely of interviews, I can’t pretend I wasn’t a little disappointed. I’m obviously a little biased, having contributed a mini-memoir of my Watford-supporting life to the first volume, but I’ve also enjoyed the other personal pieces in both the previous books – not to mention Olly Wicken’s highly original short stories.

What’s more, I have my reservations about the whole concept of interviews with footballers and football managers, as I explained in my review of the recent TFTV live event. A whole book of them sounded as if it might risk being a bit, well, monotonous.

Lionel Birnie and Adam Leventhal were obviously aware of this risk, and have done their best to vary the style and pace of the 11 interviews in the book. Thus, the Sean Dyche interview is divided into themed segments (‘The Man’, ‘The Player’, etc); Adam’s encounter with Paul Furlong is interspersed with vignettes of his 14-year-old self and his hero-worship of the striker; the Ray Lewington chapter is presented entirely in the manager’s own words as he tells the stories behind the major milestones of his eventful reign.

In the days when albums were the yardstick by which musicians were judged, it was said that you should always lead with your strongest song, and Lionel and Adam have heeded that advice. The Sean Dyche interview kicks off the book and it’s a riot. Having seen Dyche at both the live TFTV events, I sort of knew what to expect, but he’s still full of surprises – I’m still struggling to reconcile what I know of the man with his newly-revealed passion for high-quality footwear. Adam’s interview reveals a great deal about a likeable, witty but also deeply serious man who, if there’s any justice, will manage England one day.

The other highlights for me were interviews with players I haven’t heard much from before: Micah Hyde, who – among other things – gives his perspective on the issues facing prospective black managers (of which he is one), and David and Dean Holdsworth, identical twins who prove to be anything but in person.

There are no duds, though I get the impression that Ronnie Rosenthal wasn’t quite as forthcoming as some of the others. Then again, his role in Hornet history is a fairly minor one, albeit important at the time. If I have a gripe (and it’s a trivial one), it’s that too many of those featured had overlapping careers at Vicarage Road. The introduction claims that these stories span 30 years, but the Holdsworths are the only ones featured who played in the 1980s (both making their debut in 1988), and then it was another few years before Furlong and Hyde appeared.

As a journalist myself, I know as well as anyone that arranging an interview isn’t quite as straightforward as picking up the phone and saying “fancy a chat?” But if there are to be future volumes of the TFTV series – and I hope there are – then I’d like to hear from a few personalities from the 70s, or even earlier. There’s one name in particular that crops up in every interview with a player who came through the youth system in the late 70s and early 80s (and the Holdsworths tell a hilarious anecdote about him here): it’s about time we heard from Tom Walley in his own words.

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.

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?

‘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.

The big man

It’s entirely consistent with the theme of my contribution to Tales from the Vicarage that I don’t know any of my fellow contributors personally. But I have met one of them, many years ago.

In autumn 1989, I’d just started a journalism course. We each had to choose a specialism, and I picked sport – not because I had any ambition to be the next Brian Glanville (if I’d become a football reporter, I wouldn’t have been able to watch Watford every week), but just because it sounded like fun.

For our first assignment we were told to interview a sports writer we admired. I didn’t have to think about it for very long. For as long as I could remember, I’d spent every Friday poring over the three or four pages of the Watford Observer devoted to the Hornets, most of it written by Oliver Phillips. So I wrote to him at the paper, explaining my request, and was granted an audience.

On the big day, I turned up at the Observer offices on the Rickmansworth Road and was shown into a meeting room, where my nerves had time to simmer nicely (this was one of the first interviews I’d ever done) while I waited for the great man to arrive.

If there’s one thing everyone knows about Oliver Phillips, from the days when he would come out onto the pitch before the last game of the season to present the awards, it’s that he’s exceedingly tall. When you’re in a small room with him, that effect is magnified, and I can’t pretend I wasn’t intimidated.

It didn’t help that he wasn’t the friendliest of interviewees. He wasn’t unfriendly either, just… ‘stern’ is the closest I can get to describing his manner. The interview got off to a shaky start when he noticed that I wasn’t taking notes in shorthand. Why not? I explained apologetically that I’d only been learning shorthand for a couple of weeks. Then I told him a bit about the course, and sensed further disapproval when I explained that, because I was studying magazine journalism, I wouldn’t be taking the NCTJ exam that you needed to pass in those days if you wanted to work in newspapers. As a newspaper man of the old school, he didn’t seem to have much sympathy with magazines and the frivolous people who worked for them.

Undeterred, I asked him my prepared questions about how he’d got into journalism and his experiences following, and writing about, Watford, and in the process of answering them he mellowed a little. (I’ve occasionally thought about digging out the interview and posting it on this blog – but it was strictly off the record, and even after all these years, I have a residual fear that me might come after me with a writ if I did.) The story that always stuck with me was the one about the day in the early 60s when he got married in the morning and went to Vicarage Road to report on a match in the afternoon. Respect, as they say.

And respect for the man was what I ultimately came away from the interview with. I’d naively expected to meet a fellow enthusiast who I could chat to about the great players and matches he’d seen. He was an enthusiast, no doubt about it, but he was also deadly serious about his work, a professional journalist to his fingertips, and his duty to his readers came first. That's what made him – despite what various managers, directors and chairmen over the years may have thought – one of the finest and most loyal servants the club ever had. We were lucky to have him working on our behalf for so long.

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.