One Game at a Time: You’re Only here for the Pasties
Watford (A) August 12th
The start to the season is always hectic, so first of all apologies as I get back into the rhthym of the games. A League Cup tie is always a chance to get some minutes into the typing fingers. No squad rotation at OGAAT Towers.
Luckily for Schuey, the visit of the O’s allowed him a chance to get some new faces on the pitch and minutes under their belt. Only KKH started the game from Saturdays opening XI, and after a couple of hefty challenges he was withdrawn at half time.
As first halves go, it was pretty impressive. Two in the onion bag for the Waine train, and two chalked off by the vigilant assistant referee, denying Waine a hat-trick and Azaz a goal to match the ones his returning loanees from last season chalked up at the weekend. Impressive season starts for T Wright and Saxon Earley as well. Issaka grabbed an assist and was a threat, and Caleb Roberts came on and looked comfortable at the higher level. If this is what the Academy can produce now imagine what we are going to see when they have the facilities being proposed.
In the second half, depending on whose press conference you believed, either Orient stepped up (Wellens) or we eased of and did what was needed to go through (the rest of the world). Either way a healthy crowd of over ten thousand went home happy with what they saw, and the following evening, were delivered a home tie against Crystal Palace as a reward.
The only thing missing so far from a near perfect start to the season is the unicorn, sorry, new striker, that we are chasing all across Europe it would seem, and some time for the groundsman to get the pitch back into the pristine shape our manager and his squad desire. You get the impression from Schuey’s answers that the thrill of being asked when said new striker(s) is/are arriving has lost the novelty appeal it once had.
On the other hand, consider how Daniel Farke feels, having raided former club Norwich for not one but two full backs, only to have Max Aarons walk out of his medical to head to the Dorset coast and Bournemouth, in preference to the Mighty Whites. Then again if you are going to set your stall out in a nickname, probably best not to go for one that sounds like a loaf of bread.
It seems like the whole of the Championship is swirling around like a Benny Hill procession chasing the same list of players, and with still three weeks of window left there are plenty of twists and turns to come. Even whilst writing this Kane appears to be heading to Bayern, Villa may be about to sell Archer, and Gnonto has declared himself unavailable for Leeds, albeit that may be a means of preserving his declining value after a less than stellar game against Cardiff at the weekend. Everton have placed a hold on Tom Cannon going anywhere until their new arrivals arrive. Stoke have lost Jacob Brown to Luton. Still Niall Ennis got off the mark at Blackburn in their 4-3 win over Walsall. And Connor Grant and Danny Mayor had a déjà vu "what are you/we doing here" moment at Vale Park in a somewhat more subdued atmosphere than their last visit just a couple of months ago.
The weekend sees Argyle on the road for the first time, in what we would call a near derby and they will doubtless call an epic trek to the edge of the world when they do the reverse journey, as Watford are our hosts in what can only be described as a six pointer top of the table clash, first against third. And it's only week two.
Watford’s start, a four nil first half rampage against QPR has already started speculation on the first Championship management casualty of the season. Obviously not Gareth Ainsworth, whose wild-eyed defence of the indefensible after the game was considered by many Rangers fans as the first stage of his descent into a previously unknown tenth circle of Hell, that Dante had to edit out of his epic “The Inferno” as being too cruel for any man to endure. Enjoy, Gareth.
No, the pressure must have ramped up substantially on Valerian Ishmael, after his tepid second half display of zero goals against the R’s. This was followed up by a one all stalemate at Stevenage and a tame exit on penalties in their League Cup tie. Trigger pulling form in Watford circles.
Ishmael, known for the success of the now in vogue term of “Val-ball” when at Barnsley, swiftly followed by a dress rehearsal for being Watford manager, in his supremely brief spell in charge at West Brom, has overseen the departure on twenty players from the Watford squad since arriving. Even more remarkable is the fact that despite that, all eleven of his first starting XI on Saturday were existing players. New signings Ince, Livermore, Healey and Chakvetadze are all biding their time for first team starts. Indeed, the only change for the League Cup trip to determine the pride of Hertfordshire at the Lamex was a goalkeeper swap with Ben Hamer replacing Bachmann. The game against Argyle will be a case of stick or twist, selection wise.
The club, until the arrival of Barnet (temporarily), and then Stevenage, the only League club in Hertfordshire, was formed in 1881 when the Earl of Essex granted a group of local youths led by one Henry Grover the right to play at Cassiobury Park. The club was known as Watford Rovers, playing a first FA Cup tie in 1886 against Swindon Town. In 1890 Watford Rovers began to play a Cassio Road, a calculated move in many fans’ eyes, changing their name to West Herts FC in 1893.
From here the club joined the Southern league in 1896, and in 1898, whilst absorbing local rivals Watford St Mary’s, and became Watford FC.
Their first game against Argyle was in the Southern League in 1904 and this period, interrupted by the First World War and then by the mass accession of the Southern League sides to the expanding Football League, represents the most consistent period of regular meetings between the two sides. It culminated with the 1929/30 final game of the season when Argyle at last threw the promotion monkey off their back, and, having already received a giant pasty on a stretcher pre match, won the Division 3 championship with a 2-1 win.
Watford, who had by now moved to Vicarage Road, had battles against re-election in the twenties, but stabilised in the 1930’s and were consistently in the top six of that division, until the outbreak of World War Two.
Post war the club was unremarkable in its impact. It once again flirted with financial issues and re-election, and in 1958 when the regionalised third divisions were reorganised into the structure (if not the nomenclature of) of todays pyramid, Watford were literally South of the dividing line and were allocated a place in Division 4.
This led the then Chairman to resign. Rigby Taylor was in charge for twenty years, but his long abiding legacy was the formalisation of the rivalry that had developed between his side and local Bedfordshire neighbours Luton Town into a two legged initially home and away friendly match played for a trophy. Between 1953 and 1963 there were seven matches, resulting, as the first was a two-legged affair in the trophy being awarded six times. Luton have won four, but as Watford won the last two in the early 1960’s they retain the trophy. The rivalry allegedly became more intense when a Vauxhall plant for trucks and vans, destined to be built in Watford was at the last moment relocated to Luton.
The other major change at this time was a switch from blue shirts to the now better known amber and black. The club also adopted the nickname “The Hornets”, replacing “The Brewers” from their association with Benskins brewery. Harry The Hornet became their mascot in 1977 but was replaced on the badge later by a hart, a Hertfordshire emblem of a male fallow deer. The club don’t mind playing around with tradition, when after having for many years run out to Z Cars , as do Everton, they switched briefly ( ironically in their now all seater stadium) to Elton John’s I’m Still Standing. It was a short lived change, and Z Cars will be blaring out on Saturday.
The club continued in the lower divisions, finally reaching Division 2 (as the Championship was in those days) in 1969. They stay was short-lived and in 1974 a local pop star, and lifelong fan Reginald Dwight became a director. Three years later he bought the remaining shares of the then owner Jim Bonser and appointed a young ambitious track suited manager who had gained promotion from Division Four with a record points total for Lincoln City. The Elton John/Graham Taylor years had arrived.
In five seasons the club from 1977 went from Division 4 to the First division. They then finished as runners up in their first season, to Champions Liverpool. In seven successive seasons the team surpassed the achievements of the previous one. Alongside the playing success the new Chairman oversaw a substantial redevelopment of the facilities and a rebuilding of the local community links that had become disengaged from the club. The club played attractive attacking football, and blooded fine new talents including Luther Blissett and John Barnes, developed through their own youth framework.
It could never happen again……..could it?
In 1984 Watford reached the FA Cup final for the first time. That they lost 2-0 to Everton in the final is a fact as irrelevant to Argyle fans as the fact they were missing their captain Wilf Rostron for the game, goaded into getting suspended by rivals Luton Town in the run up to the final. No, the only relevant fact for Argyle fans is that Watford won the semi-final one nil with a George Reilly goal, despite being largely outplayed by Argyle on the day, and but for an errant bounce of Kevin Hodges last minute scuffed shot that squeaked past the post, extra time would have undoubtedly resulted in a win for the “plucky” underdogs. Well maybe.
After ten years Taylor decided to move on, first to Villa, and then famously to England and “Do I not Like that!” and Turnip Taylor back pages in the Sun. His replacement was Dave Bassett, ex of Wimbledon, and then Steve Harrison, the man once sacked by England for being the number 2 who did a number two from a great height into a paper cup. Allegedly.
Elton had sold up, to George Petchey in 1990, but returned in 1996, swiftly followed by Taylor. The magic of their first years did not accompany them and Watford bounced between the top two divisions, pausing only to deflate Argyle Wembley dreams again in 2007 when Hamid Bouazza’s stunner and Ben Foster pulling off a string of incredible saves gave them a quarter final win at Home Park.
Despite managers of the ilk of Boothroyd, Rogers and Dyche, the club eventually ended up in the hands of local businessman and former bankrupt Laurence Bassini. Bassini, formerly Bazini, owned the club for thirteen fateful months from May 2011, before selling it to Udinese and Granada football clubs’ owners Giampolo and Gino Pozzo. Bassini, despite another bankruptcy, despite having milked (or bilked) Watford for a million and a half quid has managed to have runs at owning Bolton, Charlton and most recently Birmingham City.
Pozzo Senior, has a chequered past in that he sold the family toolmaking business to Bosch and then bought Serie A club Udinese. Shortly afterwards the club was embroiled first in a betting scandal resulting in relegation, and then a match fixing scandal which resulted in a points deduction.
The Pozzo business model is simple. They acquire players cheaply, develop them and sell them on at a profit. Part of that model is that the clubs frequently loan players between the clubs they own. The players get game time and development, the clubs get better players and the eventual profits fund the next crop. All three clubs have improved over the seasons, and yet traditionalists see this intermeshing of clubs loaning players as somehow unfair, even though the loaning of players between unconnected clubs is absolutely rife.
What has become rife at Watford under the Pozzos has been the regular despatching of managers since their arrival. Between 2012 and 2019 the club had ten (I think, I may have missed one and only used my fingers) including three in a month in September 2014.
Since 2019 the dismissal pace has, remarkably, picked up, with Ishmael being the twelfth manager since the beginning of the 19/20 season. Accepting that not all of these have been dismissals, stability is hard to engender when the turnover of both players and coaching/management are so fluid. And some of those coaches replaced were not all bad. One of them was Rob Edwards, recruited from Forest Green, and then dismissed, but who was then snapped up by rivals Luton, and who took the unfashionable Bedfordshire side to the Premier League via the play-offs. Ouch.
Argyle have a decent record at Watford…..the fifteenth best of any opponent where we have won as many as we have lost (19), including such memorable moments at the 2007 last minute winner when David Norris poked home a Barry Hayles cross in the last minute. Norris is still turning out for Lancaster City. Hayles, nine years his senior played for Windsor last season and was recently capped by the England over 50’s.
And the window is still open…..and we do need a couple of players still.
COYG!!!!!
Watford (A) August 12th
The start to the season is always hectic, so first of all apologies as I get back into the rhthym of the games. A League Cup tie is always a chance to get some minutes into the typing fingers. No squad rotation at OGAAT Towers.
Luckily for Schuey, the visit of the O’s allowed him a chance to get some new faces on the pitch and minutes under their belt. Only KKH started the game from Saturdays opening XI, and after a couple of hefty challenges he was withdrawn at half time.
As first halves go, it was pretty impressive. Two in the onion bag for the Waine train, and two chalked off by the vigilant assistant referee, denying Waine a hat-trick and Azaz a goal to match the ones his returning loanees from last season chalked up at the weekend. Impressive season starts for T Wright and Saxon Earley as well. Issaka grabbed an assist and was a threat, and Caleb Roberts came on and looked comfortable at the higher level. If this is what the Academy can produce now imagine what we are going to see when they have the facilities being proposed.
In the second half, depending on whose press conference you believed, either Orient stepped up (Wellens) or we eased of and did what was needed to go through (the rest of the world). Either way a healthy crowd of over ten thousand went home happy with what they saw, and the following evening, were delivered a home tie against Crystal Palace as a reward.
The only thing missing so far from a near perfect start to the season is the unicorn, sorry, new striker, that we are chasing all across Europe it would seem, and some time for the groundsman to get the pitch back into the pristine shape our manager and his squad desire. You get the impression from Schuey’s answers that the thrill of being asked when said new striker(s) is/are arriving has lost the novelty appeal it once had.
On the other hand, consider how Daniel Farke feels, having raided former club Norwich for not one but two full backs, only to have Max Aarons walk out of his medical to head to the Dorset coast and Bournemouth, in preference to the Mighty Whites. Then again if you are going to set your stall out in a nickname, probably best not to go for one that sounds like a loaf of bread.
It seems like the whole of the Championship is swirling around like a Benny Hill procession chasing the same list of players, and with still three weeks of window left there are plenty of twists and turns to come. Even whilst writing this Kane appears to be heading to Bayern, Villa may be about to sell Archer, and Gnonto has declared himself unavailable for Leeds, albeit that may be a means of preserving his declining value after a less than stellar game against Cardiff at the weekend. Everton have placed a hold on Tom Cannon going anywhere until their new arrivals arrive. Stoke have lost Jacob Brown to Luton. Still Niall Ennis got off the mark at Blackburn in their 4-3 win over Walsall. And Connor Grant and Danny Mayor had a déjà vu "what are you/we doing here" moment at Vale Park in a somewhat more subdued atmosphere than their last visit just a couple of months ago.
The weekend sees Argyle on the road for the first time, in what we would call a near derby and they will doubtless call an epic trek to the edge of the world when they do the reverse journey, as Watford are our hosts in what can only be described as a six pointer top of the table clash, first against third. And it's only week two.
Watford’s start, a four nil first half rampage against QPR has already started speculation on the first Championship management casualty of the season. Obviously not Gareth Ainsworth, whose wild-eyed defence of the indefensible after the game was considered by many Rangers fans as the first stage of his descent into a previously unknown tenth circle of Hell, that Dante had to edit out of his epic “The Inferno” as being too cruel for any man to endure. Enjoy, Gareth.
No, the pressure must have ramped up substantially on Valerian Ishmael, after his tepid second half display of zero goals against the R’s. This was followed up by a one all stalemate at Stevenage and a tame exit on penalties in their League Cup tie. Trigger pulling form in Watford circles.
Ishmael, known for the success of the now in vogue term of “Val-ball” when at Barnsley, swiftly followed by a dress rehearsal for being Watford manager, in his supremely brief spell in charge at West Brom, has overseen the departure on twenty players from the Watford squad since arriving. Even more remarkable is the fact that despite that, all eleven of his first starting XI on Saturday were existing players. New signings Ince, Livermore, Healey and Chakvetadze are all biding their time for first team starts. Indeed, the only change for the League Cup trip to determine the pride of Hertfordshire at the Lamex was a goalkeeper swap with Ben Hamer replacing Bachmann. The game against Argyle will be a case of stick or twist, selection wise.
The club, until the arrival of Barnet (temporarily), and then Stevenage, the only League club in Hertfordshire, was formed in 1881 when the Earl of Essex granted a group of local youths led by one Henry Grover the right to play at Cassiobury Park. The club was known as Watford Rovers, playing a first FA Cup tie in 1886 against Swindon Town. In 1890 Watford Rovers began to play a Cassio Road, a calculated move in many fans’ eyes, changing their name to West Herts FC in 1893.
From here the club joined the Southern league in 1896, and in 1898, whilst absorbing local rivals Watford St Mary’s, and became Watford FC.
Their first game against Argyle was in the Southern League in 1904 and this period, interrupted by the First World War and then by the mass accession of the Southern League sides to the expanding Football League, represents the most consistent period of regular meetings between the two sides. It culminated with the 1929/30 final game of the season when Argyle at last threw the promotion monkey off their back, and, having already received a giant pasty on a stretcher pre match, won the Division 3 championship with a 2-1 win.
Watford, who had by now moved to Vicarage Road, had battles against re-election in the twenties, but stabilised in the 1930’s and were consistently in the top six of that division, until the outbreak of World War Two.
Post war the club was unremarkable in its impact. It once again flirted with financial issues and re-election, and in 1958 when the regionalised third divisions were reorganised into the structure (if not the nomenclature of) of todays pyramid, Watford were literally South of the dividing line and were allocated a place in Division 4.
This led the then Chairman to resign. Rigby Taylor was in charge for twenty years, but his long abiding legacy was the formalisation of the rivalry that had developed between his side and local Bedfordshire neighbours Luton Town into a two legged initially home and away friendly match played for a trophy. Between 1953 and 1963 there were seven matches, resulting, as the first was a two-legged affair in the trophy being awarded six times. Luton have won four, but as Watford won the last two in the early 1960’s they retain the trophy. The rivalry allegedly became more intense when a Vauxhall plant for trucks and vans, destined to be built in Watford was at the last moment relocated to Luton.
The other major change at this time was a switch from blue shirts to the now better known amber and black. The club also adopted the nickname “The Hornets”, replacing “The Brewers” from their association with Benskins brewery. Harry The Hornet became their mascot in 1977 but was replaced on the badge later by a hart, a Hertfordshire emblem of a male fallow deer. The club don’t mind playing around with tradition, when after having for many years run out to Z Cars , as do Everton, they switched briefly ( ironically in their now all seater stadium) to Elton John’s I’m Still Standing. It was a short lived change, and Z Cars will be blaring out on Saturday.
The club continued in the lower divisions, finally reaching Division 2 (as the Championship was in those days) in 1969. They stay was short-lived and in 1974 a local pop star, and lifelong fan Reginald Dwight became a director. Three years later he bought the remaining shares of the then owner Jim Bonser and appointed a young ambitious track suited manager who had gained promotion from Division Four with a record points total for Lincoln City. The Elton John/Graham Taylor years had arrived.
In five seasons the club from 1977 went from Division 4 to the First division. They then finished as runners up in their first season, to Champions Liverpool. In seven successive seasons the team surpassed the achievements of the previous one. Alongside the playing success the new Chairman oversaw a substantial redevelopment of the facilities and a rebuilding of the local community links that had become disengaged from the club. The club played attractive attacking football, and blooded fine new talents including Luther Blissett and John Barnes, developed through their own youth framework.
It could never happen again……..could it?
In 1984 Watford reached the FA Cup final for the first time. That they lost 2-0 to Everton in the final is a fact as irrelevant to Argyle fans as the fact they were missing their captain Wilf Rostron for the game, goaded into getting suspended by rivals Luton Town in the run up to the final. No, the only relevant fact for Argyle fans is that Watford won the semi-final one nil with a George Reilly goal, despite being largely outplayed by Argyle on the day, and but for an errant bounce of Kevin Hodges last minute scuffed shot that squeaked past the post, extra time would have undoubtedly resulted in a win for the “plucky” underdogs. Well maybe.
After ten years Taylor decided to move on, first to Villa, and then famously to England and “Do I not Like that!” and Turnip Taylor back pages in the Sun. His replacement was Dave Bassett, ex of Wimbledon, and then Steve Harrison, the man once sacked by England for being the number 2 who did a number two from a great height into a paper cup. Allegedly.
Elton had sold up, to George Petchey in 1990, but returned in 1996, swiftly followed by Taylor. The magic of their first years did not accompany them and Watford bounced between the top two divisions, pausing only to deflate Argyle Wembley dreams again in 2007 when Hamid Bouazza’s stunner and Ben Foster pulling off a string of incredible saves gave them a quarter final win at Home Park.
Despite managers of the ilk of Boothroyd, Rogers and Dyche, the club eventually ended up in the hands of local businessman and former bankrupt Laurence Bassini. Bassini, formerly Bazini, owned the club for thirteen fateful months from May 2011, before selling it to Udinese and Granada football clubs’ owners Giampolo and Gino Pozzo. Bassini, despite another bankruptcy, despite having milked (or bilked) Watford for a million and a half quid has managed to have runs at owning Bolton, Charlton and most recently Birmingham City.
Pozzo Senior, has a chequered past in that he sold the family toolmaking business to Bosch and then bought Serie A club Udinese. Shortly afterwards the club was embroiled first in a betting scandal resulting in relegation, and then a match fixing scandal which resulted in a points deduction.
The Pozzo business model is simple. They acquire players cheaply, develop them and sell them on at a profit. Part of that model is that the clubs frequently loan players between the clubs they own. The players get game time and development, the clubs get better players and the eventual profits fund the next crop. All three clubs have improved over the seasons, and yet traditionalists see this intermeshing of clubs loaning players as somehow unfair, even though the loaning of players between unconnected clubs is absolutely rife.
What has become rife at Watford under the Pozzos has been the regular despatching of managers since their arrival. Between 2012 and 2019 the club had ten (I think, I may have missed one and only used my fingers) including three in a month in September 2014.
Since 2019 the dismissal pace has, remarkably, picked up, with Ishmael being the twelfth manager since the beginning of the 19/20 season. Accepting that not all of these have been dismissals, stability is hard to engender when the turnover of both players and coaching/management are so fluid. And some of those coaches replaced were not all bad. One of them was Rob Edwards, recruited from Forest Green, and then dismissed, but who was then snapped up by rivals Luton, and who took the unfashionable Bedfordshire side to the Premier League via the play-offs. Ouch.
Argyle have a decent record at Watford…..the fifteenth best of any opponent where we have won as many as we have lost (19), including such memorable moments at the 2007 last minute winner when David Norris poked home a Barry Hayles cross in the last minute. Norris is still turning out for Lancaster City. Hayles, nine years his senior played for Windsor last season and was recently capped by the England over 50’s.
And the window is still open…..and we do need a couple of players still.
COYG!!!!!
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