Post by Golden_Boy™ on Dec 12, 2006 10:07:55 GMT -1
Digging deep to climb out of hole
By Tony Francis
Watching Watford strain every sinew to stay in the race puts me in mind of my old Morris Oxford. No matter how lovingly I coaxed it or how brutally I thrashed it, that car could only do Loughborough to Bolsover in an hour and 25 minutes.
Many's the time I pulled the old girl into the overtaking lane of the MI, only to slink back, exhaust pipe between legs, when the pantechnicon I was trying to pass refused to concede defeat.
Watford have their foot on the floor. They can't go any faster or play any better. We have to think laterally: is Bolsover a worthwhile destination? Would it be quicker by train?
Adrian Boothroyd is an admirer of Edward de Bono and a ferocious believer in the Other Way of doing things. It's not stubbornness that makes him persist with the players he has. He knows Damien Francis only has one gear, he knows Jordan Stewart is no Gael Clichy. The reason he won't be rushing out to buy a superannuated Premiership striker or a Peruvian midfield general in January is that it would undermine his master plan – to turn Watford into a self-sufficient smallholding which produces its own organic crop. My guess is that Aidy has been scouting in Scandinavia and the former Eastern Bloc on the premise that climatic and cultural similarities are essential when time isn't on your side.
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The pity, if you can describe elevation to the world's richest league in such a fashion, is that it came a couple of seasons too soon. Some of our Academy players, like the precocious 15-year-old Harry Forrester, would have been a different proposition then. Tamas Priskin, the Hungarian Under-21 striker Aidy rates so highly, needs another 50 games. But don't let us tug too hard on the sympathy cord. Watford are where Birmingham City and Southampton would give their right legs to be. You could argue that the boundless riches on offer from BSkyB next season make it worth going into the red to stay there. Peter Ridsdale logic – fantastic if it comes off, crippling if it doesn't.
Down at the Vic, the 'r' word is taboo. We'll be in denial until they put the lid on our Premiership coffin. Boothroyd believes that uttering the unutterable gives it credibility. In any case, there are still enough matches left to mount a late challenge for the Uefa Cup. Sure, it'll need someone to stick the ball in the net one of these days, but we're working on it. Darius Henderson's learning to dive in the box and Gavin Mahon has promised to bring his poodle along to help.
The third option is a corporate inhalation of breath from the Rookery End which already generates more energy than a Cornish wind farm. Heaven knows what they'll do if Watford hit a winning streak. One rendition of their battle cry "Aidy Boothroyd's Yellow Army" continued for 14 minutes and 30 seconds of Saturday's game with Reading – a club record.
It's almost Barmy Army proportions. If those guys ever look at the league table it's not registering. Trapped in the middle of this agitated mass of humanity was a friend of mine who shelled out £840 for two season tickets the instant Watford beat Leeds in the play-off final. Neither he nor his wife had ever been to Vicarage Road before. The lure of Premiership football was too much. "It might be our only chance of seeing Chelsea and Manchester United in the flesh," he explained to colleagues at Tring Squash Club, who were mystified by his sudden interest in the proletarian sport. If they ever find out that he joined in the community chanting, he might discover a rather large hot dog and onions decorating his first class seat on the 7.15 to Euston.
The poignancy of Saturday's fixture probably escaped his and everyone else's notice. It was on December 9 45 years ago that Brian Keeble felt the earth move. While shaping to clear a Watford attack, the Grimsby Town full back put his foot into what appeared to be a small hollow and more or less vanished. A crater had opened up in the corner of the pitch near the Rookery End – the consequence of having to lease an old gravel pit when the Dowager Duchess of Essex booted Watford out of their previous home on her estate. Before the Hornets could take advantage of their numerical supremacy, the groundsman backfilled the hole with old socks, horse manure, copies of the Watford Observer – anything he could get his hands on. We were just grateful that Tommy Harmer was nowhere near the landslip. The classy inside forward we poached from Spurs measured only five feet four inches in his stocking feet and might never have been seen again. By the way, we beat Grimsby 2-1.
According to the club archives a similar fissure disrupted the afternoon's entertainment in the 1930s, only this time it was big enough to take a horse and cart. And you wondered why Watford prefer the aerial route.
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2006/12/12/sfnvic12.xml
By Tony Francis
Watching Watford strain every sinew to stay in the race puts me in mind of my old Morris Oxford. No matter how lovingly I coaxed it or how brutally I thrashed it, that car could only do Loughborough to Bolsover in an hour and 25 minutes.
Many's the time I pulled the old girl into the overtaking lane of the MI, only to slink back, exhaust pipe between legs, when the pantechnicon I was trying to pass refused to concede defeat.
Watford have their foot on the floor. They can't go any faster or play any better. We have to think laterally: is Bolsover a worthwhile destination? Would it be quicker by train?
Adrian Boothroyd is an admirer of Edward de Bono and a ferocious believer in the Other Way of doing things. It's not stubbornness that makes him persist with the players he has. He knows Damien Francis only has one gear, he knows Jordan Stewart is no Gael Clichy. The reason he won't be rushing out to buy a superannuated Premiership striker or a Peruvian midfield general in January is that it would undermine his master plan – to turn Watford into a self-sufficient smallholding which produces its own organic crop. My guess is that Aidy has been scouting in Scandinavia and the former Eastern Bloc on the premise that climatic and cultural similarities are essential when time isn't on your side.
advertisement
The pity, if you can describe elevation to the world's richest league in such a fashion, is that it came a couple of seasons too soon. Some of our Academy players, like the precocious 15-year-old Harry Forrester, would have been a different proposition then. Tamas Priskin, the Hungarian Under-21 striker Aidy rates so highly, needs another 50 games. But don't let us tug too hard on the sympathy cord. Watford are where Birmingham City and Southampton would give their right legs to be. You could argue that the boundless riches on offer from BSkyB next season make it worth going into the red to stay there. Peter Ridsdale logic – fantastic if it comes off, crippling if it doesn't.
Down at the Vic, the 'r' word is taboo. We'll be in denial until they put the lid on our Premiership coffin. Boothroyd believes that uttering the unutterable gives it credibility. In any case, there are still enough matches left to mount a late challenge for the Uefa Cup. Sure, it'll need someone to stick the ball in the net one of these days, but we're working on it. Darius Henderson's learning to dive in the box and Gavin Mahon has promised to bring his poodle along to help.
The third option is a corporate inhalation of breath from the Rookery End which already generates more energy than a Cornish wind farm. Heaven knows what they'll do if Watford hit a winning streak. One rendition of their battle cry "Aidy Boothroyd's Yellow Army" continued for 14 minutes and 30 seconds of Saturday's game with Reading – a club record.
It's almost Barmy Army proportions. If those guys ever look at the league table it's not registering. Trapped in the middle of this agitated mass of humanity was a friend of mine who shelled out £840 for two season tickets the instant Watford beat Leeds in the play-off final. Neither he nor his wife had ever been to Vicarage Road before. The lure of Premiership football was too much. "It might be our only chance of seeing Chelsea and Manchester United in the flesh," he explained to colleagues at Tring Squash Club, who were mystified by his sudden interest in the proletarian sport. If they ever find out that he joined in the community chanting, he might discover a rather large hot dog and onions decorating his first class seat on the 7.15 to Euston.
The poignancy of Saturday's fixture probably escaped his and everyone else's notice. It was on December 9 45 years ago that Brian Keeble felt the earth move. While shaping to clear a Watford attack, the Grimsby Town full back put his foot into what appeared to be a small hollow and more or less vanished. A crater had opened up in the corner of the pitch near the Rookery End – the consequence of having to lease an old gravel pit when the Dowager Duchess of Essex booted Watford out of their previous home on her estate. Before the Hornets could take advantage of their numerical supremacy, the groundsman backfilled the hole with old socks, horse manure, copies of the Watford Observer – anything he could get his hands on. We were just grateful that Tommy Harmer was nowhere near the landslip. The classy inside forward we poached from Spurs measured only five feet four inches in his stocking feet and might never have been seen again. By the way, we beat Grimsby 2-1.
According to the club archives a similar fissure disrupted the afternoon's entertainment in the 1930s, only this time it was big enough to take a horse and cart. And you wondered why Watford prefer the aerial route.
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2006/12/12/sfnvic12.xml
