Wednesday 30 June 2010

WORLD CUP: Next Goal Wins (NGW)... Round 2 Update

The Next Goal Wins World Cup has come alive in the Second Round. But first a little explanation on how it works from here on in. Where fixtures in the NGW World Cup do not match those in the less exciting real competition, then the real team's result represents that of the team in our competition. For example, Chile won Group H in the NGW World Cup, so will be represented by Spain in the real thing. Simple! And the equivalent happens for top scorer. If David Villa (squad number 7) scores for Spain, then we will credit the goal to Chile's number 7 Alexis Sanchez.


On to the results! And what excitement. Only two of the major footballing nations are left at the Quarter Final stage with Germany beating England (not again!) and Italy scraping through on penalties against Japan. But Argentina & Netherlands are both out, crashing to Mexico & Paraguay respectively. Didier Drogba & Luis Suarez joined Asamoah Gyan at the top of the scoring charts with winners for Ivory Coast against the Swiss; and Uruguay to dispose of Greece. In the other games Chile beat Portugal & the Serbians are the third Euro team to progress after defeating USA.


So the Quarter Finals line up like this...


Paraguay vs Ivory Coast
Uruguay vs Serbia
Mexico vs Germany
Italy vs Chile


Much more exciting. I don't know about you, but I fancy the Mexicans! Check back later to find out who makes it to the Semi's!!!

Saturday 26 June 2010

WORLD CUP: Next Goal Wins... Update


Brazil - out! Spain - out! France - well they're rubbish anyway. But what an exciting end to the group stages of the Next Goal Wins World Cup. What's that? Well it's us following the world cup using the old playground rule of the Next/Last goal wins the game - no matter how many goals the other team scores.


So what happened in round 1 of our slightly surreal world cup, England got the goal they needed to set up a 2nd round meeting with Germany after losing to USA and drawing with Algeria. Brazil got a solitary point with a 0-0 draw with Portugal, but went out after conceding a 79th minute goal against Ivory Coast and the shock of the first round when North Korea took 3 points off them with a 89th minute goal.  And hats off to the Italians! They got their tactics spot on for next goal wins football with a hundred percent record. And that extra time goal vs Slovakia gave them a win, not loss. They face Japan in the next round. As for Spain, well their unenthusiastic slow tempo passing game against Chile cost them dear as the Swiss grabbed the last knockout spot available. 
Asamoah Gyan leads the way in the Golden Boot charts with 2. But the size of the chasing pack on 1 is increasing with every game. Can someone grab the initiative in the race to the top! So here is how the Round of 16 looks after
 
Winner A

Runner Up B
Uruguay
V
Greece

Winner C

Runner Up D
USA
V
Serbia

Winner D

Runner Up C
Germany
V
England

Winner B

Runner Up A
Argentina
V
Mexico

Winner E

Runner Up F
Netherlands
V
Paraguay

Winner G

Runner Up H
Côte d'Ivoire
V
Switerzland

Winner F

Runner Up E
Italy
V
Japan

Winner H

Runner Up G
Chile
V
Portugal

Check back later to find out the results from Round 2!


Oh and it looks like North Korean TV are ACTUALLY following the next goal wins method.






- Jason

Thursday 24 June 2010

The youth of today...



“You don’t win anything with kids”
“If you’re old enough you’re good enough”
“There’s no substitute for experience”


These are phrases that all football fans will be familiar with, each of them an often used part of every football pundits armoury. Apart from being massively overused, these three phrases have one other theme in common. Youth.

It’s fair to say that not everything talked about in football circles is applicable to Watford. “Mackay’s biggest task will be to keep the string of Internationals that don’t make his first team happy…” is not a phrase you’ll likely to hear any time soon. We don’t generally have to worry about resting players ahead of an exacting European campaign. Whether the 30 goal a season Italian World Cup star will chose Old Trafford or Vicarage Road is not an oft posed query. Questioning whether half of the squad have permission from their Mother’s to play, is perhaps more pertinent.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Watford’s immediate history, we find ourselves heavily reliant on youth. Boys that we have signed, then trained and nurtured. Youngsters that you probably wouldn’t let into a 15 rated film, much less be allowed to buy a pint. This is no bad thing though. Bringing through youngsters? We’re pretty good at it you know.

As I write this, myself and the rest of the Nation are counting down to England’s final World Cup game with Slovenia. Whilst the majority of the starting XI is unknown, the goalkeeper is already common knowledge. The man between the sticks for the big game? David James. Now almost 40 years old, James has played for some of the Countries biggest clubs. And Portsmouth.

I’m sure most of us don’t need reminding where DJ’s path to stardom began, but for those of you too young or too forgetful to recall, it was right here at Watford. A product of the Watford youth team, he played 98 times for the Hornets before leaving for Liverpool in a record breaking deal worth £1,000,000 in July 1992.

Whilst David James is approaching the end of his career (don’t tell him I said that!), Ashley Young is most definitely at the start of his. A more recent graduate from the Watford youth system, you would have had to have your head stuck in a large bucket of sand not to have noticed his meteoric rise. Unlucky not to feature in this summer’s World Cup, Ashley is a shining example and a fantastic illustration as to how seriously and how committed Watford are to progressing young talent.

For many, the quotes at the beginning of this piece are just words. Throw away remarks to fill time of space. Not for us. Not for Watford. Ahead of the new season we find our squad liberally sprinkled with graduates from our increasingly respected and recognised Academy. Marvin Sordell, Liam Henderson, Lee Hodson and Michael Bryan are sure to feature heavily this season and whilst a reliance on such young and inexperienced players could be cause for alarm at other clubs, it most certainly isn’t the case here.

We know that if a player comes through our system and appears on the Vicarage Road pitch in a yellow shirt, then age and experience really isn’t important. We know our system works. We know they’ll be good enough. Instead of approaching the season worried about our young squad and their ability to succeed, we approach it with both excitement and pride, safe in the knowledge that when it comes to bringing through youngsters, Watford do things right.

Multi million pound signings? No thanks. We make our own superstars here.

Come on you Horns!

- Rookery Mike

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Clap Your Hands Stamp Your Feet... RETURNS



The Legendary Watford Fanzine "Clap Your Hands Stamp Your Feet" is coming back for a one-off special. It's been a few years since the last one and we at From The Rookery End are very excited about it's return. It, and other Watford fanzines, are great inspirations for our podcast. We're an audio fanzine if you will.

Barry the editor sent the below message to the Watford Mailing List and I thought it well worth passing it on to you. They're are after any contributions you might want to give, so if you like to draw, write or express your support for Watford in a form that can go into a fanzine then send it in.

I'll let Barry explain all below.

Can't wait for it

- Rookery Jon

******

You may have heard the rumours about CYHSYF are going to do a one off special at the start of the season. I'm pleased to inform you that this absolutely true, but it depends on how much interest we can generate.

The last time Clap hit the streets under this brand name was around a decade ago, but it has also been a number of years since Look At The Stars, an amalgamation of Clap and a fellow fanzine, was being read in the stands of the Vic, so it is time for another helping of every Horns' fan favourite read.

We would be interested in hearing from all the old contributors (a lot has happened!) but as always, the fanzine is open to everybody. In particular, we'd like to hear the opinions of any new contributors.

I cannot stress enough, don't be shy. YOUR FANZINE NEEDS YOU! It doesn't matter if you think your article is rubbish, our dedicated team of editors will help you! We need all the padding we can get.

Cartoons, pictures, things you've created using Photoshop, serious articles, funny articles, jokes, ideas – this is an open shop.

So much has happened over the years. I'm sure you can think of something to send us. You may wish to roll back the years with `Learn To Play The Watford Way' or have a new Bafta award winning idea
lurking up your sleeve.

If we don't get the contributions rolling in, there will be no fanzine. It is as simple as that. It is up to you guys.

One final request, please can you send all of your stuff to:

cyhsyf@yahoo.co.uk

That address again – cyhsyf@yahoo.co.uk

As always, the message is the same.

Support the team.

Barry

Thursday 17 June 2010

Checking The Score


As Watford fans we can't always make it to games. And when we can't we often spend a Saturday afternoon being obsessed with trying to keep up with the score. If I'm not at a game I will normally have BBC Three Counties commentary in one ear, and if I'm ever stuck at an event like a wedding I often sneaking a look at iPhone under the table hoping to see a good score line.

On BBC Radio 2 this morning, Sports Johnny claimed that Elton John always called the club at 4.45 every Saturday to get the Watford score no matter where he was in the world. Chris Evans didn't believe he did it every week so they called the club to find out the truth and spoke with receptionist Sasha.

If you want to know exactly what Sir Elton does every match day to keep up with the score have a listen on the BBC iPlayer and scroll to 1:51:00.

- RookeryJon

WORLD CUP: Next Goal Wins


In the 1998 World Cup they called it the Golden Goal. In Euro 2004 they called it the Silver Goal. But when we used to play in the school playgrounds and local recs, it was always Next Goal Wins. So we at From The Rookery End want to see how the World Cup pans out using this method. How? Simple. When you play Next Goal Wins, the winning goal is always the last. So that's what we've done.
And it's a disastrous start for England. That goalkeeping blunder that everyone's been talking about is the significant incident in the Three Lions opener. And the shock of the first round of games? No, not The Swiss beating the Spanish favourites, but North Korea giving Brazil a lesson in Next Goal Wins footie. Bet Kim Jong-il will let them show that one on the telly! Perhaps the Brazillian jogadores de futebol need to learn from the World Champs on how to play. The Italians getting their tactics spot on for an opening victory. 

Watch out for it when you are watching the World Cup matches, and come back soon to see how the group stages progress in the Next Goal Wins World Cup!!!

- Jason

Wednesday 16 June 2010

WORLD CUP: Domestic Equivalent


When I watch international football I always have a look to see what the domestic equivalent is. International teams hardly play each other so it's something I do to help me compare teams and understand what to expect in a game. Below you can see the top 105 teams in the FIFA World Rankings and their English domestic equivalent (according to their finishing positions of teams in the England football leagues). Here are a few highlights.

Brazil - Chelsea
Spain - Manchester United
England - Everton
USA- Bolton
Switerland - Cardiff City
North Korea - Kidderminster Harriers

So Everton drawing with Bolton doesn't seem so bad and Kidderminster Harriers giving Chelsea a decent game seems a fantastic achievement. And Cardiff getting a win over Manchester United isn't that much of a surprise really. 

This is a classic thing that means absolutely nothing, but hey you might find it interesting to compare teams when you are watching the World Cup. It might distract you from the Vuvuzelas!

Oh - Watford's International Equivalent is Denmark.

- RookeryJon

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