Battered 'em (Pt. 2)

History will show that not all the records went the champions-elect's way this season and that will be because of how Watford outplayed and destroyed them on Saturday evening. The younger Watford Boy and I got to celebrate three initially unexpected goals - two by Sarr and one from Deeney - as the Red's unbeaten run came to an end.

Young Watford Boy's first post

We went to a football match (Watford V Leicester). In 30 seconds Watford scored! (1-0). Twelve minutes later Watford scored again! (2-0). Three minutes later there was a penalty for  Leicester and they scored (2-1). In  the end, Watford beat the champions!

Goal-tastic

 Watford are in third (though Leicester have two games in hand and are only three points behind) after thumping Birmingham 4-0 at St Andrews. The Horns have the best away record in the division and - as the BBC reports below - have scored the most goals.

One of our many loans from Udinese, the Czech international Matej Vydra, is our top scorer with 19 so far this season while Troy Deeney is having a great season and has netted 12 times. I have not been. My little boy is 18 months old and I will have to think carefully about whether I would buy a season ticket if we went up. It's great to have such a dilemma: with 10 points between us and seventh place, a play-off place looks likely with 14 games left.

The run-in

I am back in Britain and made the Vic one of my first stop-offs for the Hull match, which we lost 2-1. Since then we have drawn 2-2 at home to Norwich and an Elland Road game finished the same. On Good Friday, captain John Eustace scored after 43 seconds to win the home game against Barnsley and today we lost 4-2 after twice being ahead at Leicester.
Entrenched firmly in mid-table, there is little for Watford to play for when soon-to-be-champions QPR visit next Saturday. I may go but Joss has now established himself at the back of the ground with some friends and the youngest Watford Boy will not be born for three more months. I warned in the last entry that my football blog may be coming to a close. With Joss' evolution that time seems to be upon me.

Round up and away

After a dismal home performance against Scunthorpe, which we lost 2-0, it was even harder to convince myself to return to Vicarage Road on my birthday and final whole day in the UK for another year or so. Truth is though that this Watford Boy lost his passion for the matches a while before we left in 2008 and the sole reason for my continued attendance is a bit of time with my nephew.

Nevertheless, with the Hornets involved in a “thrilling” 3-2 away defeat (Portsmouth) and having beaten Ipswich at home in a game I did not get to (rain and broken bike stopped play), I was able to put aside the mauling at Derby and hope for a timely gift from the Golden Boys in the match against Nottingham Forest.

Jordan Mutch provided one after three minutes and my optimism held out another quarter of an hour before the Reds equalised. Another dull game finished all square but at least it was not as excruciating as the previous home match. A second “thrilling” 3-2 defeat (at Selhurst Park) since then has seen us slide into thirteenth and though the number may not bode well, most fans would take that as a final position, given a choice.

Eight hours ahead of GMT as I now am, many of the scores for the rest of the season will be looked up after a night’s sleep. This blog has become less a football diary and more a travel journal. Until the younger Watford Boy takes over the match reports, it will remain so. In the meantime, I cross my fingers for today’s trip to Turf Moor and hope for the fans’ sake that we can win a thriller again.

Sweet Dreams are made of (most of ) this

Starting a fortnight ago (2-0 at Bristol City), Watford won three games on the trot, including our biggest ever away victory (at Millwall's Den, 6-1) and then a 3-1 home defeat of Middlesbrough, Danny Graham latching on to a poor back pass to score after 17 seconds and give Hanna a great start to her first ever football game.

Last night, though, we were 3-0 down to Swansea (with Brendan Rodgers "Short, greedy bastard, you're just a...", Liam led) with three-quarters of the game gone and there seemed no way back as they outpassed us and outplayed us in the middle. Out of nothing, a Troy Deeney goal sparked a remarkable comeback from the 'Orns, that saw us score a second and have a 95th minute equaliser disallowed.

Though I have not been blogging much about the team's fortunes since my return I have been going and since we are in a very respectable 4th place after 9 matches, many fans feel that pre-season predictions of relegation were misplaced. Who am I to disagree?

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.

Survival of the just-fit-enough

Watford romped past Reading 3-0 on Saturday to ensure Championship survival in what every fan hopes was their nadir season. Danny Graham scored either side of a Heidar Helgusson left-footer. The Sheffield Wednesday v Crystal Palace match this Saturday will decide which of those two drops with Peterborough and Plymouth. Watford´s result at Coventry will be irrelevant for both teams.

As the manager and local paper have emphasised over and over, "survival" was all we hoped for this season as the mismanagement of the funds from an-always-going-to-be-one season in the Premiership with which this blog began left us worse off than if we had never won the single most lucrative game in world football. How the fuck does that work? Ask Graham Simpson.

Colleagues of mine who shared Friday drinks from the few years before I left London will know that I am an arrogant pedant who is too keen on the invitation “Wanna bet on it?”. My favourite win until recently was against a Russian friend who told us that she had been to the Kazakhstani capital. I won a couple of quid telling her that she hadn´t.

Watford´s guarantee of Championship football in 2010-11 along with a poor season for Oldham in League 1 means that I have won a two-and-a-half-year old wager with Luke that the Latics would (not) be in a higher league positon than the Hornets on 7th December 2010. I was sweating on it for a while but – good sport that he is – I received a congratulatory message from him following our victory.

Oh, and a hundred pounds is not to be sneezed at by someone who hasn´t had a full time job for two years.

It was all yellow...

I may have been at South America´s largest market (Otavalo, Ecuador) but despite the multi-hued blankets, belts, bags, bracelets and bowls, my mind was focussed on just one colour. 

In three weeks, Watford have lost two six-pointers (at Hillsborough and home to Palace) and drawn our other three games: two home points against Boro and Brom, one brought back from Deepdale. Three points in five is relegation form so today´s Vic victory against second-bottom Plymouth only brings temporary relief (whilst sealing Argyle´s fate). Our three main companions in the fight against ending twenty-second in the Championship (the two mentioned first, and Scunthorpe) all lost today. QPR, by beating Palace, are now probably safe on 51 points, barring some significant form-breaking results.

The bottom looks like this:

Team	Pld	GD	Pts	Fixtures
Watford	42	-10	48	QPR (a) Leicester (a) Reading (h) Coventry (a)
Scunthorpe	42	-24	47	Bristol C (h) Reading (h) Donc  (a) Forest (h)
Crystal Palace	43	-3	46	Derby (a) West Brom (h) Sheffield Wed (a)
Sheffield Wed	43	-19	45	Sheffield United (h) Cardiff (a) Palace (h)
Plymouth	43	-19	41
Peterborough	43	-28	31

Watford have three away games in their final four matches while Scunthorpe have three home ones out of four. Cystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday each only have three matches left, with Palace travelling twice and Wednesday once. Palace are only where they are because of a 10-point administration deduction but it is already clear that the final relegation position will only be decided on the final day, when they travel to Sheffield. I am not going to make a prediction. I just hope my fingernails hold out. How do the words go? “For you I bleed myself dry”...

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.

Horns away and home

The Golden Boys got a fantastic three points at Darlington on Saturday to take us above them, Don Cowie getting his third WFC goal a few minutes after they scored a 13th minute own goal. Tonight, though, we let in another late one to draw 2-2 with second from bottom Southampton. Another new boy, Aleksandrs Cauna, put us equal in the first half and Tamas Priskin looked to have sealed it in the second. We`re in a safe looking 15th now, though with no games in hand.

Home and Away, Away and Home

Watford v Charlton Athletic

Saturday 16^th August

Though the season has just begun, I couldn’t help but feel a bit Groundhog Day as the minutes passed on our first home league game of the 2008/9 season. The starting line-up was (slightly) different to any I’d ever seen, the subs’ bench included new on-season-long-loan Grzegorz Rasiak, and the first-team is trying to play a new style of football. Nevertheless, the elements of familiarity have bred sufficient ennui for me to recognise it in my own celebration of man-of-the-match Tommy Smith’s goal after half an hour.

Although Charlton were down to ten men before half-time, the Hornets didn’t really look like adding to the total until after Rasiak had come on for Tamas Priskin and put himself in the sort of positions the Hungarian doesn’t seem to find. It finished 1-0 though.

Got back to go out with Nicola and say goodbye before she went back to Brisbane. Beers in the Montagu Pike, where I was regaled with Julie’s exploits in too much detail, were followed by more and boogie in Bordeline, watching Faisel try to chat up every member of a hen party and more.

Nottingham Forest v Watford

Saturday 23^rd August

Followed the latter part of the match through TV updates as we watched highlights of the Olympics. The three clean sheets we’ve kept were undone by Forest, who took the lead twice only for Tommy Smith to equalise. Their third goal was the final one of the match.

Hanna and Rodney came round later and I proceeded to lose at tennis, golf and boxing on the Wii and at Texas Holdem too.

All around me are...

Watford v Bristol Rovers (Carling Cup 1^st Round)

Tuesday 12^th August

Joss met me in the shop having had to go back for his season ticket and we got him the new season’s shirt before queuing at our turnstiles, which will obviously be unable to cope when we get to the league games, and in just after kick-off to our slightly wet seats. Familiar faces behind but not in front: the ground was less than a third full and the glass felt the same way. We needed the programme to identify certain players: Theo Robinson (back from a long loan at Hereford), Ross Jenkins (namesake of one of the Taylor-era greats) and Jon Harley, while Scott Loach made his first start in a game we’ve seen.

It was clear that we were trying to keep the ball on the ground and equally so that we are not yet an accomplished passing side. Will Hoskins, replacing Tamas Priskin – who has a head injury – looked sharp and his low centre of gravity helped him make a few runs that were just a turn or two short of mazy. Robinson also looked dangerous at points but was unable to convert chances he created. At the back, Mat Sadler, Leigh Bromby, Adrian Mariappa and transfer-listed Lloyd Doyley dealt comfortably with the League One’s front men while the midfielders generally negated each other.

We took the opportunity of the break to get warm food and out of the cold and saw on the screens that Moses Ashikodi had put his loan side (Hereford again) ahead at Crystal Palace. “Typical,” I felt. Theo scored loads for them last season and now Moses may do the same. Meanwhile, we can’t score for the proverbial boiled sugar and butter. After half-time we moved back a few rows to avoid the latest shower and endured a half whose highlight was their keeper getting hit with a ball thrown back from the crowd and, five minutes later, retaliating when a kid tried the same thing from the row in front of where we’d been. Philips took some stick the rest of the match for that.

Watford substitutes included Ashley Young’s younger brother Lewis but it was another, Billy Gibson, who had the greater effect. I had not been looking forward to extra-time but fortunately was spared it when Hoskins latched on to a Gibson pass and coolly slotted home. Joss wants Luton at home (partly, I think, to taunt them over their thirty point deduction) but I am easy. This match was not.

Going to the dogs

Crystal Palace v Watford

Saturday 9^th August

Even before we’d been defeated by eventual play-off winners Hull City at the end of last season, Jordan Stewart had been allowed to leave. Nathan Ellington was loaned to Derby, where he joined Stewart, after one season as our record signing and departed with some words about the style of play he preffered. Danny Shittu seemed poised to join Rangers all summer but went to Bolton for £2 million a week or so ago and Darius Henderson left for the same fee to rivals Sheffield United, where he has already scored in pre-season. Other peripheral players left too and coming in we had Jon Harley from Burnley on a free. Meanwhile the chairman has announced that we have somehow spent all the money that we earned in our premiership season and from the sales of Ashley Young, Hameur Bouazza (now at Charlton) and Marlon King (now at Hull in the premiership).

There is talk that we may need to offload Tommy Smith and Jobi McAnuff this month too while the need for a striker was underlined by the nil-nil draw we got at Selhurst Park today. While there were “handbags” during a game we dominated, I was with Jun and friends in Chinatown pretending that going sixths on dim sum was a fair deal for a vegetarian before Rod gave three of us a lift to Walthamstow Stadium for one of the last evenings of greyhound racing there. I’d happily have traded the few pounds down I was on the races for a point away against a team that finished above us last year. It might just be that I’m unduly pessimistic.

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.

Same difference

Watford v Hull City

Sunday 11^th May

Our play-off semi-final first leg was full of incident and we actually played pretty well. With a Danny Shittu header disallowed after only five minutes, the boisterous Yellow Army might have been forgiven for thinking we’d score at home at last but with Nathan Ellington anonymous throughout, it was left for Jobi McAnuff to have the best (missed) chances with Tamas Priskin forcing a good save from their keeper and man-of-the-match, Myhill. However, way before the Hungarian impressed, we’d let in two early goals. The first derived from a mistake by centre-back Danny Shittu, who clashed into Mat Sadler out in the left-back’s position, leaving their winger to cross for a shot from Nick Barmby to slip under keeper Richard Lee. Fifteen minutes later after another scramble, Lee was unable to get up quick enough to stop a header from Dean “who ate all the pies” Windass.

The fans stayed behind the team for once and willed a goal before half-time that didn’t come. We started the second half in blistering form but that goal didn’t come and then our captain, John Eustace, got himself sent off for the second time in a couple of months and although we remained the better team, our chances of reducing the deficit ahead of Wednesday slipped by.

Scraping through

Blackpool v Watford

Sunday 4^th May

It was via the non-drama of BBC live text that I half-watched the drama unfold. Watford were one down within a couple of minutes at Bloomfield Road and still losing at half-time. Quarter of an hour into the second half and Darius Henderson received a second yellow leaving ten men to search for an equaliser. As it happens, at this stage of the afternoon even defeat would have left us in sixth but within ten minutes Tommy Smith, our player of the season, had equalised. Later Ipswich and Wolves both scored, which meant that the draw was what we required to see us into the play-offs on goal difference.

What can a fair-weather-fan say? I’ve used all the clichés about punching above our weight and have pointed out that the other relegated teams are still (and have now finished) below us. Nevertheless, with expectations so high after such a fantastic start to the season, how can the Yellow Army be less than disappointed with the performances of the last six months and the results over the last two? We can’t score, we don’t pass well and worse than that, we can’t beat even the lowest-placed sides in this division.

Home to third-placed Hull on Sunday 11^th and away on Wednesday 14^th must surely bring our season to an end. West Bromwich Albion finished champions and Stoke took second place. Bristol City (4^th) meet Crystal Palace in the other play-off final so I’d guess a Hull-Palace final at Wembley. Somehow, though, despite the narrow margin by which our season has been allowed to continue, there remains that fan’s hope that favouritism will triumph over realism.

Congratulations (but not for the football)

Andjelka's Wedding
Watford v Crystal Palace
Saturday 19th April

Leaving it late as usual, we had to catch a (loathed) black-cab from the wrong direction we'd been sent after Pimlico station but we arrived at Sacred Heart Church on Horseferry Road before the bride-to-be, which is all that matters. Our subsequent movement from (rushed) groom’s side of the church to (correct) bride’s precipitated motion in others yet it was more gratifying to see we weren’t the last in.

I hadn’t been to a wedding (bar my own) since my mum’s in 1991 so it was no surprise that I found ten-year-old artefacts in my jacket pocket. What I was doing with a “Subway” card, though, I’m not sure. Andjelka came in with her mother, sister and bridesmaid (Martin was waiting with his dad and best man) and we proceeded to take the obligatory photos of the back of the soon-to-be-married couple’s heads. The service was largely in Croatian, which seemed fitting since the most devout members of the congregation seemed to be on the same half of the aisle as us.

After the vows pictures were taken on the street and said some hellos before boarding a double-decker for the reception in Epsom. Jun and I waved regally from the front of the top deck as pedestrians looked up in surprise. Champagne was provided and later so was a Balkan spirit whose “bouquet” was sufficient to discourage me. We took more pictures at the hotel and started on the champers they had there ahead of the meal. With so much to organise I felt complimented that a vegetarian option had been ordered.

After the bouquet had been caught by the bridesmaid, I called Joss, who told me – before the score – that it had been a good game, thereby getting my hopes up only to crush them with the news that we’d lost two-nil. It didn’t ruin a great evening though. We toasted the happy couple, ate, drank, danced and gambled on roulette and blackjack tables before catching a late train back.

A point won

West Bromwich Albion v Watford

Saturday 12^th April

Jun, Joss and I visited the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and took in some Rodin and Canaletto to use up the extra hours we had arriving for a 3 o’clock kick off when Sky had obliged a 5.20 start. We ate and watched a little rugby in a Wetherspoons and then left Jun in the town centre to catch a tram from Snow Hill. A few other Watford boys were on the platform but I talked to a Baggies fan as we disembarked at the Hawthorns.

The start could not have been better: six minutes in and we were a goal to the good but as there was no stadium announcement it wasn’t until after the game that we discovered it was Leigh Bromby who’d poached his first Hornets goal following a corner. The team sat back somewhat after that and Jordan Stewart, Lloyd Doyley and Danny Shittu all made vital contributions to keeping us ahead at the break, which afforded the fans their first opportunity to sit. However, the home team levelled soon after half-time. One WBA free kick had gone over and another hit the crossbar in the first half but early in the second a third led to a headed goal and although we’d had other chances to score during the first forty-five it was West Brom who played the better football and looked most like getting a second in the rest of the match. Three or four great saves from man-of-the-match Richard Lee earned us a good point.

As most of us had no doubt expected a mauling after Wednesday, relief was probably the dominant feeling among the travelling Yellow Army and with Bristol City and Hull drawing in their games too, Stoke were the only top five side to get three points and they are top again. Watford remain in fifth and likely to enter the play-offs.

We met Jun and, due to a rail replacement service, caught a couple of buses to Bedworth via Coventry, where Brian and mum picked us up after eleven. Cups of tea and trifle finished off the day, but not before “Nanny and Grandad” received the Xmas presents we’ve been holding for more than a hundred days. Sunday we spent some time in the garden and went bowling, where the younger Watford Boy won two of the games before we trained it back home.

To boo or not to boo? That is the question.

This Watford fan (for twenty-nine years) is struggling with the arguments around how to respond to his team’s lacklustre performances.

What is the role of the football spectator in the modern game? It may seem a slightly dramatic question but I couldn’t help but wonder after I’d hushed my thirteen-year-old nephew as he cat-called during Watford’s latest home defeat (Wednesday’s, to relegation-threatened Barnsley). In retrospect I (very) slightly regret infringing his freedom of expression (ok, I’ll stop with the melodrama) but I’ve done my best over the years I’ve been taking him to instil in him my own values as a supporter.

For me, the word says it all. I take the definition of “to support” to mean “to encourage/to help” and pride myself on leaving many games hoarse as I cheer on the Golden Boys whether they win, lose or draw.

In that way I have to admit to a slight sense of superiority to those who go to games and hardly make a noise (and trust me, at Watford’s Vicarage road stadium there are thousands) even when the team is playing well and winning.

A great memory from last year’s relegation season was going to Old Trafford mid-week and out-singing 70,000 Manchester United fans as they cruised past us 4-0. My nephew and I joined in the deriding of those “plastic supporters” but at the Vic it would be hard to describe the “Yellow Army” as anything approaching a genuine twelfth man.

Nevertheless, I understand the argument that people have paid good money (£25 to watch from where I sit) and therefore have the right to respond to poor performances in a manner they deem appropriate. For many on Wednesday, that meant booing individual players during the match, booing the team at half-time when we were only a goal down and had created chances of our own, while others voted with their feet before the hour mark after we’d conceded a third.

My first reaction to those who booed so early remains unchanged. I believe that this is the only noise these people make at Watford matches: in game after game the front and back rows of the stand I am in cheers the team on whereas the silence from the middle is as noticeable as it is from the Rous stand.

Coded messages of thanks from the manager, chairman and captain after an exceptionally rousing ten-man night against Leicester a couple of months ago had a clear subtext: “Why can’t you always give us that level of support?”

Digression aside, the question of the spectator’s role remains. Is football now merely another form of entertainment, which demands no more loyalty than the latest play at the local theatre? (I choose that comparison because in a cinema booing would have no effect on the performers.)

Money has flooded the sport and changed it forever. Nevertheless, for those who choose their team because of a loyalty to locality rather than a desire to be identified with “a winning product” (hence the legions of United and Arsenal “plastics” in Watford), surely the team does not need to “earn” support anew at every match?

The raising of expectations undoubtedly makes their disappointment a harder fall. Watford sat nine points clear at the top of the Championship in November and have produced only a handful of good performances since then but were still expected to beat Barnsley (despite their FA Cup heroics).

Similarly, the size of a club is not an unrelated matter. How happy must many of the fans of FC United and AFC Wimbledon be with their league performances compared to fans of Tottenham or Newcastle? Obviously more booing has been heard at the Premier League sides than at the non-league ones.

Perhaps there is something else? After all, the reactions of many of those who turn up to watch matches seem implicitly to agree with Bill Shankly’s legendary assessment of the beautiful game: that it is much more important than life and death.

Not for me; Perspective, Shankly, have a word. Whether we go up through the play-offs or not, I will not be booing Watford or leaving matches early. I do not believe this fact alone makes me a “better” supporter than those who do but ceteris paribus the ability to laugh in the face of defeat, yes, and even humiliation, might make me a better man.

What is the role of the spectator? Is it ever justified to boo your team or individual players? What would cause you to boo a performance?