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.