Who is next year's ...?

Hull City v Watford

Saturday 29^th March

We had drawn our seven previous games but the failure of the other teams at the top to do much better meant that before this match and with a game in hand, winning an automatic promotion place was still in our own hands. Hull have been the form team of late, with wins at Plymouth and West Brom in February and five victories in March, and started above us on goal difference.

When Jun and I got to Sarah and Trevor’s, my brother told me were 2-0 down but when I saw the reports a little later I was heartened by the fact that the Baggies were losing and Bristol City and Stoke were only drawing. Things got worse, however, and after we’d conceded another and Steve Kabba had been sent off, West Brom equalised and then went ahead and the Robins got a winner. By five o’clock we were fifth and five points behind the leaders. Automatic promotion is no longer only down to what we do.

In Premiership news, Derby’s failure to beat Fulham coupled with Birmingham’s win meant the Rams became the first team to be relegated from the Premiership before April Fool’s Day and they look likely to record the worst points total ever, conceivably less than half Watford’s 28-point haul of last season. West Brom, despite glitches, should make automatic promotion. The second place could go to Bristol City, Stoke, Hull or us. The others will be trying to make it to Wembley to win the most lucrative single game of football ever (until next year) and the honour of being the bookies’ favourite to be relegated.

Who will be next year’s Derby? I’d still rather it was us than be in the Championship for another year but many don’t feel the same and a significant number feel we are so bad that the manager should go. One defeat in thirteen is hardly cause for sackings but seven points from the last twenty four feels insufficient for a team hoping for promotion. Nevertheless, I am with the Derby fans: there were more than thirty three thousand people at Pride Park watching two likely-relegated teams play. Loyalty may not be reciprocated by results but that is football.

WFC are a middling club who are punching slightly above their weight. Real fans will be happy about that even if they may also want more...What fan doesn't want more? More goals, more points, more clean sheets, more passing, more inspired substitutions, more tackles, more great signings…Hope is the fans’ life.

Oh what an atmosphere

Watford v Wolverhampton Wanderers

Saturday 2^nd February

I met Jo at Euston about 1:45 and we had the first pint in the Britannia overlooking the concourse and the dirt and dust of the kiosk roofs waiting for Ali. It was to be Jo’s first ever game and Ali’s first in England: they were excited. I was just hoping for better than last week. They marvelled over the speed of the journey (a first on Silverlink, I’m sure) and we were supping in Watford’s Moon Under Water by three. A drink in the Three Bells and then past St Mary’s to the Oddfellows. I was giving a running commentary all the while (I used to live there, this is new, used to work here) and they listened with good grace.

I chatted with some no-colours Wolves fan in the second pub and later we were surrounded by them in the place I used to be a pot-boy. Ali told me there’d been something in the newspaper about Maradonna retracting something to do with “the hand of God” and admitting that it was his hand. Sitting next to a table of Wolves fans I had to tell the story of the cheating Argie (I managed to get in a good bit about John Barnes’ crosses, for good measure) to someone who’d never heard it before.

Joss went in before us but after we had taken some pics outside the ground we joined him and then went to sit with a better view where the girls had tickets. There was bugger all atmosphere around though, despite Steve Kabba getting his first Watford goal within a minute. The woman next to me complained when Jo leant back to say something and so we returned to the “front row” at half-time (after a beer).

That turned out to be the best move of the day. It was a party down the front and I led my fair share of chants, the newbies joining in too. There seems to be a new bunch down there (we’ve been elsewhere for three games and the father of the father-and-son behind us that I half-chat to had mentioned they thought we’d given up) but there were some of the usual faces too.

Second half saw two Tommy Smith goals in two minutes, though I thought until Sunday that Nathan Ellington had scored the first, and we spent the rest of the game on our feet as I became ever more hoarse. Favourite new song was for Kabba: "He used to be shite, but now he's all right..."

We walked Joss down to meet Kerry and Phil and then headed back to pubs in town, managing a crawl down to the pond end. Last was O’Neils, where some guy tried I talked to tried to make a racist joke at Malky Mckay’s expense, clearly unaware that he was white. After that, it was non-stop Watford cleavage all night. Jo and Ali attempted to make football conversation but were non-plussed that nobody except us cared. After hanging around to see whether the local constabulary had much to do, we caught a late train back, and I was at home about one, whispering.

Joy in repetiton

Wolverhampton Wanderers v Watford

11^th August 2007

My brother Trevor and his girlfriend Sarah brought my niece Kasey over last night and we stayed in, chatted and played Risk. After a walk along the canal and through Regents Park this afternoon, we had a pizza at a chain restaurant near Euston and ended up resurrecting last year’s argument about the amount of money Watford earned from TV by being promoted. This time, Trevor claimed my position had been his, which I guess is a form of admission that I was right…

Anyway, afterwards I headed over to the Greenwich Pensioner, a pub in Poplar that I’d rung in the week and whose landlady had agreed to show the match live. I chose the pub for its location close to the O2 Centre (Millennium Dome), where I was heading for my second concert of three in a month. I turned up ten minutes into the game and felt the eyes of the locals on me. The game was goalless and Wolves slowly seemed to be having more of it, with a great chance being put high over by Olofinjana.

Just before halftime though, the Wolves midfielder made amends by lobbing Mart Poom after being put clear through with only our keeper to beat. The second half started with them threatening to increase the lead and narrowly missing twice. Jobi McAnuff had a chance too but fired straight at the keeper. The landlord, who I’d chatted football with, came and sat with me and I told him (a United fan) about Joss’ conversion (“Nah, that’s out of order as it happens”). In the meantime two other locals rehashed an argument they’d obviously run through before (Arsenal a foreign team) and one that I’d used on Trevor when he was being racist about Watford players.

Rod and Air turned up with about 30 mins to go and Rod proved to be a lucky charm again. The two live matches he’s been to have resulted in Watford wins and with three minutes left on the clock Watford won a free kick just outside the box that Jordan Stewart took. He’s got a mean shot on him but the deflection was probably what took this one in for his first Watford goal. Earlier today I’d read that the latest goal scored in the Premiership last season was by Bolton against Watford in the 96th minute. So it was that balance was achieved with the foul on Steve Kabba leading to a penalty at a similar time of the game.

Marlon King strode up to take it and blasted high into the net and I was up on my feet in the pub. One of the older locals smiled at me. I shook the landlord’s hand as I left a few minutes later. Football’s great.

Rod dropped me off at Canary Wharf station where I met Faisel and we caught the tube one stop to North Greenwich. I gave him the Prince ticket I bought on ebay and we went in to see the man, who opened with Purple Rain and played many of his hits but not all of them all the way through. His show is flawless but leaves you wanting more when once he delivered it all.

A tale of two first penalties

West Ham v Watford

Saturday 10^th February

Never mind that we’d got on a wrong train and had to go back a stop from Aldgate, we made it to Upton Park for the second time in two weeks, with Joss predicting a 1-0 win, in plenty of time to join in the pre-match warm-up shouts. Joss, who’d been chatty on the train and quick to pick up the Spanish he was supposed to have learnt for today, had a bit of a headache from falling out of bed last night and didn’t shout as much as usual but I made up for him. We were twenty rows further back than a fortnight ago and amongst a loud bunch of kids who kept the shouting up all game.

It was the best of times on 13 minutes, when Henderson, who’d already looked better than he has been, was pulled back in the box by Anton Ferdinand and awarded a penalty. Our glee turned to apprehension when we saw he was to take it. In a long build-up, Calum Davenport was booked for encroaching but when Henderson stepped up, he calmly slotted it into the bottom left hand corner and the Horns were a goal ahead. It was Watford’s first Premiership penalty and Henderson’s first goal of the season. Such firsts so late in the term are amongst the reasons we are last.

Johan Cavalli, the French midfielder we signed on the transfer deadline day for free from Istres, made his debut and looked skilful and effective, shielding the ball well and weaving around players easily. Unable to read his name and not having heard it at the beginning, the deft touches he displayed led me to assume he was our Brazilian signing, Douglas Rinaldi. Anyway, I thought he was the most effective of the three midfielders who came in January that I have seen so far. He was playing where Hameur Bouazza would be, though, so I hope Betty can find a way to keep them both in the team. If so, it might have to be Damien Francis who makes way.

We were pretty resilient in defence, and when “England’s Number One” (who played his full debut for the national side in our lame 1-0 defeat to Spain on Wednesday) was called on to perform, he made a fine save from a Yossi Benayoun long range effort. Marlon Harewood missed a number of chances and we didn’t have too many more but we went in up at the break. Carlos Tevez came on in the second half and was their biggest threat for the next fifty minutes.

However, West Ham’s best chance came when our captain, Gavin Mahon, was adjudged to have fouled their captain, Nigel Reo Coker, and they were awarded their first penalty of the season. After we took our hands out of our heads, we joined in another bout of “England’s number one”. Foster, however, went the wrong way and could only watch as…Harewood hit it wide. I led another chant of “That’s why you’re going down” as West Ham had their worst of times. I do love this type of schadenfreude.

There was plenty to sing about and I led quite a few today. “Is this a library” and the Moses Ashikodi song after he came on, which was evidently new to many around. Steve Kabba also put a lot of work on and was rewarded with 2 chants. Mine (his name to the “Come on, come on” tune) was superseded by a “Super, super Steve, super, super Steve, super, super Steve, super Stevie Kabba”. We finished with “the Horns are staying up”. The Hammers next game is against Charlton, ours against Wigan. Then we play Charlton at the beginning of March. Nothing is absolutely ruled out yet. It is the epoch of belief.

We walked to East Ham, getting there a lot more quickly and easily than last time and a guy (Hammer) I play football with at Regents Park, Eric, was there by the ticket gates. I gave him a big hug, which he just loved. Joss and I practised more Spanish on the way home and he was remembering stuff well. I promised we’d take him abroad in the summer if he makes sufficient effort with the language. How do you say “bring on the FA Cup run” in Espanol?