Schadenfraude too

I have been gone too long. After two months of insufflation in La Paz, we have all but completed two weeks of volunteering at animal refuge La Senda Verde near Coroico in Bolivia (the website will be improved in the near future). In the meantime, Watford have sold all their best players (Tommy Smith eventually went to Portsmouth and was followed by a petulant Mike Williamson, Tamas Priskin went to Ipswich, Jobi McAnuff and Grzegorz Rasiak followed Brendan Rogers to Reading). The latter two players combined to put Reading ahead in our Saturday showdown but Danny Graham continued his scoring form (six already in nine matches) to get us a point at the Madjeski. There is great satisfaction at seeing Ipswich and Reading poach from us and now struggle in the bottom four while we sit in a far better-than-expected seventh (Newcastle are threatening to run away with it), which makes us closer in position to bottom-of-the-Premiership Portsmouth than to either of our championship rivals.
We got old-boy Heidar Helguson back and he scored twice in a recent 3-3 "thriller" with Leicester and although now injured, I´d back him to beat Saturday´s red-carded Nathan Ellington in the goals tally even if H didn´t find the net again all year. Coventry at home tonight and if we can send them back pointless to whence they came, we might even nick a play-off position. Okay, okay: it is early days.

Another year of the Championship

Hull City v Watford

Wednesday 14^th May

I arrived at work to find all systems down and classes cancelled as a consequence. The guy who bid me leave said I’d be able to watch the Rangers game but I corrected him. Jun and I went to a pub near Mornington Crescent that I’d phoned to check would show it having been turned away from the local earlier. It was a dream start for us. After eleven minutes, good work by Jobi McAnuff led to Darius Henderson pulling off a one-two with Nathan Ellington in the box and slotting us in front. We stayed on the front foot and dominated without really looking like adding to the total until a couple of minutes before half-time when a Hull cross that didn’t look dangerous saw Richard Lee stranded and a ridiculously high header go over him and in.

We never looked like we’d score again after the break and with half an hour left Betty gambled by bringing on striker Tamas Priskin and taking off defender Adrian Mariappa, who’d made a terrible back pass in the first half and had been lucky not to give away a penalty in the second. The Hungarian smashed another shot at the keeper soon after coming on (as he had Sunday) but crossing the ball would probably have meant a goal. Hull took off Windass and brought on Folan, who made an immediate impact. It was downhill from there. They scored a second, meaning we needed three more (haven’t scored four all season), and in the final two minutes they added two more. The fans invaded the pitch twice and Mexican waves rocked the KC stadium. 6-1 on aggregate and yet we played better passing football than I’ve seen us do for ages. We need strikers, a midfielder, a right back and perhaps a keeper. As for the manager, that debate will rage but I’m prepared to stand by him if the dressing room are.

Passing point

Watford v Preston North End

Saturday 23^rd February

Had an email from the club about renewing season tickets that I didn’t have time to respond to before I left a little earlier than usual. I stopped off at the Buzz Store and bought a t-shirt I thought Joss would like but when I got to Kerry’s and asked how his behaviour had been, she ummed and erred and brought out his recent school report. There were 15 negative referrals (13 positive) and they included things like throwing a sweet at a supply teacher. I was not impressed and put on my best “This is not acceptable” face.

Walking to the ground I told the younger Watford Boy that I would not buy him a season ticket for next year unless his next report was better (seven or fewer negative referrals). Though I stressed that I meant it, we will have to wait until June to discover whether it has the desired effect. I took the opportunity to explain to my bumfluffed nephew that I wouldn’t be around for much of the following season.

We were a couple of minutes late despite my good intentions this morning and I had to gesture a “hop it” at the boys who’d temporarily occupied our seats. A group of kids Joss reckons to be 12-14 seems to have built up in the location of the front-row singers: I overhead one say he came down from where he sat with his dad elsewhere. They guy on the opposite side of the aisle, who I have mentioned before and whose name is Liam, is clearly their inspiration. He’s funny and passionate and “our” leader. I play the loudest voiced lieutenant, though we’ve never talked, and of course there are others in the Yellow Army around the front who lead chants and songs too. These boys are the new recruits and slightly annoying one or two of them were too, at times, but essentially harmless and learning how to behave at football matches. I can’t help hoping Joss is a little more mature in my absence, but I doubt it.

Well, we in the front and back rows cheered them on as usual, as Watford played a good passing game (not so usual) for much of the first half, bossing possession and with some good opportunities, many of which Jobi McAnuff played an important role in creating. However, Nathan Ellington wasted a couple of the resulting free-kicks and Darius Henderson missed at a tight angle after rounding the keeper (“Lonergan, you were long gone”, our leader taunted). The guy behind us (OK, I promise I’ll ask his name next time) talked to me and we chatted about our better football and the games to come.

The second half was much of the same though Preston had a period of possession that didn’t trouble us (they’d hit the post in the first half). We kept cheering them on and “we’re the back row” started and resulted in one guy in the middle standing up only to have to change his contribution from “We’re the middle” to “I am the middle over here”, which served as light relief. Then Danny Shittu headed against the post and it was hard at first to tell that the ball was looping out and away. Finally, Hendo and Nathan Ellington combined to bundle the ball in but even as I was hugging Joss someone said it had been disallowed. At the final whistle, we clapped as some of the people, a tiny “middle” minority, booed. The same people, of course, who had failed to sing all game.

I went round to Sarah & Trevor’s to deliver a belated birthday gift to my two-year-old niece, Kasey. Her parents had primed her with the information that “Uncle Handsome” was coming round so as she is learning to speak she is associating the word handsome with my face. Who knows what damage that will do her? All were well and in fine form, with Beth as keen to be in front of the camera as ever.

Blowing it

Watford v Cardiff City

Wednesday 26^th December (Boxing Day)

Boxing Day train services are non-existent but I failed to learn this lesson from last year. Consequently, Jun and I had to shell out for a taxi from Wembley to Kerry’s, having left it too late to sit on a replacement bus service. Note to self: next year (if there’s a home game) get the jubilee line to Stanmore and then a cab. Joss told me about his share of the commercialism of the season as we walked to the Vic. Last year’s PSP was stolen recently, so now he’s got a slim white one.

WFC have not won at home in five matches and today’s game does not break the drought. We concede after 34 minutes in boring match that inevitably has people asking whether the players have had too much turkey. After the break, our new captain Jay Demerit (Gavin Mahon has lost favour with Betty, apparently) slotted home a pass from Nathan Ellington (his second assist in two games) but the Bluebirds went ahead again less than ten minutes later. It took until the last couple of minutes of normal time for Watford to get any sense of urgency but by then, many fans had given up and left.

Three minutes of extra-time were awarded and in the fourth of these, Jobi McAnuff got his second goal for the club, a curler from fifteen yards through a packed penalty area high into the top corner. Phew. A home draw against a middling side was suddenly such a relief. Meanwhile, WBA thrashed Bristol City at the Hawthorns, going above us on goal difference.

Kerry made us some food before Jun and I got our second and third taxis of the day (total £58) distributing presents to the nephews and nieces. Later Terri gave us a lift back to Stanmore station and I sang along to Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”. I’ve always been uncertain about the examples she gives when delineating what the term means, but for a team who wanted to make the Vic a fortress to have the best away record in the country while struggling at home, perhaps we could use her version of the word, don’t you think?

Watford v Queens Park Rangers

Saturday 29^th December

I met Rod and Ticktock at the gates at Euston for what will probably be the little fella’s last game of the season as he is being sent away to boarding school. Not just for his sake (as he told me the Arsenal and Manchester United fans at school “hate Watford”), I hoped he’d see a home victory again, this time against the side second-bottom. I reminded him of the term “plastic supporter” in order to give him something to counter with. We met Joss while queuing to pick up their tickets and got into the ground in good time.

The game started signifivantly more up-tempo than Boxing Day’s had been and Watford had Rangers on the back foot. Then, with less than quarter of an hour played, Jordon Stewart brought down one of their players in the box, a penalty was conceded and dispatched and we were a goal down. “One-nil to the billionaires” the substantial visiting support sang. Supposedly the Rs are the richest club in the country, perhaps the world, since their takeover by Bernie Ecclestone.and Flavio Briatore and more recent investment from Lakshi Mittal.

The rest of the half provided good Watford pressure and two more QPR goals, one directly from a corner and another that was well made. Lee Williamson hit the post but the ‘Orns went into half-time without having replied. The Rookery, which was singing well today, was surprised to say the least but I don’t think I was alone in thinking that the way we were playing we could score four in the second half.

The four of us shared a ridiculously large “Dairy Milk” bar that Rod had bought and had a little hot chocolate from my new one-litre flask. I had to tell them that despite the size of the defecit, we were actually playing a lot better than in the last match.

Seven minutes after the break and Damien Francis had got on back for us and it seemed possible that we could get at least another home point but as we got closer and closer to the end without a second goal, that hope diminished. Not wanting to keep everyone waiting at the end, I went to the toilet with ten minutes left only to return to a tide of Rookery fans pouring out. We had conceded a fourth. I took my seat laughing. Within another two minutes, Darius Henderson had nodded the ball down for Danny Shittu to smash home against his former club but 4-2 it finished.

Joss and I directed Rod and Ticktock back to the station and walked to his place where I picked up my presents from mum. Later, on the train back, I overhead a Rangers fan describing it on his mobile to a mate as “A day that will go down in QPR history”.

Wii won away (again)

Sheffield Wednesday v Watford

Saturday 22^nd December

While I whiled away an afternoon on the wii with the wife, Watford went and won at Wednesday. Jobi McAnuff scored his first goal for the Horns and not before time. Stoke beat West Brom 3-1, which means that we are top for Christmas Day at least, and close to fulfilling my prediction of being top at the end of the year (if we can improve our dire home form).

Four out of three

After a gripping 2-2 home draw with seventeenth-placed Colchester closely followed last week’s lame 3-0 drubbing by West Brom at Vicarage Road, there are some among Watford’s Yellow Army who are losing the faith. Not least because we beat Norwich convincingly at Carrow Road midweek and had 26 goal attempts against the U’s, I am still part of the Watford faithful.

The Hornets have won eleven of sixteen games and are eight points clear of second-placed Charlton at the top of the Championship, though West Brom can close the gap to six points on Monday if they win at Coventry. It’s a great start for the club that was relegated bottom of the Premiership in May, six points below nineteenth-placed Charlton and eleven points from safety. At first sight, the current position seems even more impressive given the sale of Ashley Young and Hameur Bouazza, two players who emerged through the youth-team and scored almost a third of the Hornet’s goals in the top flight.

Scratch those facts though and you see that those two players only scored eight goals between them (Young left in January) and the team managed only 28, one fewer than they have so far in the second tier. This season is already a different prospect: Darius Henderson and Marlon King have each scored nine and Adam Johnson, on loan from Middlesbrough, is on five. Current rates would see both players score more than they did when we won promotion two years ago. The year in the Premiership, most of which “the King of Vicarage Road” missed through injury, leaving “Doris” playing in an unfamiliar role, can partly be dismissed as part of the learning curve that Watford are on.

Watford’s early success comes despite the repeated assertion by the manager – Aidy “Betty” Boothroyd – that the team is not playing well and that there is better to come. That may just be a psychological tactic but there are not many who would claim Watford are artists of the beautiful game. “Three nil to the football team,” Baggies’ fans taunted last week and there was a poverty of imagination from the Golden Boys in that game. Going two goals down in a two-minute spell is not explanation enough; Watford have played the long ball, the percentage game, even when they didn’t need to. There are glimpses of better but it might not be until Gareth Williams and Damien Francis come back from injury that the midfield can hope to be significantly more confident in the passing game.

Before I go on to the hypothetical, perhaps I should justify my faith. Some Watford fans allow themselves to be haunted by memories of 2000/1, when Watford briefly topped the table ahead of the competition (Fulham) at about this stage of the season before a thrashing at Craven Cottage saw the Hertfordshire club limp to a 9^th placed finish. Betty and others have stated that it is far too early to be looking at this season’s table but is that true? Can history tell us anything other than the fact that seven years Watford drifted into the sort of oblivion that Cardiff managed last season? Top after 16 games with 33 points, the Bluebirds finished 13^th on 64 points, thereby managing the rare feat of winning more points in the first third of the season than in the following two-thirds added together.

Yes. History can tell us that last season was a real blip. After sixteen games, eventual champions Sunderland were in 17^th position and neither of the other promoted sides was in the top three. In each of the previous four seasons, at least one of the automatically promoted teams was in a top two position at this point (Both Reading and Sheffield United in 2005/6, Wigan (eventually second) were top with 36 points after 16 games in 2004/5, WBA second after 16 and second at the end of 2003/4, Portsmouth and Leicester top and second (as they would finish) at this point of 2002/3. At least one of Watford, West Brom or Charlton are statistically likely to be automatically promoted. Many fans predicted that in August, though. Then again, they would probably have suggested Sheffield United would be in the mix too. Unless they “do a Sunderland”, the best they can hope for is the play-offs, like all but the bottom five clubs.

The table is far from irrelevant, whatever anyone tries to say. Tables do not lie any more after sixteen games than they do after forty six; they simply incorporate less information. Tables speak stats and matches speak stories: Watford players are disappointed with draws while their opponents are over the proverbial natural satellite. That is because Watford are top, and top they will stay for the rest of this year, though perhaps not the rest of the season. As well as the goal scorers, they have the team ethic necessary to navigate the Championship steeplechase.

There will be a wobble. There has to be, and some seem to think we are already feeling it. They may be right but with the international break upon us, it will be some time before we see whether that is the case. Betty has brought the team out of the other two breaks with back-to-back wins and there is no reason why Barnsley away and Burnley at home should not be games Watford can win, especially since their form away is now better than at home.

Watford can probably afford to lose two more games before Christmas and still be top when they travel to Southampton on New Year’s Day 2008. Bristol City, second for a handful of matches, can now be written out of the top two positions, especially since they travel to Vicarage Road and The Hawthorns in December. WBA also host Charlton and Wolves within the next five weeks. If they take maximum points from these three home games, they are likely to open up a gap over the third place team and could perhaps even steal pole position. For that to happen, though, their away record will have to improve.

I predict that Watford will be top of the Championship on December 31^st 2007. With the loss of ‘Boro on-loan wonder-kid Johnson and a defensive gap created by Danny Shittu going to the African Cup, the opening of the transfer window in January will be crucial to all of the teams looking for promotion and perhaps even for their subsequent possibility of surviving in the Premiership. Even the automatically-promoted teams will need to have better players and better teams than they have now. However, it is not just a question of buying in players that make the team stronger (rather than just boosting the squad) but also the capacity to avoid being raided by more-moneyed Premiership clubs when those windows open.

Aidy Boothroyd has proved he has what it takes to motivate his players. Some doubt his ability in the transfer market and it seems that the majority of those bought and brought into the squad in January 2007 have been superfluous to the team’s requirements. The summer splash brought in Jobi McAnuff from Crystal Palace and Nathan Ellington from WBA but these two players have yet to justify their transfer fees. The competition for places created by their purchase, though, may be a part of the motivation for the 23 goals scored by the players keeping them out of the team.

I have faith. Come and check it again in January.

Three out of Four

After a gripping 2-2 home draw with seventeenth-placed Colchester closely followed last week’s lame 3-0 drubbing by West Brom at Vicarage Road, there are some among Watford’s Yellow Army who are losing the faith. Not least because we beat Norwich convincingly at Carrow Road midweek and had 26 goal attempts against the U’s, I am still part of the Watford faithful.

The Hornets have won eleven of sixteen games and are eight points clear of second-placed Charlton at the top of the Championship, though West Brom can close the gap to six points on Monday if they win at Coventry. It’s a great start for the club that was relegated bottom of the Premiership in May, six points below nineteenth-placed Charlton and eleven points from safety. At first sight, the current position seems even more impressive given the sale of Ashley Young and Hameur Bouazza, two players who emerged through the youth-team and scored almost a third of the Hornet’s goals in the top flight.

Scratch those facts though and you see that those two players only scored eight goals between them (Young left in January) and the team managed only 28, one fewer than they have so far in the second tier. This season is already a different prospect: Darius Henderson and Marlon King have each scored nine and Adam Johnson, on loan from Middlesbrough, is on five. Current rates would see both players score more than they did when we won promotion two years ago. The year in the Premiership, most of which “the King of Vicarage Road” missed through injury, leaving “Doris” playing in an unfamiliar role, can partly be dismissed as part of the learning curve that Watford are on.

Watford’s early success comes despite the repeated assertion by the manager – Aidy “Betty” Boothroyd – that the team is not playing well and that there is better to come. That may just be a psychological tactic but there are not many who would claim Watford are artists of the beautiful game. “Three nil to the football team,” Baggies’ fans taunted last week and there was a poverty of imagination from the Golden Boys in that game. Going two goals down in a two-minute spell is not explanation enough; Watford have played the long ball, the percentage game, even when they didn’t need to. There are glimpses of better but it might not be until Gareth Williams and Damien Francis come back from injury that the midfield can hope to be significantly more confident in the passing game.

Before I go on to the hypothetical, perhaps I should justify my faith. Some Watford fans allow themselves to be haunted by memories of 2000/1, when Watford briefly topped the table ahead of the competition (Fulham) at about this stage of the season before a thrashing at Craven Cottage saw the Hertfordshire club limp to a 9^th placed finish. Betty and others have stated that it is far too early to be looking at this season’s table but is that true? Can history tell us anything other than the fact that seven years Watford drifted into the sort of oblivion that Cardiff managed last season? Top after 16 games with 33 points, the Blues finished 13^th on 64 points, thereby managing the rare feat of winning more points in the first third of the season than in the following two-thirds added together.

Yes. History can tell us that last season was a real blip. After sixteen games, eventual champions Sunderland were in 17^th position and neither of the other promoted sides was in the top three. In each of the previous four seasons, at least one of the automatically promoted teams was in a top two position at this point (Both Reading and Sheffield United in 2005/6, Wigan (eventually second) were top with 36 points after 16 games in 2004/5, WBA second after 16 and second at the end of 2003/4, Portsmouth and Leicester top and second (as they would finish) at this point of 2002/3. At least one of Watford, West Brom or Charlton are statistically likely to be automatically promoted. Many fans predicted that in August, though. Then again, they would probably have suggested Sheffield United would be in the mix too. Unless they “do a Sunderland”, the best they can hope for is the play-offs, like all but the bottom five clubs.

The table is far from irrelevant, whatever anyone tries to say. Tables do not lie any more after sixteen games than they do after forty six; they simply incorporate less information. Tables speak stats and matches speak stories: Watford players are disappointed with draws while their opponents are over the proverbial natural satellite. That is because Watford are top, and top they will stay for the rest of this year, though perhaps not the rest of the season. As well as the goal scorers, they have the team ethic necessary to navigate the Championship steeplechase.

There will be a wobble. There has to be, and some seem to think we are already feeling it. They may be right but with the international break upon us, it will be some time before we see whether that is the case. Betty has brought the team out of the other two breaks with back-to-back wins and there is no reason why Barnsley away and Burnley at home should not be games Watford can win, especially since their form away is now better than at home.

Watford can probably afford to lose two more games before Christmas and still be top when they travel to Southampton on New Year’s Day 2008. Bristol City, second for a handful of matches, can now be written out of the top two positions, especially since they travel to Vicarage Road and The Hawthorns in December. WBA also host Charlton and Wolves within the next five weeks. If they take maximum points from these three home games, they are likely to open up a gap over the third place team and could perhaps even steal pole position. For that to happen, though, their away record will have to improve.

I predict that Watford will be top of the Championship on December 31^st 2007. With the loss of ‘Boro on-loan wonder-kid Johnson and a defensive gap created by Danny Shittu going to the African Cup, the opening of the transfer window in January will be crucial to all of the teams looking for promotion and perhaps even for their subsequent possibility of surviving in the Premiership. Even the automatically-promoted teams will need to have better players and better teams than they have now. However, it is not just a question of buying in players that make the team stronger (rather than just boosting the squad) but also the capacity to avoid being raided by more-moneyed Premiership clubs when those windows open.

Aidy Boothroyd has proved he has what it takes to motivate his players. Some doubt his ability in the transfer market and it seems that the majority of those bought and brought into the squad in January 2007 have been superfluous to the team’s requirements. The summer splash brought in Jobi McAnuff from Crystal Palace and Nathan Ellington from WBA but these two players have yet to justify their transfer fees. The competition for places created by their purchase, though, may be a part of the motivation for the 23 goals scored by the players keeping them out of the team.

I have faith. Come and check it again in January.

Franchise football

Milton Keynes Dons v Watford

Wednesday 1^st August

stadium:mk is so new that I had trouble locating it before leaving London and got off at Milton Keynes only to discover a taxi ride was required to complete our journey. Being driven between the new town’s roundabouts feels like a giant version of join-the-dots but it’s not a pretty picture that you’d see from above. I’d been told that tickets had been sent back when I phoned Watford and that we could buy them “on the door” but a queue of hundreds snaking round the car park indicates the length of the wait we’re in for. Several fans just decide against the debacle and leave but after about fifteen minutes’ in line, sections of the queue start to break for the turnstile on the other side of the ground, so we do likewise only to find we have joined another queue for a poorly-staffed and incomplete ticket office which runs out of tickets twice before I pay £10 & £5 to get in twenty minutes after kick-off. My frustration is compounded by the fact that one of the electronic ticket readers isn’t working but the steward standing next to it can’t even be bothered to tell people.

The tempers of several large men made to wait had been rubbing up against each other and the stewards but when some of the latecomers started singing “We’ve got too many fans”, the mixture of pride and humour saw off the resentment that lingered. The outside of the stadium was more impressive (though, in black, it felt a touch like an 80’s dream) than the unfinished inside which lacked easily-visible signs, seats in the upper tiers, a scoreboard and a home crowd. Watford, in their Beko sponsored shirts and black shorts, were defending the goal we were sitting behind and were forced to do so when Dons’ players broke through on a couple of occasions. The new keeper Mart Poom,, the Lativan international we got from Arsenal, looked steady (if old – Joss commented that he looked tired).

In the break Joss got Jay Demerit’s autograph on his shirt and there was a ginger guy in the stand signing too but I didn’t know who he was… The second half saw us in their area for long periods and we struck the frame of the goal twice and forced saves from their keeper. Although it was a friendly, there was a least one significant scuffle but no cards were shown. Tamas Prisking missed a second chance and was replaced with Henderson, who received a standing ovation from some fans which may have been down more to his devotion in refusing to consider going to Preston rather than his successes of last season.

Hameur Bouazzaa, who didn’t play tonight, has let it be known he’d like to go to a Premiership team and Fulham have shown a £4 million interest. Danny Shittu didn’t play either (Clarke Carlisle was in the centre of defence) and I am still wondering about him. We spent a million and three-quarters on Jobi McAnuff from Crystal Palace and brought in Matt Jackson from Wigan. This game ended 0-0 and although we were the better side, we hardly outclassed them. The Championship is a slog, though.

Afterwards, Joss and I walked past oversized stores to Bletchley station and practised Spanish on the platform. He can say “Would you like a pizza?” and “What nationality are you?”. We head to Barcelona at the end of the month, returning just before the Ipswich home game.