(NB: this isn’t strictly speaking a blog about Watford – but I’m also an England fan, and Ashley Young and Tom Cleverley were playing on Friday, so there is a connection to the Hornets. That’s my excuse, anyway.)
Watching England stick eight goals past San Marino on Friday night, it occurred to me that there is a simple way to deal with the issue of weaker teams playing the role of cannon fodder in World Cup and European Championships qualifying tournaments. Football pundits occasionally mention such things, but I’ve never seen a serious proposal spelled out, so here’s mine.
First, you identify the six weakest nations in European football: you’d probably select them according to their world ranking, but at a guess, we’re talking about San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, the Faroe Islands and Andorra. Then, when the draw is made for the next qualifying tournament, you leave them out and put them in a group of their own. They play the same number of games as everyone else, but the difference is that the group winner doesn’t qualify for the tournament, but to take part in the main draw for the next qualifying tournament. Meanwhile, the country with the poorest record in the main qualifying groups is ‘relegated’ to the minnows’ group for the next set of qualifiers.
The main benefit for the minnows is that they get to play a series of games they have a realistic chance of winning. Rather than playing in a 4-5-1 formation, as San Marino did against England, they can set out to attack without having to be afraid of shipping a hatful of goals. And hopefully, the team that comes out on top can set about the next qualifying tournament with some of the same spirit, and not simply become whipping boys again.
As for the rest of Europe, such a pre-qualifying group removes the danger of important issues being decided by who tonked their group’s weakest team by the largest margin. It also makes games between teams at the bottom of the group more significant. Scotland, currently sitting bottom of Group A, have nothing but pride to play for in their remaining games, but imagine if they faced the prospect of relegation if they failed to pick up any further points – surely it would add a bit of spice to those last few games.
What about the down side? I assume the minnows would complain about the lost revenue from high-profile games against the likes of England, Germany and Spain. But they have such small national grounds that most of their opponents will fill the away seats anyway, and the prospect of seeing competitive games ought to ensure a good home crowd.
Of course, my plan wouldn’t yield instant results. Whoever won the pre-qualifying group for the 2016 European Championships would probably still struggle in the qualifying group for the 2018 World Cup. But if they managed to avoid going straight back down, they would gradually build in quality over time, just as, say, Stoke have in the Premiership over the past few years. I believe my plan would lead to a modest levelling up of standards in European international football within a decade or so, and far fewer supposedly competitive internationals ending 8-0. That might be a bad thing for England players looking to bump up their international goal tally, but I think most football fans would welcome it.
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Half a world away
Late last year, I turned 50, and my friend Stuart gave me a special present: the programme from the closest Watford home game to the day I was born. It was a Division 3 (or ‘Division III’, as the programme has it) fixture against Bristol Rovers on Saturday December 8th, 1962, which we apparently lost 1-0 on the way to finishing 17th in the table.
Not a particularly remarkable game, or season, then. But to modern eyes, the programme itself is a strange artefact. For starters, there are hardly any articles. The 16 pages include an editorial (matily entitled ‘Welcome Back, Lads’), a spread with pen portraits of the opposition and Odd Spots (‘A Soccer Believe It Or Not’), and a page of Supporters’ Club Notes. As for photographs, the only one is the aerial shot of the ground on the cover. The rest is statistics, fixtures, team line-ups and, above all, advertisements. I count 41 ads in total, ranging from national brands (Double Diamond beer, Senior Service cigarettes) to resolutely local ones, some for businesses that I remember fondly from my youth; Peter Spivey’s sports shop, Kirby’s coaches, Thirteens bike shop.
I could spend hours listing the delights contained in this slim volume, but I’ll limit myself to five things I find particularly interesting:
1) The supporters’ club notes are worth an essay in themselves, but what comes across above all is the key role the club played in fundraising for the football club in those days – it’s financial support we’re talking about here. The page lists key contacts for services ranging from away travel to membership to the purchase of “a Club diary or golliwog favour”, complete with their full addresses, and warns against bothering the club’s sole administrative employee, the legendary Ron Rollitt: “Please do not write to the Football Club for any of the following items. It only causes delay, and Mr Rollitt has enough to contend to with his own work.”
2) The list of ball donors (when did that stop?) for the season to date includes, among various gentlemen, The Brian Fredericks Dance Orchestra, and, for the Football Combination game against Portsmouth, an anonymous ‘Pools winner’.
3) In the days before football was a megabucks profession, players often bought local businesses when they retired. Among the ads, I spotted the names of Watford legends Ken Nicholas, who had a sports equipment and shoe shop in Harwoods Road, and Arthur Grimsdell, proprietor of a newsagent’s in Vicarage Road.
4) The ‘Odd spots’ include the fact that Newcastle’s team against Portsmouth in October 1951 included internationals of five countries (England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Chile). Nowadays, in the Premiership at least, it would be more noteworthy if a club fielded internationals of fewer than that number of countries.
5) I know it’s childish to laugh at people’s names, but who could resist Bristol Rovers’ Esmond Million, “a goalkeeper of considerable merit and courage, who adopts complete command of his area”. As the programme lists the players’ vital statistics, I can also tell you that Mr Million weighed exactly 11st 8 1/2lb.
Not a particularly remarkable game, or season, then. But to modern eyes, the programme itself is a strange artefact. For starters, there are hardly any articles. The 16 pages include an editorial (matily entitled ‘Welcome Back, Lads’), a spread with pen portraits of the opposition and Odd Spots (‘A Soccer Believe It Or Not’), and a page of Supporters’ Club Notes. As for photographs, the only one is the aerial shot of the ground on the cover. The rest is statistics, fixtures, team line-ups and, above all, advertisements. I count 41 ads in total, ranging from national brands (Double Diamond beer, Senior Service cigarettes) to resolutely local ones, some for businesses that I remember fondly from my youth; Peter Spivey’s sports shop, Kirby’s coaches, Thirteens bike shop.
I could spend hours listing the delights contained in this slim volume, but I’ll limit myself to five things I find particularly interesting:
1) The supporters’ club notes are worth an essay in themselves, but what comes across above all is the key role the club played in fundraising for the football club in those days – it’s financial support we’re talking about here. The page lists key contacts for services ranging from away travel to membership to the purchase of “a Club diary or golliwog favour”, complete with their full addresses, and warns against bothering the club’s sole administrative employee, the legendary Ron Rollitt: “Please do not write to the Football Club for any of the following items. It only causes delay, and Mr Rollitt has enough to contend to with his own work.”
2) The list of ball donors (when did that stop?) for the season to date includes, among various gentlemen, The Brian Fredericks Dance Orchestra, and, for the Football Combination game against Portsmouth, an anonymous ‘Pools winner’.
3) In the days before football was a megabucks profession, players often bought local businesses when they retired. Among the ads, I spotted the names of Watford legends Ken Nicholas, who had a sports equipment and shoe shop in Harwoods Road, and Arthur Grimsdell, proprietor of a newsagent’s in Vicarage Road.
4) The ‘Odd spots’ include the fact that Newcastle’s team against Portsmouth in October 1951 included internationals of five countries (England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Chile). Nowadays, in the Premiership at least, it would be more noteworthy if a club fielded internationals of fewer than that number of countries.
5) I know it’s childish to laugh at people’s names, but who could resist Bristol Rovers’ Esmond Million, “a goalkeeper of considerable merit and courage, who adopts complete command of his area”. As the programme lists the players’ vital statistics, I can also tell you that Mr Million weighed exactly 11st 8 1/2lb.
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Onwards - and upwards?
It’s a mark of how extraordinary this season has been that I completely forgot to mark Championship Survival Day. For the last few years, passing the 52-point mark has been a crucial milestone – the point where Watford fans can finally exhale and look forward to another season in the second tier of English football. But this season, it has become an irrelevance.
I’ve consistently argued that Watford’s aim should be to spend at least 10 years in this division. My thinking was that we should allow other clubs of a similar size and status to crash and burn in the foolish pursuit of Premiership riches, and then simply step into the gaps they leave, using our carefully-honed resources (chiefly from our Academy) to achieve the quality necessary to reach the top level.
But that argument was based on the assumption that we would be constantly short of money and dependent on canny managers like Malky Mackay and Sean Dyche to keep us in the Championship at all. It seemed unlikely that we would be in a position to challenge at the top end of the table for some years.
Now, though, we have the resources (human rather than financial, but invaluable all the same) to make that challenge, and like many Hornets, I don’t quite know what to think. Part of me still shudders at the mere thought of another season in the Premiership: the bold start, the narrow defeats gradually giving way to solid beatings and then thrashings, the unlucky incidents that turn games against us, the unfortunate injuries to key players, relegation sealed well before Easter… Even amid the excitement of our current run, that still seems like an entirely likely outcome if we do get promoted this season. We’re good, but we’re not that good. Not yet. Give it another season or so, and then let’s see.
But of course, this season’s Watford team won’t necessarily bear much resemblance to next season’s. If we get promoted, the Pozzos can ship in a dozen fresh players from Italy and Spain to bolster the squad. Maybe this time they’ll be more seasoned performers, not the ones whose careers have stalled or who haven’t managed to get enough game time in Serie A or La Liga. (Yes, I know the Football League is looking to close the loophole we’ve exploited so successfully, but I’m sure we’ll find another. What’s to stop us signing players from Udinese on ‘permanent’, one-season contracts at a knockdown price, for example?) Maybe we’ll be able to compete in the Premiership after all.
Then again, is that ethical? At least when Watford have risen to prominence in the past, it’s been by using our native smarts – a combination of intelligent player recruitment, ingenious tactics and good old-fashioned team spirit. Others may have carped, but they couldn’t say it was unfair. (Well, some did, but that’s another story altogether.) Now they can, and I can’t entirely say I disagree with them.
These arguments have all been rehearsed at greater length, and with greater insight that I can manage at 11.30 on a Sunday evening, elsewhere. (This post on the From The Rookery End blog is a good place to start.) For now, all I can say is that I don’t want Watford to stop winning – and I definitely don’t want us to stop playing the dazzling counter-attacking football that has embarrassed so many opponents already this season – but if we don’t get promoted this season, I won’t be heartbroken. But ask me again on the day we lose in the play-offs, and you may get a different answer.
I’ve consistently argued that Watford’s aim should be to spend at least 10 years in this division. My thinking was that we should allow other clubs of a similar size and status to crash and burn in the foolish pursuit of Premiership riches, and then simply step into the gaps they leave, using our carefully-honed resources (chiefly from our Academy) to achieve the quality necessary to reach the top level.
But that argument was based on the assumption that we would be constantly short of money and dependent on canny managers like Malky Mackay and Sean Dyche to keep us in the Championship at all. It seemed unlikely that we would be in a position to challenge at the top end of the table for some years.
Now, though, we have the resources (human rather than financial, but invaluable all the same) to make that challenge, and like many Hornets, I don’t quite know what to think. Part of me still shudders at the mere thought of another season in the Premiership: the bold start, the narrow defeats gradually giving way to solid beatings and then thrashings, the unlucky incidents that turn games against us, the unfortunate injuries to key players, relegation sealed well before Easter… Even amid the excitement of our current run, that still seems like an entirely likely outcome if we do get promoted this season. We’re good, but we’re not that good. Not yet. Give it another season or so, and then let’s see.
But of course, this season’s Watford team won’t necessarily bear much resemblance to next season’s. If we get promoted, the Pozzos can ship in a dozen fresh players from Italy and Spain to bolster the squad. Maybe this time they’ll be more seasoned performers, not the ones whose careers have stalled or who haven’t managed to get enough game time in Serie A or La Liga. (Yes, I know the Football League is looking to close the loophole we’ve exploited so successfully, but I’m sure we’ll find another. What’s to stop us signing players from Udinese on ‘permanent’, one-season contracts at a knockdown price, for example?) Maybe we’ll be able to compete in the Premiership after all.
Then again, is that ethical? At least when Watford have risen to prominence in the past, it’s been by using our native smarts – a combination of intelligent player recruitment, ingenious tactics and good old-fashioned team spirit. Others may have carped, but they couldn’t say it was unfair. (Well, some did, but that’s another story altogether.) Now they can, and I can’t entirely say I disagree with them.
These arguments have all been rehearsed at greater length, and with greater insight that I can manage at 11.30 on a Sunday evening, elsewhere. (This post on the From The Rookery End blog is a good place to start.) For now, all I can say is that I don’t want Watford to stop winning – and I definitely don’t want us to stop playing the dazzling counter-attacking football that has embarrassed so many opponents already this season – but if we don’t get promoted this season, I won’t be heartbroken. But ask me again on the day we lose in the play-offs, and you may get a different answer.
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Kids are spoilt nowadays
My 10-year-old niece was staying with us at the weekend, and I took her to the Huddersfield game – her first football match.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those ‘cute things kids say’ pieces: Susie sat silent throughout, to such an extent that I occasionally worried she might have frozen to death without me noticing. Nor am I about to expound on the insights gained from seeing the game from the perspective of a newcomer. Like I say, she barely spoke a word, so I’m none the wiser as to what Championship football looks like through a child’s eyes.
No, the main thing I wanted to say is that I simultaneously envy and pity her. Envy, because she witnessed a far higher standard of football at her first game than I did back in 1970, when I somehow managed to fall in love with a Watford team scuffling around at the bottom of the old Second Division. And as for that goal, I hope I managed to convey to Susie just how lucky she was to be there to witness it. She could watch football for the next 10 years and not see anything half as good.
But that may also be a reason to pity her a little. In football, as in life in general, good things are more enjoyable when you’ve had to go through some dross to get to them. For me, the Golden Era of Watford was all the more special because I’d watched us spiral downwards through the divisions. A fan who came on board in 1977 will have had a very different experience of watching the Hornets (though they got their payback in the late 80s and early 90s).
For the record, Susie assured me afterwards that she really enjoyed the match. (And she took the bitter cold in her stride; my teeth were chattering by the start of the second half, while she never even bothered zipping her coat up properly.) Maybe she’ll become a regular at the Vic, maybe she’ll never go again. Either way, I’m glad she got to see something a bit special.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those ‘cute things kids say’ pieces: Susie sat silent throughout, to such an extent that I occasionally worried she might have frozen to death without me noticing. Nor am I about to expound on the insights gained from seeing the game from the perspective of a newcomer. Like I say, she barely spoke a word, so I’m none the wiser as to what Championship football looks like through a child’s eyes.
No, the main thing I wanted to say is that I simultaneously envy and pity her. Envy, because she witnessed a far higher standard of football at her first game than I did back in 1970, when I somehow managed to fall in love with a Watford team scuffling around at the bottom of the old Second Division. And as for that goal, I hope I managed to convey to Susie just how lucky she was to be there to witness it. She could watch football for the next 10 years and not see anything half as good.
But that may also be a reason to pity her a little. In football, as in life in general, good things are more enjoyable when you’ve had to go through some dross to get to them. For me, the Golden Era of Watford was all the more special because I’d watched us spiral downwards through the divisions. A fan who came on board in 1977 will have had a very different experience of watching the Hornets (though they got their payback in the late 80s and early 90s).
For the record, Susie assured me afterwards that she really enjoyed the match. (And she took the bitter cold in her stride; my teeth were chattering by the start of the second half, while she never even bothered zipping her coat up properly.) Maybe she’ll become a regular at the Vic, maybe she’ll never go again. Either way, I’m glad she got to see something a bit special.
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Work in progress
Having missed all three December home matches due to family commitments, I enjoyed reacquainting myself with the Pozzos’ Watford on New Year’s Day, despite the result.
Actually, even the result wasn’t so bad. Nice (and novel) as it is to be sitting in the playoff positions at the turn of the year, I really hope we don’t go up this year. Our last two visits to the Premiership were so brief and ghastly precisely because we went up too quickly, borne on a momentum that we didn’t have the resources to maintain once we reached the so-called promised land. If we are going to make another trip there, I’d like to think we might be able to stay up this time, and for that we need more time to prepare. It takes two years, as per the Pozzo masterplan, or three or four for that matter, so be it. By that point, we might have some financial stability – and maybe even a four-sided ground.
As for the team, my initial reservations haven’t entirely dissipated. True, I can now tell my Abdis from my Anyas, though I’m still a little hazy on the qualities of some of the less-featured loanees like Fanchone and Battochio. My knowledge of basic stuff like backgrounds and ages could be better, too. For instance, it’s only in the last few days that I’ve grasped that Vydra is a mere stripling of 20 (thank you Sky Sports), while Geijo is a surprisingly mature 30 (thank you the Watford programme). Maybe this will all sink in eventually, but I suspect there’s a part of my brain that is simply unwilling to devote any space to Geoffrey Mujangi Bia’s CV, given that he’s probably destined to be a very minor footnote in the history of the club.
There’s also the unwieldly size of the squad, which may start to be addressed during the transfer window. Sadly, that will probably mean players who have previously done a decent job for the club being palmed off on anyone who’ll have them: Chris Iwelumo, Carl Dickinson, Joe Garner (all right, I won’t miss him), Matt Whichelow, Ross Jenkins, Dale Bennett and Lee Hodson are all some way off making the matchday squad and may welcome the chance to start again somewhere new. And I wonder if we’ll ever see Stephen McGinn in a Watford shirt again? Without regular reserve fixtures, there’s no easy way for a long-term injury absentee like him to regain the match fitness he needs to get back in the thick of the action.
Sorry, this is all sounding a bit churlish. Of course I’m enjoying the unaccustomed sight of a Watford team playing brilliant, incisive attacking football, and long may it continue. But the Pozzo project is still a work in progress, and the fact that we’re currently sitting pretty in sixth place doesn’t alter that.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Best. Awayday. Ever.
One of the benefits of being married to a Yorkshire lass is that I get to lord it over Leeds fans. My other half comes from Ossett, a few miles south of Leeds, and many of her male relatives and her friends’ husbands support United – and fortuitously, for much of the 10 years that we’ve been together, Watford have outperformed Leeds for what is probably the only prolonged such period in football history. The Championship Play-off Final in Cardiff was a particular highlight, obviously, but opportunities for smugness keep on coming.
For the last three seasons I’ve made the trip to Elland Road in the company of Richard, the husband of one of my wife’s oldest friends and a long-suffering Leeds fan. Having watched his first game in 1967, he’s witnessed plenty of glory in his time, but has nothing but contempt for the current regime, and refuses to put money in Ken Bates’s pocket by going to games – other than my annual visit, bless him. Two years ago we saw a 2-2 draw (with the Hornets only minutes away from an unlikely win), and last season we won 2-0.
But nothing could have prepared me (or Richard) for yesterday’s match, one of the most extraordinarily action-packed games I’ve ever seen. You’ll have seen the match reports, so I won’t run through the litany of incidents here. The point I want to make it is that the identity of the opposition made it exquisitely enjoyable – it just wouldn’t have been so much fun if that had happened to Derby, say, or Ipswich. Now I’m looking forward to dropping the result into the conversation at forthcoming family parties. Winning 6-1 is all very well – but it’s the opportunity to gloat that makes it special.
For the last three seasons I’ve made the trip to Elland Road in the company of Richard, the husband of one of my wife’s oldest friends and a long-suffering Leeds fan. Having watched his first game in 1967, he’s witnessed plenty of glory in his time, but has nothing but contempt for the current regime, and refuses to put money in Ken Bates’s pocket by going to games – other than my annual visit, bless him. Two years ago we saw a 2-2 draw (with the Hornets only minutes away from an unlikely win), and last season we won 2-0.
But nothing could have prepared me (or Richard) for yesterday’s match, one of the most extraordinarily action-packed games I’ve ever seen. You’ll have seen the match reports, so I won’t run through the litany of incidents here. The point I want to make it is that the identity of the opposition made it exquisitely enjoyable – it just wouldn’t have been so much fun if that had happened to Derby, say, or Ipswich. Now I’m looking forward to dropping the result into the conversation at forthcoming family parties. Winning 6-1 is all very well – but it’s the opportunity to gloat that makes it special.
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Sorry seems to be the easiest word
Before the game yesterday, I popped into the Red Lion to have a chat with Lionel Birnie about Tales from the Vicarage, which he was selling there. The place was rammed with Hornets fans watching the Man U-Arsenal game on TV, and when I went to get us a couple of drinks, I found the queue at the bar was three deep.
After a few minutes, I spotted a precious couple of feet of space at the bar opening up, and used the technique (known to all Englishmen) of angling my shoulder into a narrow gap in order to ease the rest of my body through and claim the space.
Then a voice came from behind me: “If you don’t mind, I think I was in front of you.” The man didn’t sound aggressive, more irritated, but in any case I quickly stepped back and made way for him, apologising as I did so.
A moment or two later, he turned round. “I’m sorry mate, I didn’t mean to have a go at you,” he said. I assured him that it was okay, and that he was quite within his rights to say what he did. These things happened in busy pubs.
But that wasn’t the end of it. After a couple more minutes (I told you they were busy), he turned round again. “Look, you go in front of me. I shouldn’t have said that.” I told him again that it was fine, but he insisted, so I took advantage of the offer, assuring him that I’d be quick, as I was only getting two pints.
I dare say similar scenes were being enacted in pre-match pubs elsewhere in the country at the same time, but it struck me later that this trivial incident tells you a lot about Watford fans. We are, essentially, nice people who want to get on with everyone and don’t like upsetting others. It might mean that Vicarage Road is anything but a scary place for opposing teams, but, on the whole, I think it’s a good thing.
After a few minutes, I spotted a precious couple of feet of space at the bar opening up, and used the technique (known to all Englishmen) of angling my shoulder into a narrow gap in order to ease the rest of my body through and claim the space.
Then a voice came from behind me: “If you don’t mind, I think I was in front of you.” The man didn’t sound aggressive, more irritated, but in any case I quickly stepped back and made way for him, apologising as I did so.
A moment or two later, he turned round. “I’m sorry mate, I didn’t mean to have a go at you,” he said. I assured him that it was okay, and that he was quite within his rights to say what he did. These things happened in busy pubs.
But that wasn’t the end of it. After a couple more minutes (I told you they were busy), he turned round again. “Look, you go in front of me. I shouldn’t have said that.” I told him again that it was fine, but he insisted, so I took advantage of the offer, assuring him that I’d be quick, as I was only getting two pints.
I dare say similar scenes were being enacted in pre-match pubs elsewhere in the country at the same time, but it struck me later that this trivial incident tells you a lot about Watford fans. We are, essentially, nice people who want to get on with everyone and don’t like upsetting others. It might mean that Vicarage Road is anything but a scary place for opposing teams, but, on the whole, I think it’s a good thing.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, 23 September 2012
On the other hand
… later in the evening I came across a repeat of the first episode of another sitcom, Gavin and Stacey, and watched that. The writers’ world view here is essentially different from that of The Thick of It. Yes, the world is messy and chaotic, but people are essentially good and things will work themselves out for the best over time, for the most part.
Warmed by this alternative way of looking at things, I found myself looking at Watford’s performance in a different light...
So we’re not getting the results at the moment: they’ll come. The foreign players are still new to this division, and to each other, and it’s unrealistic to expect the team to play like a well-oiled machine straight away. Moreover, Zola is intelligent enough to realise when something isn’t working: the fact that his substitutions yesterday involved three experienced Championship hands replacing foreign imports suggests that he understands the limitations of his squad. He’ll find a way to get them firing on all cylinders soon – and when he does, we’ll start moving up the table.
Two ways of looking at the same situation, then. In the cold light of day, on a rainy Sunday morning, I still find myself leaning towards the Mannion view, but I’m open to persuasion otherwise. If Zola started the next match with Doyley, Hall and Deeney in place of Cassetti, Neuton and Forestieri, that would be a start.
Warmed by this alternative way of looking at things, I found myself looking at Watford’s performance in a different light...
So we’re not getting the results at the moment: they’ll come. The foreign players are still new to this division, and to each other, and it’s unrealistic to expect the team to play like a well-oiled machine straight away. Moreover, Zola is intelligent enough to realise when something isn’t working: the fact that his substitutions yesterday involved three experienced Championship hands replacing foreign imports suggests that he understands the limitations of his squad. He’ll find a way to get them firing on all cylinders soon – and when he does, we’ll start moving up the table.
Two ways of looking at the same situation, then. In the cold light of day, on a rainy Sunday morning, I still find myself leaning towards the Mannion view, but I’m open to persuasion otherwise. If Zola started the next match with Doyley, Hall and Deeney in place of Cassetti, Neuton and Forestieri, that would be a start.
Peter Mannion writes
I’m loving the new series of The Thick of It on BBC2 on Saturday evenings. For those who don’t know, it’s a no-punches-pulled satire that starts from the principle that politics is full of self-serving idiots blundering from one disaster to another. At the centre of this series is a lowly government Minister, Peter Mannion, an old-fashioned, well-meaning politician permanently enraged by the chaos that surrounds him.
Later, I found myself appraising Watford’s performance against Bristol City in Mannion’s exasperated tones...
Where do I start? Okay, Neuton is a disaster waiting to happen: whatever the opposite of an effective Championship defender is, he’s it. Cassetti has the speed of an arthritic turtle – every left winger in the division must be ringing the date in the diary when they get the chance to skin him. How he’s keeping Lloydinho out of the team, god only knows. Forestieri is the world champion at turning in a tight space, beating the same man three times and then either (a) giving the ball away, or (b) blasting it 10 feet wide of the goal. Vydra is too lightweight to play up front on his own. And the whole bloody of lot of them spent half the match standing still – where’s the movement, the urgency? Is it because they’re all so unfit that the only way they can make it to 90 minutes without collapsing is to conserve energy by running around less? And is that also why they tend to huddle together in small groups, so they can spend a couple of minutes passing the ball in neat triangles over a small space before losing it? I despair.
Then again…
Later, I found myself appraising Watford’s performance against Bristol City in Mannion’s exasperated tones...
Where do I start? Okay, Neuton is a disaster waiting to happen: whatever the opposite of an effective Championship defender is, he’s it. Cassetti has the speed of an arthritic turtle – every left winger in the division must be ringing the date in the diary when they get the chance to skin him. How he’s keeping Lloydinho out of the team, god only knows. Forestieri is the world champion at turning in a tight space, beating the same man three times and then either (a) giving the ball away, or (b) blasting it 10 feet wide of the goal. Vydra is too lightweight to play up front on his own. And the whole bloody of lot of them spent half the match standing still – where’s the movement, the urgency? Is it because they’re all so unfit that the only way they can make it to 90 minutes without collapsing is to conserve energy by running around less? And is that also why they tend to huddle together in small groups, so they can spend a couple of minutes passing the ball in neat triangles over a small space before losing it? I despair.
Then again…
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