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.