Wednesday 31 July 2013

WFC in 100 Objects - #38: Aidy Boothroyd's UFO

Seen over Vicarage Road by Aidy Boothroyd
“Unbelievable” said Chris Kamara. I suppose the fact that he was with us on that sunny Saturday in September 2008 meant that something unusual was bound to happen. It had already gone a bit weird when the experienced Estonian Mart Poom was forced off injured to be replaced by Scott Loach for his first taste of Championship football. Yet who could have foreseen what was to come?

The Hornets had been under increasing pressure in the early stages. A Reading corner was cleared behind by John Eustace, hooked back in to play by Reading, and if memory serves me rightly, someone in a hooped shirt forced the ball past Loach and onto the crossbar. Cue pandemonium. We all know the outcome and what the officials thought had happened now. But at the time, sitting in the stands, it was hard to comprehend exactly what they thought had happened. I assumed that they had somehow misinterpreted the ball coming back off the crossbar as having hit the back of the net with such ferocity that it had rebounded back into play. The possibility of the John Eustace clearance being the raison d'etre for Reading's lead hadn't even entered my mind.

 Text messages and half time phone calls and we were no longer in the dark. The sense of injustice was felt by fans and players alike. The Hornets dug deep and turned the game on it's head to take a 2-1 lead, only for the unfortunate Mr. Eustace to concede a late penalty and parity to be restored. Let's be honest. The phantom goal was not significant in itself in shaping Watford history. I'd even go as far to say that Reading were looking likely to score first anyway and only the thought of being the victims of such a wrongdoing, inspired the Hornets to fight back and get something out of the game. Still, it's peculiar enough to warrant some sort of representation in our Watford in 100 objects list. So we take inspiration from Aidy Boothroyd who compared the ghost goal to a UFO landing.

A spaceship as one of the 100 objects. Unbelievable Jeff.

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Sunday 28 July 2013

PODCAST: The Signs are Good

From The Rookery End are back for another season of podcasts (it's our fourth season) and this episode is basically our chance to get a lot of built up Watford chat out of our system.

We chat about the expectations for the season ahead (are they too hight?), the lose of John Eustace, the new look Watford Squad and we chat to Roy Moore about the new 1881 signing section!


Things we talked about:

Ian Grant's great blog post on BHaPPY's - "Farewell Captain Eustance".

In The Wolf's Mouths "Analyticas, marginal goals and Matej Vydra" blog post.

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Saturday 27 July 2013

The signs are good





Friday 26 July 2013

WFC in 100 Objects - #33 The Old Vicarage Road Scoreboard

"(Annoying opposition player name) what's the score? (Annoying opposition player name), (Annoying opposition player name) what's the score?"

Most football fans chant this to wind up the opposition player or manager, but for Watford fans it has been an honest question since 1993. Why? Well in 1993 the old Vicarage Road terrace was demolished to be replaced by the Paul Furlong funded, all seater, Vicarage Road stand. At the same time an Vicarage Road icon was removed - The Old scoreboard. It was the size of Star-Destoryer and made up of a bunch of filament light-bulbs, that using 1970 programming they displayed informative and motivational messages to Watford fans.

It was put up in 1978 and for many Watford fans it was key in knowing the score, the number of the last goal scorer, the number of the last substitution and how far into the 90 minutes the game was. For you Hornet fans like me, Jason and Mike it was what the scoreboard did after a Watford goal that made us love those flashing lights. Everytime a goal went in, three little yellow men, similar in look to an rave happy face with arms and legs, would appear jumping up and down, waving their hats enthusiastically. It was magical. So magical that a while back we asked Watford commentator Jon Marks to produce a special documentary about where those three jumping men are now.

   

Forward wind to the start of 2012-2013 season and a conversation at Opta (the sports stats people) about what makes your club iconic. Watford fan Matt Furniss, Opta Editor, brought up our old scoreboard and was enthused to try and get the scoreboard back. He started an online petition to get Watford fans behind the idea of getting the scoreboard back at the Vic. One man who saw the petiton was Chris Bratt. Chris is the man behind the fans run Watford FC Facebook page and is a bit of a technical whizz. Chris was able to produce a copy of the jumping men that he animated so the three men where jumping again.

They returned on 25th August 2012 when Almen Abdi put his penalty past Jack Butland in the 4th minute of Watford's 2-0 win over Birmingham.

It may not have been the return of the Old scoreboard, but the true essence of the old girl was back at Vicarage Road - Welcome back boys!

100 Object rules state that you can't put in an item that is still in use. We can't put the jumping men in, but we can put in the Old Vicarage Road Scoreboard.

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WFC in Object: #39 Tim Turner's Personalised Subbuteo Team

Our list of 100 Object that define Watford Football Club wouldn't be a great as it is without your contributions. Tim Turner, a Watford blogger at Albert McLenaghan's Throw-In sent in what is simply an amazing self made object. Here's Tim's story behind this Subbuteo Team.



Those of us growing up in the 70s and 80s didn’t have the likes of Football Manager to play, but we did have our own football simulation game: Subbuteo.

Once you’d got the basic set (a pitch, two goals, two teams and a ball), you could buy all sorts of extras, from stands and floodlights to miniature fans. But  the first thing you did was buy your own team. Subbuteo helpfully published a catalogue listing all the differently painted teams they sold and which clubs the colours applied to. So the team in yellow-gold shirts and black shorts, for example, was not just Watford, but also Wolverhampton Wanderers, Hull City and (I seem to remember) Newport County.

That was all very well in the early 70s, but as kits became showier, my Subbuteo Hornets began to look out of date. No problem. As a prolific builder of Airfix kits, I was already a dab hand with a fine paintbrush and a tin of Humbrol. I decided to pimp my team.

Having recently found the box containing my Subbuteo Watford team in my mum’s attic, I’m astonished at how good a job I did. How on earth did I manage to paint those fine red and black stripes down the arms? The precise shape of the collars? The moustaches?


Moustaches? Oh yes. I didn’t stop at updating the kit: I wanted my Subbuteo team to look like the real thing, so I made sure they had the right colour hair (there seems to have been a choice between black and brown), and moustaches where appropriate – and there were plenty of those, this being the era of Dennis Booth, Ian Bolton and co.

I also brought the racial balance of the team in line with reality. In Subbuteo’s world, all footballers were fair-skinned – well, pink – but Watford had a couple of black players by this time, so my miniature Hornets did too.

Rediscovering the box, I was surprised to find that there were actually two teams in it: one with red shorts and matching bases, and one with black shorts and bases. (Clearly, even then, I couldn’t decide which side of the great debate to come down on.) The work on the red team is more accomplished, but there are only nine of them, so either I never finished them, or a couple got trodden on or chewed by the dog – a constant risk if you played on the floor. Mind you, looking back now, I have a feeling that I spent a lot longer painting my Watford team than actually playing with it.

By Tim Turner
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WFC in 100 Objects #34 and #35 - John Barnes

There were many players that helped Watford rise through the leagues in the 1980's, but John Barnes was a the most electric. He almost redefined what a winger was, took on any defender who stood in front of him and even stole the show at Estádio do Maracanã in Rio where he scored one of the most Brazilian goals ever scored against Brazil.



Object #34: Sudbury Court Football Kit
Hunting down the next big talent and signing them for not a lot of money is the dream of every football club. So how did a future England World Cup star end up at Watford Football Club. When we talked to John he told us:

"A taxi driver happened to be watching a game, he thought I must have been a decent player. He knew a scout from Watford so he asked the scout to have a look at me. Tom Walley came and had a look and as they say the rest is history. A set of kick back then, I thought was a fair deal. They could have got me for nothing so Sudbury Court were happy with a set of kit."

No one could have predict what John went onto, especially Strictly Come Dancing, but hats off to Tom Whalley and Graham Taylor for negotiation that deal. John left Watford in 1988, when he moved to LIverpool for £900,000. Which, even in the current climate of transfers worth 10's of millions, that is some good business.




Object #35: John Barnes's Woolly Gloves
The second object for John is the Wooly gloves he would wear when the weather wasn't so clement. 

"I got a lot of stick for it because back then men were men. Especially Watford at that time has a lot of northern men. Northern men are tough, and as much as you've got southern softies, I was even softer than a southern softie."

If a pair of gloves kept John going and allowed him to be the original Lionel Messi then buy me a pair of wooly gloves now! The under garments that are available to the current Watford squad are vast and I'd hate to know what stick a snood wearing player would get off the Watford team of the 1980's.

-- RookeryJon
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