Rained on and rained off

Watford v Wigan Athletic

Saturday 30^th December

Joss cycled from his place and I cycled from the station and we met, dripping, to lock our bikes up outside the stadium 20 minutes into the game because I’d got on a slow train at Euston by mistake. We got in and within two minutes Heskey had turned Shittu and put Wigan one ahead. We pondered, superstitiously, on the negative effect of our presence. Within ten minutes they’d hit the back of the net again but had it ruled out for offside.

A good move including Mahon, Priskin and Mcnamee resulted in a Stewart cross. Tamas Priskin, making his first Premiership start, showed why Betty should have dropped Henderson sooner by meeting the cross with a head and seeing the ball slip under the lanky Wigan keeper, Chris Kirkland. Considering how many sitters Doris missed, it’s a wonder the young Hungarian wasn’t given a start sooner.

It rained so much at the beginning of the second half that it was hard to see the other end of the pitch. There was standing water all over the pitch and the ref took the players off for 10 minutes. Betty came out to try to bounce a ball to little avail and responded to a Rookery build-up by planting the ball in the back of the net. Wags behind me started a “2-1 to the Golden Boys” chant but the match was abandoned (I didn’t see the ref come out again). The players came out to applaud the fans and throw shirts into the crowd. Then we all went home early.

Charlton, Blackburn, Sheffield United and Man City all won so we are further adrift at the bottom. However, the two games we have in hand are both at home so there is still the potential for us to catch up a bit. The proof that Priskin can do it at this level is good news when you consider it is unlikely we’ll get the players we want in January given that other teams may want them too.

Can Watford Maintain Their Premiership Status?

Watford won the single most lucrative match of football ever in May 2006, beating Leeds 3-0 at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium to be promoted from the Championship to the Coca-Cola Barclaycard Sky TV Sony PlayStation Premiership as play-off champions. It is estimated that this victory meant £40 million in extra revenue for 2006/7 but with the new TV deal coming into effect next season, the financial incentive for retaining that status has grown enormously. Today’s game against Wigan, then, is just the latest in a line of “must win” games, which, at some point, Watford must start winning.

Currently propping up the table with 11 points, Watford are the clear favourites to be relegated back to the Championship come May. With only one victory so far (against Middlesbrough, who each of the promoted teams have beaten) and the lowest goal tally in the league, the prospects of survival do not appear to be good. Historically, too, the Golden Boys’ chances seem slim. In the fifteen years of the Premiership, only one team has been bottom on Christmas Day and gone on to avoid relegation at the end of the season. That was two years ago, when West Bromwich Albion had ten points from eighteen games and finished the 2004/5 season in the safe 17th position following five wins and nine draws after the Boxing Day match.

In game after game, opposing teams’ managers have declared Watford “unlucky” or said that we “deserved more” than we took from the match. Back in August our manager, Aidy Boothroyd, refused to accept this, saying we didn’t deserve anything other than what we got because we hadn’t taken our chances and had made mistakes. After half a season of similar bad fortune, he has not always proven to be so philosophical, though in general his tone has been upbeat. While the other teams in the relegation zone have embarked on the managerial merry-go-round (last season’s Charlton Emanager is now managing West Ham and vice versa), so undemanding are the expectations at Watford that "Betty" (after the House of Commons Speaker) is probably safer in his position than Gareth Southgate at Middlesbrough, Mark Hughes at Blackburn or Manchester City's Stuart Pearce.

After the 2-0 defeat at Liverpool on 23rd December, Betty said “We have to compete against Muhammad Alis while we are featherweights”. It was a sporting way of admitting we are out of our league, but we couldn’t have expected anything from that match or the next (a 2-1 defeat home to Arsenal on Boxing Day, appropriately for the simile) when we saw the fixture list back in July. However, if we can get something from the last game of this year and the first of next (Wigan (H) and Fulham (A)) and buy wisely in January, we could yet move up a division and become lightweights.

The team has won plaudits for their determination to fight until the finish. With a solid defensive base (Lee or Foster in goal, Shittu and Demerit in the centre), a powerful central midfield pairing (captain Gavin Mahon and the summer acquisition Damien Francis) and wingers that have turned the best defences in the Premiership (Ashley Young and Hameur Bouazza, with 3 league goals each) there is a core of quality that belies our reputation as a long-ball team. However, there is a clear vacancy for a goal poacher.

The opening of the transfer window is therefore crucial. Marlon King netted 21 times last season on our way to promotion and Darius Henderson scored 14 goals. However, King was ruled out of the whole season with a knee injury after 2 goals in 8 league games and Henderson has been unable to reproduce last season’s form and is yet to break his Premiership duck. With an injury sustained by Hameur Bouazza in the 2-1 defeat to Arsenal, it is essential that Watford buy two strikers if they are to prosper. We have been linked with Scunthorpe’s 20 year-old, Billy Sharp, who is League 1 top scorer with 16 goals, but would the Premiership be a step too far? Valued at £4 million, it is likely that the Championship's top scorer, Norwich's Rob Earnshaw, is beyond the Hornet's purchasing power.

Watford have a point more than the Baggies did at the corresponding point of the season when they defied the odds and stayed up. However, the teams just above the relegation zone this year have more points than the corresponding teams did in 2004/5, when West Brom ultimately survived with 34 points. The same number of points would also have ensured 17th place in 2003/4 and 35 would have sufficed last year. In 2002/3, though, 43 points were necessary to retain premiership status. In the eleven years that there have been 20 teams in England’s top league, an average of 37 points has been necessary. Ultimately, then, Watford’s hopes of survival depend not only on whether we buy well and pick up points but also whether it is closer to 23 or 32 more points we need to stay up and if we can get three of them at home to Wigan on Saturday.

Speculate and...

Watford v Arsenal

Boxing Day, Tuesday 26^th December

Happy Holidays. Boxing Day, and after the manager’s last post-match metaphor, we are hoping for a fight that goes the distance. Only one club (West Brom) has been bottom of the Premiership at this time of year and avoided the drop; they too had only won once in the first half of the season so we are not without a precedent for survival. There’s been talk of two possible signings: Marek Saganowski, a Polish striker at French club Troyes who we’ve already sent home after a trial and Billy Sharp of Scunthorpe, who’s netted more than a few in Division 1, including a winner today. I’d rather we got Earnshaw from Norwich but have no idea if he’s willing or available.

I could’ve missed today’s game having left the flat without my season ticket (too busy packing presents to think of football) but Jun checked before we’d passed the point of no return. Then, at the station, there were no mainline trains. Fortunately, with a role as Santa in mind I’d left early enough that a Metropolitan Line tube to Rickmansworth and a taxi on from there still gave us sufficient time to deliver presents to Jake and Teigan at Terri’s before I met Joss on the way to the ground.

The match kicked off at 5.30 and so, ultimately, we were 7 minutes early rather than 8 late (it was billed as 5.15 even on the programme) and we got in and began warming up the vocal chords. Watford started quite brightly and looked quite assured but Arsenal’s speed on the break gave pause for fear even as Foster showed his class again, keeping us in it. Nevertheless, the Gooners were ahead through Silva, man of the match, 20 minutes in after we failed to defend a corner properly. Within 2 minutes though, Young had attempted a clever lob and another 2 minutes later, Hameur Bouazza beat two men and crossed for Tommy Smith to get his first goal for the Horns since his return from Derby.

Arsenal, unsurprisingly, had more possession but we went in at the break even. Not for the first time this season we let the opposing team come out a minute or so before us but any psychological advantage was evidently minute. We kept up the pressure in the second half and Arsenal lost most of their fluid swagger but, worryingly, both Bouazza and Danny Shittu went off injured. I led the Rookery in “Aidy Boothroyd’s Yellow Army” for a good ten minute spell but to no footballing advantage and Van Persie, who’d been the target of Curly-led “Robin’s a rapist” chants (I didn’t join in) did what he and his team do in the 83^rd minute and raced down the right after a defensive clearance, cut inside and put the ball beyond our keeper to give them all the points. Exactly half of our games have now been played and, 9 points adrift, there is so much to do.

Joss (and his new shirt with his name & age on the back) and I walked back and joined the 8 others at Kerry’s for food. We lied and told them Watford had won just so Trevor and Sarah would not be able to boast (Watford-born Gooner fans who don’t even follow the team don’t deserve any better). Presents were distributed and Jun and I had a quick game of “Twister” with Beth (5) and Ethan (7) but there wasn’t enough yellow to keep me interested. Still, you need to play games with kids just to appreciate the time of year. When you’re speculating about whether you can “do a WBA”, Xmas doesn’t seem that merry otherwise.

Heavy as a feather

Liverpool v Watford

Saturday 23^rd December

The fact that I’d been to Anfield for the first leg of the 2004/5 Carling Cup semi-final was the main reason why I will stay in London until January away games and even though this fixture provided our only premiership victory on the road to date (back in 1999). After today, I’m planning to go to the next 13 games, not counting possible FA Cup 4^th and 5^th round matches, as long as I can get the away tickets. I have to savour these matches, one of which is the return game against the ‘pool in January.

The Reds have got the best defensive home record in the league and no team has scored fewer than Watford so there was, again, an air of inevitability. Local boy Adrian Mariappa made his second premiership start but it was the recall of Ben Foster in goal (despite Lee’s form) that was more newsworthy as he produced a Scrooge-like first half performance (saving everything). For the second Saturday in a row, then, we went in goalless at half-time but, like last week, conceded early in the second when Bellamy was left unmarked on the edge of the box and had time to receive the ball, turn and score before one of our blue-clad defenders got near him.

Watford kept up the work-rate but a couple of minutes before the final whistle, Liverpool split our defence again and Alonso sealed a 2-0 win. Betty said “We have to compete against Muhammad Alis while we are featherweights”. It was a sporting way of admitting we are out of our league, but we couldn’t have expected anything from this fixture or the next when we saw them back in July. However, if we can get something from the last game of this year and the first of next (Wigan (H) and Fulham (A)) and buy wisely in January, we could yet move up a division and become lightweights.

£10 million difference

Newcastle v Watford

Saturday 16^th December

What with my Croatian friend having her birthday party last night, Rob and Sarah back from Doha for a couple of weeks, Deyika down from Manchester for the weekend and John back from Turkey for a day before heading to Morocco, I decided earlier in the week that I wouldn’t be on 7am coach for St James Park and settled for another afternoon in front of Sky Sports News. It didn’t make for happy listening. Richard Lee was being justifiably talked up and made a good save and Henderson forced the same from Given in the first half, which ended goalless, but Obafemi Martins, the Nigerian £10 million striker, continued to justify Roeder’s opinion of him and headed them in front early in the second.

8 minutes later, Henderson flicked on a corner for Hameur Bouazza to break our run of 5 games without scoring and I punched the air above our sofa in solidarity with the fans who’d travelled to the furthest away game we’ll have in the Premiership. Phil Thompson, watching the match and letting us know how it was going, claimed the match was stretched and that there was another goal in it. When he later said that the Toon had brought on Scott Parker and Damien Duff, who were excellent in the Carling Cup game at the Vic, the fear returned. Henderson missed another good chance to break this season’s duck but when Thompson shouted “goal!” off-screen I was biting my t-shirt. It was Martins who headed the winner in Newcastle’s 30^th game of the season (we’ve played 21).

Sheffield United and Blackburn both won away against teams in the top half (Wigan and Reading respectively) so Middlesbrough, 6 points ahead of us, are in the safe 17^th position. 3 southern teams are in trouble West Ham (home to Man U tomorrow), Charlton (beaten at home by Liverpool this morning) and Watford. The Hammers sacked Alan Pardew on Monday and Alan Curbishley is the new manager. Adrian Boothroyd, relentlessly upbeat, is probably safer in his position than Boro’s Southgate, so undemanding are the expectations.

CAAT London

Monday 11^th December

After post-noon squash and another private lesson, I unlocked our mail box and opened a large brown envelope in the lift. It was the latest CAAT News magazine fronted with a photo from the DESO action that made me a cover star. I knew this day would come… Inside, in an unrelated column inch, it was mentioned that I’d raised £525 with my jump (actually £560) but sitting in front of BBC News 24, it was the fact that a London group was meeting for the first time tonight at a pub not far from home that got me on my bike. I rang up Chukuma, who was supposed to be coming round to borrow CDs, and cycled to the Albion, where Brighton Rob’s brother Andy had had his pre-club birthday drinks the only time I’d been there a year and a half ago or more.

There were 4 people at the table before I sat down, one of whom I’d recognised at the “shut it down” event. Now I know her name. The “co-ordinator” was a French guy off to Turkey having just done his Human Rights Masters. I feel slightly jealous. The other male and female were also younger than me but the next (and final) two people to turn up were semi-retired pensioners. The paragraph about the meeting had requested that we “come along and bring any ideas we had” but I was primarily going along. We went through ideas for a launch event and my idea of doing an “arms dealer crawl” was echoed immediately and got some support. I suggested we could hit 5 (I later scaled down to 3) companies involved in the arms trade in specific regions (I suggested Israel & Darfur, (Ian) suggested Indonesia/Aceh).

At home on the net after booking Canal 125 for the next meeting on Jan 15^th (my suggestion but I am not sure it’ll be a popular one with the ale drinkers), I sifted through addresses and links from the CAAT website. There are at least as many UK dealers/manufacturers inside the M25 as I had blindly suggested there might be and ideas for a tube-line style map are sloshing around my head. There’s even a company (Smiths) with a site in Watford that produces missile trigger systems for the Israeli army. These things are close to home and I, for one, didn’t know where until a few minutes of typing and clicking.

The Commitment

Watford v Reading

Saturday 9^th December

I got up earlier than at any point this week to cycle over to Tim’s in Harlsden by 9.30 to speak the lines I learnt for another YouTube video for Jason Nightingale’s Fourteen Million To One. I played John, who is the new partner of Jane (Cheneé), the ex-wife of Derek (Tim). John is supposed to be contemptuous and arrogant towards (winning-lottery-ticket loser) Derek but when I saw the takes after the event, I was smiling all the time and evidently not as natural an actor as my childhood experience in Say No To Strangers, a public-information film for kids that I starred in, led me to believe I would be. After champagne, tortilla, some skunk and a chat about friends and ditching them, Tim said goodbye with a question. “Do you know that la la la, la la, la la song the Reading fans sing?” No. “You’ll hear it when they score.” Hook, line and sinker…

I got on the slow train and off at Bushey to cycle the rest. The roads down the lower end of the High Street have changed beyond all recognition and I was going in a reverse-S under arches around warehouse chain stores and despite getting further away from where I’d wanted to be arrived at Kerry’s by 2.15. Joss let me in, Phil was getting Joss’ bike out and Trevor was playing with Casey, but Kerry and Sarah were sleeping off the excesses of the getting-no-darker hours. There was overhang in the atmosphere. Joss asked who we were playing.

Reading came up as runaway champions last year, 16 points clear of Sheffield United and a further 9 ahead of us in third. They have thrived in the Premiership and with almost half the season gone are 15 points ahead of us in 6^th with one of the league’s top goalscorers, Doyle, who famously cost them £78,000 from Cork City a year and a half ago, in scoring form. Watford have scored once in the last four games. Joss thanked me for the programme I bought when we’d got through the turnstiles. He has been careful about that since I brought it up a few matches ago.

The match only reinforced our knowledge that the cutting edge, or the lack of it that Darius Henderson possesses, is decisive if you need to make the cut. If Priskin isn’t good enough to come on for a misfiring striker, we might need to buy two in January. With King as a partner, Henderson scored 14 goals in 2005/6. This season, he is yet to get off the mark. I don’t doubt his desire, and realise that this, of course, is the other side of ‘the rule of the ex-player’: that YOUR player WON’T score against his ex-team. So as inevitable as Helguson’s goal for Fulham and Webber’s goal for the Blades, was that Henderson would take none of three good chances against the club he started off at.

Reading’s best strikes had gone wide in the first half but we just about shaded the match, I’d say, largely by stopping them getting any flow going. The couple of chances that didn’t fall to Henderson didn’t go in either. The whole team put the necessary effort in: our performance was better than in either the Charlton or Sheffield United match but we didn’t break through and it ended goalless. That despite the longest continuous chanting I’ve experienced from our fans, who, even without Curly, were excellent tonight. The winning litany was “Aidy Boothroyd’s Yellow Army”, “We hate L’t’n”. Joss even asked when it was going to stop.

We got frozen fingers cycling back down Ebury Way in the dark and I promised to get him bike lights for Xmas. I will not stand accused of frivolity. From being an uncle who was never around at Xmas, I’ve slowly grown more conscientious about presents. Fortunately, kids have short memories so it’s sufficient to get it right when they start comparing. Kerry was up, the others had gone to Tesco but were soon back. Casey, now 10 months old to the day - as Trevor pointed out - is cute but doesn’t like me holding her. I fuelled up on onion bhajis and samosas before leaving them to their meals.

Heard some scores before we’d left the stadium area but it wasn’t till later that I heard Tim’s Hammers had gone down 4-0 at Bolton. I wanted to text him to say “Do you know that song the Bolton fans sing…?” but settled for a thank-you instead. I only want to see them go down if it is instead of Watford. Frankly, that’s still as committed to optimism as I can be.

Stop me if you think that you have heard this one before.

Friday 8^th December

Why the fuck is the word “tolerance” as venerated as it is? What does is it signify in this country other than the coldness of the average metropolis (Watford are 47^th in the UK in terms of population)? Outside its use as a slightly more highbrow and proactive equivalent of Enfield’s Scousers’ exhortations to “calm down”, the word screams condescension, as pessimistic about society as “All you need is love” is unrealistic.

The word “tolerance”, however, is now some badge by which we can be measured. Out Great Shit-Smiling Leader has spoken out today (controversially, no doubt tomorrow’s Mail will suggest). His message, with an irony he wouldn’t get unless you ironed it into his brow, was an intolerant one: “People entering the UK must be prepared to be tolerant or not be allowed to stay.” Conform with our tolerance or we won’t tolerate you. It’s Pythonesque, no?

Of course, Blair’s target was Pakistani Muslims. He’s found the bulls-eye in the Muslim target. The whole of the religious community was far too big to take on at less than 3% of the UK population, so he decided to narrow it down to just the Muslims in the poorest areas of the UK. This is a brave man, saying what needs to be said. It can’t be easy, speaking out against such powerful interests.

I wish Blair had been speaking out against the Sentinelese, the island tribe who fired poisoned arrows at rescue helicopters in the wake of the 2004 tsunami. What they did is unacceptable. They are a real – and I’d go so far as to say significant – threat to democracy and the state. At a time when we are “investigating” Russian poisonings in this country (under threat of gas pipes being turned off), I say don’t lose sight of the real enemy. Poison arrows are the WMD of 2007. Wipe those fuckers out, I say. That’ll teach them some tolerance.

Bad-Weather-Pub

Manchester City v Watford

Monday 4^th December

I am on enforced holiday this week and next but cycled down to Bayswater to do a private lesson and beat Paul at squash for a second week in a row. Got back and showered and then waited for Jun to get back from her swim, when we nipped down to the “Driver” for a meal and to watch the Hornets for the last twenty minutes of the first half projected onto a whitewashed wall on an Arabic channel with the sound down and music on. Watford had the better chances but City maintained possession better. It was 0-0 at half-time. The food was good and half-time was solely replays of highlights (no chat) but the absence of sound motivated our move down Caledonian Road to the Dun A Ri.and their big screen.

Richard Lee made an excellent double save in the second half and Shittu was making blocks Lego would be proud of. We worked hard all over the pitch, up front we had no edge though and it seemed to be a case of whacking it up field only to see it coming back again. Near the end they had a penalty shout and with our luck so far this season (“unjust” penalties at Everton and Portsmouth, a 95^th minute penalty awarded at Bolton) and Clattenburg refereeing again (Bolton match), I was nervous but nothing was given and we took a deserved point.

Sheffield United beat Charlton on Saturday and Blackburn beat Fulham, so Newcastle, 3 points above us with a game in hand, and West Ham, 4 ahead with the same amount of games played, are in 18^th and 17^th respectively. With Fulham on double the points we have, I am not sure which 3 teams could go down instead of us. One point at City, where they are unbeaten, after three defeats in a row for us, is not a bad result. Beating Reading on Saturday (they are 6^th), will help turn things around ahead of a difficult three games following that. With Young and Bouazza back and Shittu man-of-the-matching again, I am ready to believe.