Magic

West Ham v Watford (F.A. Cup 4th Round)

Saturday 27^th January

Julie joined Joss and I at Euston and we got onto a Northern Line train and changed to the Hammersmith Line at Moorgate for Upton Park. We had fat chips from a chippie with the local team’s players posted on the wall and took a picture outside the turrets of the Boleyn Ground, with Julie in my hat. Our seats were in an almost empty section of Row B, with much of our bodies lower than the pitch.

West Ham started brightly and hit the crossbar but spurred on by the louder travelling fans, Watford pressured and created chances of our own. We had a goal disallowed for offside and a second shot was cleared off the line by a defender’s arm, unseen by the officials. We taunted West Ham’s latest acquisition, Lucas Neill with “Here for the money, you’re only here for the money” after he got a yellow card and generally outsang the home crowd. Just before the break, their keeper, Roy Carroll, made a hsh of a punch and the ball fell to Anthony McNamee, whose scissor kick bounced over the knee of a defender on the line and into the back of the net for his first goal of the season and third ever for the Golden Boys.

I tried to taunt the locals with “2-0 and you lost the cup” but nobody joined in and when they finally found their voice as West Ham had a spell in our half (“I’m forever blowing bubbles”) we just chanted “You’ve only got one song” back at them. During this period, Julie asked if we had a player called “Welling” after I had shouted encouragement to one of our midfielders (“Well in”)… Teddy Sheringham came on and, apropos of Celebrity Big Brother, I began a “Teddy’s girl’s a racist” that did get backing. Watford held out against the introduction of a third striker and frustration was evident in the claret and blue on the pitch. It finished 1-0 to the Golden Boys, our first back-to-back wins of the season and our first win away. We clapped them off and sang the manager’s name.

The Hammers have done a lot of business in the transfer window and injuries ruled out a couple of players today so we’ll have to see if this accomplishment can be repeated in two weeks’ time in the league when their new guys are settled. Clearly, the three points are more important than an F.A. Cup run but as we sang “Que sara, sara, whatever will be, will be, we’re going to Wem-buh-ley” in the street after the game, there could be no doubt that the cup retains its “magic” for many of the fans. Conjuring a win of any sort out can only be good for the players, too. Fingers crossed for a relatively easy home tie in the Monday draw.

Gutsy

Watford v Blackburn

Tuesday 23^rd January

We were locking up our bikes when Watford went ahead in the 12^th minute, this because I can’t take mine (actually Jun’s, after mine self-destructed last week) onto a train before seven o’clock. It had been an own goal by Emerton, heading in well from a Tommy Smith cross, and from what we saw of the rest of the half, Watford deserved it. Henderson was in the thick of it and Bouazza was at his best. However much we dominated, though, Blackburn looked fast and dangerous on the break but with no end product until after a ridiculous Watford throw-in, Benny McCarthy headed in seconds before the half-time whistle was due.

I have to admit that I feared defeat not least because Blackburn have been on a pretty good run and beat Man City 3-0 in Manchester on Saturday. I expected them to come out hungry but I think we managed to stop them playing the way they’d have liked. Meanwhile, the Rookery, in excellent voice tonight, took the piss out of Brad Friedel’s orange strip “Bradley’s got a gay kit, la la la la” and I started a “Bradley, Bradley, blow us a kiss” chant. Though race is off limits, casting aspersions about sexuality is still fair game (discuss). Al Bangura went in hard on Robbie Savage twice and the second of these challenges resulted in an injury for one of the league’s most-hated. We joined in a “Bang bang bang bang, Al Bangura” ditty in celebration. Not sure I’d have booed Savage off if I’d known it was a break, though.

We had a few half-arsed shots after the break but Blackburn looked livelier. Despite that, Jay DeMerit, who’d come on after half an hour for the injured Danny Shittu, rose to head in a Bouazza cross and put us 2-1 up with twenty minutes to go. Had Hoskins put away the golden opportunity from a Stewart cross a minute later, the rest of the time would’ve been a cruise. Henderson also had two headers go wide before Blackburn mounted a late challenge for an equaliser. We held on though, and got only our second league victory of the season.

We nipped into the ticket office to sort out a mistake with the West Ham tickets and cycled back happy and cold. I hadn’t joined in the “Who needs Ashley Young?” song, which was to the same tune as “We’ve got Ashley Young” on Saturday, but the £9.65 million that Aston Villa have paid for him is more than we’d get at the end of the season and good business sense. Neither had I been tempted by the “We ARE staying up, said we are staying up” number, but this result and the renewed promise of wins at home means I am back to hedging my bets.

Down and out in Witton and Aston

Aston Villa v Watford
Saturday 20th January

Engineering works meant the timetable I’d used to arrange Kerry putting Joss onto a train we were on from Euston for Birmingham New Street was about half an hour later than we thought. Still, delay aside it went smoothly and Kerry waved us goodbye from the platform after Watford Boy Joss took his seat next to Jun. Prepared with his PSP, didn’t fancy a sudoku and Jun and I read the newspaper and magazine. Joss and I changed to a Walsall bound train and Jun went to walk around the Bullring.

We passed through Duddeston, where we had arranged to meet my friend from Durrants School after the match, and many of the Villa fans got off at Aston. We detrained at Witton and bought very white chips from a tattooed female chippie and ate them outside the entrance we were directed to by a helpful local fan, who wished us all the best. Inside the stadium I recognised a few faces but my ‘pledge’ earlier in the season to make an effort to talk to fans has been relegated to a ‘consideration’. The guy to my right was running his own analysis on the match as though he had been requested to do so by his immediate neighbours.

There was more effort this week and our confidence grew as Villa seemed there for the taking after their poor run of late, putting passes astray and lacking any cutting edge, though Foster was there when they did get through. We had two good chances of our own. Young (who turned down West Ham in the week and has agreed terms with our opponents on a fee that could apparently rise to nine and a half million pounds) was left out; Hoskins and Priskin started together for the first time and the former Rotherham man had a good shot tipped over by Sorensen, as did Bouazza.

There wasn’t the atmosphere among the Yellow Army that there had been at the Fulham match, and I’m not sure that the shallow nature of the seating wasn’t partly the cause. The Villa fans weren’t much better but when they did all get involved very late on (a case of “singing when you’re winning”, unfortunately), the ground echoed impressively. I’ve been in different stands each of the three times I’ve watched Watford at this stadium but this is the first against the Villa. My dad took me to a 1984 FA Cup semi-final that saw us grind out a victory against lower division Plymouth. Twenty years later, with Joss, Luke, Jun and Faisel, I watched us concede our first goals in another run to the semis that ended that day against Southampton.

We failed to clear a corner properly a few minutes from the end of normal play and a double deflection off of Malky Mckay and Gavin Mahon put us one down. Our efforts to rectify this situation saw us stretched and Agbonlahor put them 2-0 ahead after Danny Shittu, who’d done his central defending well, slipped and let him through for a one-on-one with Foster in injury time. It seemed unfair and somehow expected. I finally admitted we were down and we started trudging out, breaking into a run when we saw our train waiting but got on with plenty of time for Joss to follow a guy, who unknown to me, had lost his wallet in the jog to a (different) carriage, and return it.

On the train there was a Villa kid enjoying the win and talking about “the clumsy one”, meaning Shittu, whose surname he enjoyed making a pun on. It was hard to listen to but almost forgotten after we’d met Jun at New Street, headed back on the same line to meet Tessa at Duddeston, and missed the station in the darkness and on the assumption we’d stopped on the line somewhere. Tessa drove up through the traffic we’d arranged our meeting to circumvent, picked us up shivering outside Aston station and took us to Star City for pizza.

We had a good chat, catching up and sharing news about the different friends we’d stayed in contact with. Both of us have narrowed that group down since we last met and I can only hope that we’ll stay friends however lax I am at maintenance. Queuing in the bowling arcade a little later, a kid half Joss’ size came over and commented “Yellow Army my arse”. “Shame,” Tessa commented from behind a hand shielding a laugh. Lanes were booked up so we had a couple of games of air-hockey and a Blues fan offered his regret at the result. Tessa dropped us off at New Street again and Brian and Mum picked us up at Nuneaton for the drive back to Bulkington. We all practised yoga positions and chatted until late and petted Nettle, their 14-year-old spaniel, who is big and slow but still affectionate.

Sunday 21st January

The five of us high-fived our way through two hours of bowling at Nuneaton bowl, where Joss got his personal best (96), before returning for a delish veggie moussaka and a trifle for the golden boys, only the bigger of whom was interested. We wound down and then trained it home, Joss meeting Kerry at the station just before seven.

It wasn't all yellow

Watford v Liverpool

Saturday 13^th January

After he’d shown me the corpse of a rat on the pavement (last week it was the skeleton of some animal I guessed had been a fox), Joss and I cycled down Ebury Way to the game (it was no ‘match’ today) and got in a couple of minutes late. There are certainly no regrets or a feeling that we might have missed anything. The first half was lamentable: we stood off them all over the park, allowing them to pass around us like it was a training match. Any hope that last week would provide new confidence died quickly. The reds put two in the goal in front of us though the first looked like it involved a foul on our keeper Foster. As the stand I was in collectively booed the players off at half time, we were as dead as that rodent.

It has been said that the Play-Off Final was won in the tunnel. One wonders if this game was too. Liverpool came off the back of a 6-3 midweek home defeat to a second-string youthful Arsenal team and though they didn’t shine, they looked determined. “I heard Rafa Benitez (Liverpool’s manager) is leaving Liverpool to work for Michael Jackson…because of his capacity to manage to get 11 kids to come and spank you at home.” It’s a shit joke but it is worse for Watford.

Betty has talked sometimes about “the Watford way” and this means primarily energy and work rate. What was lacking today was the “belief” that I have seen in matches, even our 4-0 mauling at Stamford Bridge. There were no yellow cards because there was no “heart”/“desire”/“soul”/“grit”. It’s hard to define. We tried harder in the second half from where I sat, and Jordan Stewart powered a long curling shot against the bar from about 30 yards but this after we’d let in a third at the beginning of the half. Yeah, it was even deader soon after we’d dragged ourselves back out.

A few minutes before the end Joss asked if we should leave, and we went to buy programmes and a T-shirt for me and jacket for him in the club shop. When we got back he joined Phil in the bedroom on the X-Box, I had a cuppa and cycled over to see Trevor, Sarah and Kasey in South Oxhey. I think Kasey is getting used to me a bit so she didn’t cry ALL the time I was holding her. Borrowed an eighties Name That Tune game and bought a Family Railcard at Harrow & Wealdstone in preparation for the away games ahead.

If we play like this next week at Aston Villa, our season has gone some way other than the Watford one.

Thou Shalt Score

Watford v Stockport County (FA Cup 3^rd Round)

Saturday, 6^th January

After a cup of tea, Joss and I cycled down Ebury Way in the drizzle of another Watford winter and got into the stadium to see this week’s (cup-tied) signings from League One Rotherham, Will Hoskins and Lee Williamson, introduced on the pitch before we take on League Two opposition. With 15 league and 1 cup goal for the Millers this season, striker Hoskins is just below Billy Sharp in the high scorers’ table and if he can get even a quarter of that total for Watford he’d be worth his share of the £1.2 million total fee. I’d told Joss that I’d only be happy with three goals or more and we are hoping that the debutant Moses Ashikodi can get his name on the score sheet. Boothroyd had left Ashley Young on the bench, perhaps adding a few pounds to his potential transfer value; apparently, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and 3 other premiership clubs have made bids. Will we be able to hold on to him?

We got to our wet seats but a glance around showed that there were many empty ones further back and out of the rain so we retreated a few rows, an example that was repeated over the next twenty minutes by tens of others as the rain got slightly harder. Stockport’s blue fans were enjoying it, loud and proud replete with flags but their “County” chant sounded like “Chelsea” to us. Although Stockport had a good first minute chance, our Biblically-named debutant had netted from a corner within seven minutes only for it to be disallowed. Another six minutes later and the 5’6” 10-stone Anthony McNamee had curled one into the goal but this was also ruled out, this time for a foul in the build-up. As the rain got harder, Joss suggested that “Maybe God hates Watford”.

Muddy Moses was already chasing everything and such hard work is bound to make you a crowd favourite: Curly and his mates, who’d moved to sit directly behind us, were wondering aloud about possible songs for him and the loudest voice in the Rookery (mine) was shouting encouragement. As we put on more pressure, County striker Poole broke forward, beat the offside trap and nutmegged Foster in the goal to put the visitors, 59 places below us in the league, 1-0 ahead. Cue “Premiership? You’re having a laugh” mockery from the away fans but we scored less than ten minutes later after Henderson flicked on a corner for Malkay Mckay to score with a very casual poke-in. Hot chocolate to celebrate and it was all even at the break.

Two minutes after the restart Henderson had got forward into a great position with the ball a tap-in away but somehow didn’t manage to get a shot off. The ball did get pushed out to Smith, though, who scored his second goal in 11 days. Both sides then missed good chances but after Young came on for Henderson there was little doubt we’d score more. Refreshments at half-time had provided the inspiration for Curly’s lot to come up with a song for Moses and a bunch of us at the front joined in as he continued working hard in chasing everything down. Our third came from a Jordan Stewart free-kick, which Mckay, injured in the process, met at the post in front of us. The rout was completed a few minutes later when a back-pass to the Country keeper resulted in a Paul Robinson moment: Spencer sliced at the ball, which he missed completely, and Moses, chasing it as ever, beat him to the loose ball, bundling it into the corner.

A yellow card followed his celebration: he headed straight for where his name had been shouted all game and in my efforts to help him mark the moment, I tripped over a step, taking Joss down with me. Lying on my back in the aisle, I could only feign serious injury and get carried away or laugh the embarrassment off. Joss, who’d been lamenting the fact that this game has no relevance to our Premiership struggle, accused me of being drunk. Maybe I was just a tad over-excited. Malkay obliged the chants with a wace after being substituted and we applauded the rest of the players off the pitch at full-time and began speculating about a possible knock-on effect in the league.

After we got back, with my socks on Kerry’s radiator to dry for a second Saturday in a row and the Liverpool v Arsenal match on the telly, I had a couple of games of chess with Joss on the set I gave him on Thursday. I taught him the rules last summer and he even got to take my queen in the first match. Perhaps more importantly, he has learned how to be a better loser (no sulking). Being a Watford fan, he has little choice.

The Dewey system

Fulham v Watford

New Year’s Day, Monday 1^st January 2007

As his mother had not returned from her New Year’s revelries, Joss, who’d spent the night at his friend’s, was home alone without the money or means to get to Watford Junction and onto a train for Euston. Fortunately, Faisel was able to pick him up and ensure he got safely onto a delayed Silverlink service. I met him there and we tubed it to Hammersmith and walked the twenty five minutes along Fulham Palace Road to Craven Cottage. After I told him they’d held Chelsea on Saturday, Joss thought we’d lose this match. I was hoping their exertions combined with our shorter-than-usual match meant we might have a little more in the fuel tank.

There were barcodes on the tickets, which were read at the turnstiles, but still a steward at the gate. Pointless rationalisation. We had tops removed from our bottles (I was rehydrating myself) and walked behind the length of the Putney Stand - vibrating with our fans’ enthusiasm – to our seats on the left side near the front. A couple of kids who sit in front of us in the Rookery were in front of us here too. We kicked off and the fans kept up the noise but in the sixth minute Fulham (bloody ex-Horn Heidar Helguson again – this time with his head) had the ball in the back of the net. The Fulham crowd to the left of us, silent until now, were up and celebrating but I joined the Watford fans in taunting them (for their silence thus far, I guessed).

Watford were having trouble maintaining possession and Danny Shittu went off injured after only thirty minutes. Helguson put the ball in the net again but this was disallowed for offside and again we taunted the Fulham crowd, which was so quiet that the chant “Is this a library?” had been asked by the travelling Yellow Army. Our best chance of the half was headed over by Tommy Smith. In the break, we drank hot chocolate from my flask and identified the flags in the programme denoting the players’ nationalities.

Smith didn’t come out for the second half (Boothroyd later claimed it was the worst half of football of our season so far but I am not convinced) but was replaced by Henderson to the dismay of some around us. There is an element which sings his name though, and had even done so as he warmed up on the touchline in the first half. It can only be based on previous form. His first shot was weak though on target and somehow he was penalised when Fulham defender and keeper collided, resulting in an eight minute delay and the stretchering off of Anti Niemi, who’d landed head first. I hoped the reserve keeper would be out of practice but even the thought is merely a triumph of naivety over experience.

With about 20 minutes remaining, Joss said he thought it’d end up 0-0. I frowned down at him. How could it, when it was already 1-0 to Fulham I harrumphed. It’s not, he correctly replied and drew my attention to the scoreboard behind us. The first “goal” had also been ruled offside, which is why our fans had been mocking the Fulham crowd. I’d spent almost the entire game thinking we were losing when we weren’t. It was a welcome relief as well as a bit of an embarrassment. Classify that under “not paying enough attention to the pitch.”

We urged the Golden Boys on for the nine minutes of rainy added time and Henderson produced a fantastic shot, reminiscent of Marlon King’s goal against West Ham, which thundered off the crossbar. It was certainly the best I’ve seen of him this season and you wonder whether it might have lifted his game if it had gone in. Fulham could also have won it at the death, when Ben Foster, who’d commanded his box superbly, coming out and claiming corners and through balls, was rounded by Collins John. Foster managed to push the ball out wide though and John could only hit the side netting. The game ended with Tamas Priskin, who’d looked quite sharp in the first half but quieter in the second on the right, got a second yellow.

On the train back we chatted with a QPR fan who got on at Shepherd’s Bush with his sister and who was so engrossed in conversation with us that when he got off he bade us farewell and ignored her. She called after him but was clearly then embarrassed by the event, sitting opposite those who witnessed her apparent insignificance. After pizza and pasta at home, we went bowling with Jun, Miho and Deyika and my form was so bad that big Watford Boy was beaten by smaller Watford Boy for the first time. Plus, I lost a tenner to Deyika, as I finished last of the five.

Tuesday 2^nd January

Today’s paper details a transfer I heard a fan talking about as we trooped out yesterday. Watford have signed the striker Moses Ashikodi, who was released by Millwall after apparently threatening a team-mate with a knife. “One for the future” is Betty’s verdict. Let’s hope we get some for now, too.