Top of the league

The season's first league game saw promotion hopefuls Norwich City host can-we-stay-up Watford and get spanked. The BBC may be reporting the first quarter of the game as dominated by the home team, but since the Horns were 2-0 up after 24 minutes, I have trouble concurring. Watching in a Marylebone pub with no volume except the banter of the Millwall fans behind me, I had to supply enough atmosphere for half a pub to care. Danny Graham helped, with two well-taken goals, but I thought John Eustace's 14th minute chest-and-half-volley effort was better, not least because he knew it made up for an earlier miss. Told to calm down after Adrian Marriappa should have put us 3-1 up during a Canaries spell of domination, I enjoyed milking our unexpected victory. Next Saturday, Adrian Boothroyd brings his Coventry side to the Vic and I go to my first Watford game for almost two years. It may not quite be like watching (in) Brazil, but I'm excited.

Two points lost, one place gained

Watford v Norwich City

Tuesday 4^th March

Walked to the Vic and there’d been some sort of power failure resulting in silly-size huddles by the turnstiles; I was huffing but the mood wasn’t like the MK game. Watford were dominating possession when I belatedly joined Joss in a wet and half-empty row, with a nod to a neighbour, and within a few hundred seconds Danny Shittu emerged as subtly as a cliché at a player-of-the-season awards ceremony to head another goal from a set piece.

Before the match Betty had come into the Rookery and shaken Joss’ hand (which beats me catching the ball a game or two ago) as he encouraged the twelfth man. The eleven dominated again but seem to have moved away from long balls down the middle only for long throw-ins and percentage play up front. Norwich didn’t make the same mistake twice and after the Duke, a square peg in the round Watford Way hole, missed a couple of free-kicks and Doris didn’t create anything, we ended up with three men trying to head the same ball with no opposition players in the picture. There were boos when scorer-in-the-last-game Jordan Stewart came on and more jeerers within five or ten minutes (a poor corner and a worse free-kick later) and inevitably some blaming him when Norwich equalised late on to win a lucky point.

A draw put us up a place to second behind the Robins, who got a point at Charlton. Walking out we heard the Baggies had won with the last kick of the game so the pressure is on. We are feeling it. The next two games are away at Ashton Gate and home to third-placed Stoke. We really needed all three points tonight and the Yellow Army was damp.