The Last Perryman Season

Welcome to Oh My Word, a podcast about Watford in the 1990s. We're Matthew and Michael, two Watford fans who started supporting Watford at the turn of the decade, just as they became crap. The '90s was a decade that changed English football forever. We'll be taking each season in turn as we look at memorable moments on the Vicarage Road pitch, key players and changes taking place behind the scenes, as well as trying to place all of it in the wider context of what was happening in football at the time. In this episode, we're looking at the 1992-1993 season. Michael, hello. How are things looking going into the season?

Hello, yes, so this is— I feel like we're getting into, getting into the thick of it now. This is the real '90s. I feel like, you know, the beginning of the decade feels a bit like there's a sort of the '80s creeping in into the '90s a bit, but this is proper '90s now, so we are into the thick of it. This is a, I suppose, a seminal moment for football as we know it. It's the beginning of the Premier League. We've talked about that in the previous episodes, but this was the first season of the Premier League, so we're now playing in what was called Division 2, is now called the Barclays League Division 1. So a significant change.

Obviously no one really knew, I don't think we knew at this time how significant that was going to be. I mean, that was just the league structure had changed. There was obviously all the, you know, the glamorous advertising of the Premier League, the Sky adverts, but we didn't know exactly how significant that was going to be or that, you know, how fundamentally that would, that would change football. At the start of the season, to be honest, it still felt like same old, same old for Watford. I mean, we were still, we're still wearing the same kit that we've been wearing last season. A sign of the times and how little they changed, I suppose, is that you did wear the same kit for a couple of years. There wasn't a sort of constant.

Revolving kit deals and sponsorship deals and third kits and fourth kits. Watford, Watford were still wearing the one they wore last season, but the laurel wreath that marked the centenary had gone. So that was so it's back to the plain old moose on the badge. It was, it was to be the last season of the Vicarage Road terrace. So that was, you know, another significant change that was coming through football was going to be throughout the '90s, the overhaul of stadiums. The Taylor Report that came out after Hillsborough had recommended all-seater stadiums as a, you know, a better bare minimum safety requirement that had been adopted by the league, by the FA. So there was a requirement then for clubs in the top 2 tiers to start to convert their stadiums to all-seaters.

Some were further along with that than others. Watford, we're not— we're actually quite an early adopter, I think, in the Second Division of starting to put plans in place to convert their stadium. So the first stages of that was going to be the Vicarage Road end, which was the home end at the time. So this would be the last time fans got to stand on the Vicarage Road terrace. So a very, you know, landmark event coming towards the end of the season there. The other big change on the pitch was the introduction of the new backpass rule. So obviously previously, as we saw a lot of in football up to this point, it was, you know, a common time-wasting defensive tactic, this for a centre-half to roll the ball back to the goalkeeper and for them to pick it up.

No more from this day onwards. So we will see how that panned out shortly. In terms of like what was happening on the pitch for Watford in terms of players, the big signing, I suppose the one that, you know, would prove to be really significant, was Paul Furlong arrived as the striker, the main striker that Steve Perryman signed. We— I couldn't find the exact cost. I know you look for it as well, Matt. You know, in our heads it's around £200,000-£250,000 that we signed him from Coventry. He's another one who'd come up from non-league.

He'd been at Enfield and then gone to Coventry. Hadn't, you know, set the world on fire at Coventry, so didn't bring prolific goal-scoring form with him, but obviously a lot of hope that he would be able to perform at this level and bring something to the team and lead the line. There were other signings as well. Ken Charlery and Harry Willis, Roger Harry Willis, joined as well. And so they added to the options up front to play with Furlong. See, they had signed Lee Nogan the previous season. So actually now.

You know, there are forward options in the team. There weren't too many players coming in last season, and this season Perryman's got a few more through the door. The other big change was David James, as we mentioned last season, was in the last episode, went off to Liverpool. So we signed Perry Suckling on a free to replace him. Suckling at this point I think was most famously remembered for conceding 9 goals against Liverpool for Crystal Palace. So not exactly bringing like the best pedigree with him, but that was who started the season in goal for Watford. So this was, you know, I think, I think in terms of the outlook, pretty similar to the season prior.

They'd done a bit of deal, you know, wheeler-dealing, brought some players in, sold some players. There wasn't exactly a huge statement of intent for Watford. So obviously everyone was hopeful that these signings would work out well. It wasn't exactly you know, no one was talking about Watford as being contenders for the promotion at this stage. So it's really going to be a question of how well Perryman could incorporate the new signings into the team and see how it kicks on from there. So Matt, tell us how, tell us how things started in the first stage of the season.

Yeah, I just wanted to kind of just cover a little bit more about that backpass law because it was the early part of the season is really notable for the introduction of that. So to give a little bit of extra context, in the late '80s, early '90s, keepers were sort of really used by their teammates as a way to keep possession and waste time. You'd see the ball passed back and forth between keepers and defenders, purely just to sort of hold on to it, stop the other team playing. It also wasn't even that uncommon to see a big boot back by midfielder from the halfway line. It could make matches, particularly the ends of matches, extremely dull. That sort of reaches its peak in Italia '90, which I think he's kind of held up as the height of cynical defensive football to a certain degree. So something really did need to be done.

There was a group match in that, I remember a group match in that tournament between Republic of Ireland and Egypt. It seemed like Pat Bonner essentially sort of monopolised possession of the ball for about 5 minutes. It was just going back and forth between him and his defenders. We also spoke last time about Denmark winning Euro '92. What a nice story that was, but their football could be extremely defensive and cynical at times as well. I think football's body sort of decided they had to act. They drafted this new directive that meant that goalkeepers couldn't pick up the ball if it had been kicked back to them by a teammate.

I was looking through some of the materials around the launch. FIFA put out a press release at the time, and it talks about goalkeepers having the privilege to be able to use their hands to keep the ball out of the net. And that was something that shouldn't be abused the way that it had been recently. So they had this new change, it was rolled out at the beginning of the season, and it caused just widespread panic. I particularly remember John Lukic as being a, you know, real casualty of this. He was previously, and indeed quite recently, one of the best top-flight keepers, played for Leeds, played for Arsenal, but he just couldn't use his feet at all. He looked extremely terrified whenever any of the defenders played the ball back to him, and he'd usually just launch it straight into the crowd.

Another comment around the same time, Andy Gray, in typical sort of reactionary style, he said is it making the game any better when you see the goalkeeper under pressure like that, just lumping the ball out of play? I don't think so. I think the answer in hindsight is obviously yes. Goalkeepers had to learn how to play football, you know, how to control, how to receive it, how to control it, how to pass it, not just hoof it into touch and concede possession. So there was a kind of development in goalkeepers in their ability to play the ball that had to happen immediately, and centre-backs kind of gradually followed that over the next couple of years as well. The reason I say this is because you can see the effects of it right from the very first game of the season, very early on in the very first game of the season as well. We play Millwall, we beat them 3-1 at home, but Perry Suckling, as you say, new signing, he makes his error early on.

He has a loose touch from a pass back and the Millwall forward just intercepts to score. And this was happening at every level up and down the land. There are loads of great YouTube videos knocking around of goalkeepers making absolute howlers right at the beginning of the season. It's very funny to watch. Where are we now, 30 years on? I don't think we really think about it anymore, it's just obviously, it's obviously just a part of the game now. But I really do remember it as a transformational change, both watching football but also playing it for my school as well, you know, I was guilty of picking up the ball when I was, those rare occasions I was playing in goal, or I'd play a terrible pass back to the keeper to put him under pressure.

Is that your recollection as well? Do you sort of see it?

I just love how terrified like the keepers were on that opening day of the season, and when they get, they literally are like, Shit, what am I doing? Like, they just completely lose it as soon as the ball comes near them because they're so. There's just a sort of blind panic in that, in that particularly in that first game against Millwall. There was just absolute panic from both goalkeepers when they realised that they couldn't just pick it up and they could see a centre forward sort of charging towards them. And it's sort of, they're just so not used to it and so not used to having to think with their feet basically and get themselves out of trouble. It was just very entertaining. I don't think, I don't feel like it lasted.

I guess they just developed quickly, like probably, you know, there's a lot of coaching done try and at least— mostly they would just whack it out of play, wouldn't they, if they were— if they got into trouble. It was, it was that early stage of the season where they were trying to— they didn't really know what to do. They just caught themselves in no man's land, and instead of just getting rid, they would try to play it. Or as we— I think we mentioned previously, the sort of the old-school goalkeepers, they weren't the most athletic, and they certainly weren't known for their ball-playing abilities either, generally. So, you know, there was no, there was no Ter Stegens and Edersons doing the rounds. It was— they were just big lads who, you know, put themselves in the way of things, right, and were not afraid to throw themselves at the feet of some huge centre forward.

So yeah, it was a massive change and it was a very entertaining one. And I don't feel like it lasted the whole season, that sort of madness, but it was certainly entertaining at the start.

It was. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it was goalkeepers had to very quickly adapt. It was an adapt or die sort of thing, wasn't it? So we win that game against Millwall. In the early part of the season, there's only one other win. We win at home 2-1 against Notts County.

Furlong gets on the score sheet a few times. A couple of them are really neat side-footed sort of passes into the far corner, kind of giving us an early glimpse of what a technically good player he really was. So he was obviously powerful and fast, but he was a really good, had really good technique as well. It was Nigel Gibbs' testimonial year and he gets injured in a game in September and ends up missing the entirety of the rest of the season, which is a real shame for him. Of course, he'd go on and have another testimonial season after completing another 10 years. Pretty amazing to get a second go at it. So we play Luton in our first outing in the Anglo-Italian Cup, and the programme somewhat brilliantly has the Irish flag instead of the Italian one.

Any particular remembrances of the Anglo-Italian Cup?

Well, I just like, as a tournament, it's just incredible that they— it was. Its concept. I mean, we mentioned last time the demise of the Zenith Data Systems Cup, and with the absence of that, we've suddenly got this new cup competition that no one had really called for. I guess, I mean, I guess also English clubs have been banned from Europe until very recently, haven't they? So but this idea of having a second-tier cup competition, but it's purely between English and Italian clubs. How did that concept get born? But, you know, it sounded very glamorous, to be honest.

You could go to some very nice places in Italy going through Serie B. I mean, I think there's some, you know, some really nice towns. I imagine there's lots of sort of nice ancient towns with nice piazzas and things that you could go and have a very nice away day there. That didn't happen because Watford never really got out of the Southeast, I think, in the Anglo-Italian Cup. They played Luton and that was it.

Yeah, didn't we go to Bristol as well? I think we went to Bristol City.

Okay, we went to Bristol as well.

So yeah, we— so we did the South— the Southwest as well.

Yeah, the Southwest, exactly. I don't know what round you had to get to actually get into— to go to a visit to Italy. We never did, so it sounded very nice. I'm not sure what the Italians would have made of coming to Watford, but I'm sure they would have enjoyed a trip to, you know, Watford High Street and the Harlequin, but they never got to discover it. So a real missed opportunity for a rich cultural exchange there, I think, between Watford and. And some famous old Italian clubs. But never mind it was, it was, you know, another unique competition of the '90s and not one that we have a particularly strong pedigree in.

So yeah, so then, like, as you said, it was the usual, the usual was we've sort of seen the pattern from Watford. It was kind of like the usual start, wasn't it? You got a few good results and a few bad ones. But I think Paul Furlong's form was the most encouraging thing from that opening spell, and that carried on into the next couple of months really, where form was really patchy still. There was no consistency at all, very mixed results over September and October, but we did see, did see Paul Furlong on the scoresheet regularly. They were scoring a lot of goals, this Watford team, actually, and that is what I remember about this team, is that they were quite— they were probably Perryman's— it was just, you know, most.

Fun team to watch, I think. Like, they had— we've mentioned at the start that they'd— they had more options up front. They weren't really afraid to use them either. And I think that, you know, they played probably a lot more open. They had no one in defence really of any sort of— they had no real sort of leaders. I mean, they had David Holdsworth, I guess and they had your favourite Keith Dublin still, didn't they?

I think yeah, he was he plays every game this season as he did the season before. So he was a he was a real mainstay. And it was, yeah, so him and Barry Ashby and Holdsworth, Barry Ashby, of course, kind of making up the bulk of the central defence throughout most of the season. But I mean, as you say, you know, good going forward, but pretty rubbish going back. And if anything, I think it probably just highlights the impact and importance of David James. You know, take him out of the team and suddenly the defenders can't defend. So probably proves what an influence he had over Watford's defence in the last couple of years.

Yeah, they get beaten pretty badly twice by Swindon this season. We'll come on to the home game later on, but that's Glenn Hoddle as player-manager at Swindon at this time. You can certainly notice him when he pops up in the footage because he's got his, you know, shirt untucked and his socks rolled down a bit, and it is Hoddle. It's like the fact that he was having a little showboat around the second tier at this stage in his career, like, I mean, must have been a lot of fun for him because he just made everything look so easy. And I mean, you talk about sort of just having time on the ball, you know, a ridiculously class act at this level. The other, the other encouraging thing from this period is probably Lee Nogan. We talked about him a little bit last season because he joined the previous season and scored a couple of important goals, but he starts to get on the scoresheet more regularly.

And when Watford are having this period where they're scoring quite a few goals he's getting on the scoresheet quite regularly and complementing Paul Furlong. So it looks— they always look like they've got goals in the team and they don't fail to score very often, but they do let in goals more often than not as well. A mixed start, a fun start, lots of goals. You're kind of guaranteed goals with Watford at the moment, but not able to put any consistency together. That said, they go into the end of October on the back of some decent results. And they're up to 9th, so that's a pretty positive start.

Yep, we're in 9th in the league, things are looking better than they've been for a while. The next big match to really talk about in this, the next round of fixtures, is we play Leeds in the League Cup. Leeds were the reigning league champions and they'd started the season really poorly though, they're pretty dismal league form, they'd already been knocked out of the European Cup, but obviously they were still overwhelming favourites to beat us, you know, they were a big important team at the time and we were just little Watford. It was a night match, a really cold night in November as I remember, and the stands were absolutely packed. Our Twitter mentions have been full of our followers who were there that night, so quite a memorable night, I think, for a lot of us. I was sat in the old East Stand, it was one of the few times that I sat there. About the game itself, I remember it was goalless in the first half and we've got a corner and there was great excitement, Leeds clear it and all of a sudden.

Eric Cantona's got it on the halfway line all alone, and he bears down on goal. Everybody knows what's coming. We're all just kind of sat there waiting to hear the ball hit the back of the net, but Perry Suckling makes a great one-on-one save to keep it at nil-nil. Incidentally, this would turn out to be Cantona's last game for Leeds, joining Man United shortly afterwards. So we're going to the second half level, Trevor Putney puts in a decent free kick, and David Holdsworth scores. Stadium absolutely erupts. Then Paul Furlong gets fouled in the box and Drysdale does what he does, he absolutely smashes the penalty past Lukic.

Gary McAllister scores at the death, almost 5 minutes to go, but we hold on, hold on for a win, a really historic win, one of the great Cup ties that we played in, as I said, a really memorable night for everyone that was there. Some of our listeners did get in touch, David Lewie describes the match as a seminal moment, standing on the Vicarage Road terrace as a 9-year-old with his dad. Andy Payton and his dad couldn't get in, such was the demand. Wes says there might have been quite a lot more than 18,000 fans that were quoted. You were one of those 18,000 or more. What do you remember about that great night?

Yeah, that was definitely the biggest buzz I'd had in my life supporting Watford to that point. It was actually my mum got me a ticket for that one and I went with my mum. She was, my mum's a Man United fan and she at that point, her loathing for Leeds was because they pipped United for the title the season before. Her loathing for them was just sort of like so intense. She looked out for Watford because I supported them. But she was like, she was absolutely like, she was proper Watford that night because she wanted them to beat Leeds so badly and wanted to see Leeds fail. So she'd gone over to Vicarage Road to get us a ticket and we got, we had seats in you know, it was just like a block of seats that was next to the family terrace that was uncovered next.

It was like next to the East Stand but it wasn't part of the East Stand and they were sort of just almost like stalls that were nailed to the, to the old terrace. It was the most temporary basic, I think it was called the family block or something anyway. So we're in there, so we're right sort of on the edge of the terrace. Yeah, it was like, I'd just never seen Vicarage Road, I'd not even seen it like 75% full before, it had always been half full basically. And so to see it like absolutely packed under the lights with the old Vicarage Road scoreboard, the proper old floodlights on the pylons, like it was a real atmosphere. And they really like, the Vicarage Road terrace, like really roaring them on. And it was like, it was such a buzz, it was such a buzz to be there for that night.

And because, because you just felt like there was something about it that you just felt like we had a chance. And because I think maybe it was just because of the way that this team was, that they could, you know, let in 5, 6 goals sometimes because of the way they play. But you also felt like they could, they had it in them to, to score against anyone the way that they were playing and the, you know, the confidence they had that they could get a goal. You kind of felt the longer it went on that we would have a chance. And so getting into halftime 0-0, like you say, was massive. And that miss from Cantona, who the sulk was definitely on by that stage, wasn't it?

Like, I mean, I think we're— there's obviously all the different explanations of exactly what had happened at Leeds United and why Cantona left in the circumstances that he did. But clearly the team spirit was not what it should be at that stage, I think. And whether that was due to Cantona's out-of-football activities, who knows? But it was not a good vibe at Leeds. They were terrible away that season as well, I think, Leeds. I mean, they barely won a game away, I think. But anyway.

It was brilliant for Watford. The other thing I remember about that, which my mum still goes on about, is that because it was such a big opportunity for Watford to obviously make quite a lot of money from a sold-out game, and my mum sent me to get her a cup of tea at halftime, and I queued up for ages because they obviously were just not used to having that many people there. So, and then when I eventually got to the front of the kiosk, they'd run out of tea. So, which my mum still goes on about because she's like, that's just typical Watford. Like, they have this opportunity and they can't— they didn't even like think to get some more tea bags in for like a sold-out crowd, which I kind of get like where she's coming from. But also that is Watford and it's sort of, you know, or it was at the time, they were just not— they didn't think big. They were just like, let's just— it was, it was an amazing night.

And I do also remember on the Tannoy, sort of stadium announcer was telling people to sort of be careful in the Vicarage Road end because it was so crowded. And the Watford, the Watford fans almost sort of ironically chanting, Watford aggro, Watford aggro, like that. Just again, like, when did that happen? When were you told, like, that. There was, there was a bit of crowding in the Vicarage Road terrace. Like, normally you could walk around quite freely in there. So I would agree with David on Twitter. I think it was, it was a seminal moment for a lot of Watford fans in the '90s and one that— it's great, it was great to see that reaction, like, when we mentioned it on Twitter, because obviously lots of other people have tremendous memories of that one.

So that was really, that was very nice to remember that game.

Yeah, one of the things that sticks in my memory, sounds really trivial, but I was in Milton Keynes at the time, and the amount of time it took to get out of the ground, up to the top of Occupation Road, get back to the car, to get around the ring road, to get on the motorway, to get home. I was up late for a young boy, and, but I didn't, I don't think I slept very much that night. I was really excited, really pumped up by the game, and just remember going into school the next day and just being extremely tired. And no one really cared that my team Watford had been beat, which is a shame, but. But there you go.

No, but we were also buzzing to see like the actual— that there would be media, you would read about Watford and they'd be in a newspaper the next day, that you would actually be able to read about them.

That's it, yeah, it wouldn't just be the Watford Observer, would it? You know, there was lots of like, Elton's Boys Crush Leeds and stuff like that on the back pages of national newspapers. I remember we had a few of them in the house, kind of went out looking for them and got them. I had a lot of fun reading those. So in that period, it's the end of November, beginning of December, the results other than that match are actually pretty poor. We lost to Luton. Going through in the cup, we played Blackburn and lost 6-1.

Matt Rowson mentions how the fans sort of quickly realised it wasn't going to be our day. There was a bit of gallows humour after Furlong scored to make it 5-1, to pull one back. I don't think we really had much of a sniff there. We draw at home against Bristol City. What I thought was funny about that is Willis and Bazeley both hit the same post within seconds of each other. But other than that,. Really terrible results.

We go into mid-December, actually not that much further down though, despite, despite the poor form, still in 13th. So still in mid-table, not really troubling either end at this point.

Yeah, the other thing about that period, that Luton game, because I think that was on, I think that was on ITV, because that was when ITV had started showing league football because they didn't have the rights obviously to Premier League. They'd lost out to Sky, so they started showing that Division 1, or, you know, Division 2, whatever you want to call it. They started showing those games, and I'm pretty sure that Luton game was on there. And it was the worst pitch I think I've ever seen Watford play on. It was a bog, wasn't it?

An absolute bog.

It was a, it was a bog. And it was— and we lost, which was horrible. And I just, I remember there's a scene where like Trevor Putney goes to tackle someone and sort of slides through this, and he just sort of gets up and he's just completely is brown from head to toe, basically just covered in mud. A great advert for English football. But it was, yeah, the Luton thing was, I was sort of, again, that was a new thing for— I was quite buzzed at the start of the season that we'd be playing Luton because a lot of you just hear songs about Luton at the ground and we never played them in my sort of match-going experience. Yeah, same to me. But it was a real like anti-climax that season because because we played them on— yeah, we had that 0-0 in the Anglo-Italian, which obviously no one really cared about, and then this game was on TV and that was rubbish and we lost 2-0.

And it just— yeah, it was not— it was not a great introduction to the Watford-Luton rivalry this season.

Yeah, I wasn't— I wasn't allowed to go. I wasn't allowed to go to Luton. No, my mum used to veto it. I was yeah, I had to be a little bit older.

It was about the only time you might get a hint of trouble at Watford, I guess, during that time. Whether or not there was much, I don't know because I was still quite young. But yeah, so that was, like you say, the Leeds result stood out in that period. Going into December, the usual mixed run of form again, although a bit better, I think, results-wise. Get a few more wins. Furlong banging them in again. Charlery is sort of cropping up fairly regularly at this point with goals as well, which is probably like one of my recollections is a bit off about this season because I remember him being a bit of a flop, Ken Charlery, but he wasn't too bad this season in terms of, well, at least contributing goals.

And Nogan is contributing quite regularly with Furlong as well, but the goals against column is still fairly awful. There's a couple of people have mentioned this Wolves FA Cup game that we lost at home 4-1 as being another— there was another bin gate. I think there was a bin went on the pitch at this one as well. But as some people have pointed out, it actually like prompted a response. So maybe, you know, the bin was some sort of secret weapon because we played Wolves twice in the space of 7 days. Played them at home in the cup, lost 4-1, absolutely played off the park and booed off the pitch.

But then the following week played them in the league and won 3-1 with Nogan and Furlong scoring twice. So maybe, you know, A bit of, you know, good strong constructive criticism in the form of bins going on the pitch sometimes might be the way to get players focused on the task. Maybe a few bins need to be positioned around Vicarage Road for this season to see if we can get some home form going. Who knows? But yeah, it was— I suppose it epitomised after that really good result against Wolves, and then they let in 5 away at Leicester immediately after that. So the goals against and the goals for columns are going up rapidly in competition as the season progresses. Although they had put together some decent results in this period, they'd also lost a few as well.

They were, they were sitting at 11th. There was no real sense that they could put together the sort of consistent form that would get them with an outside chance of promotion, but it also meant that they weren't in the relegation fight as well, which was very nice for Watford fans. I mean, that hadn't happened going into, you know, going into the spring in the previous two seasons that we've discussed. The threat of relegation had loomed very large and real, and at this point in this season, that's not really on the table, I think it's fair to say.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, you talk about consistency, the thing that kind of jumped out at me here is it wasn't until the tail end of February that we actually won consecutive league games for the first time. It's pretty amazing to go that far in a season in mid-table and for it to have happened.

Yeah, to be mid-table and to not have won 2 games in a row is crazy. That is crazy.

Yeah, in both those games Ken Charlery scores, so it's kind of keeping up this goal-scoring run of form that you described.

Two away wins as well, wasn't it, that they got back to back?

Yeah, it was. Yeah, two away wins. I think the most annoying thing about those two wins is they're sandwiched by— well, sandwiched in between seven losses, three immediately before and four immediately after. So those two wins as individual results are great, but ultimately they just mean nothing. Because we just can't get going, we can't get any momentum, any sort of consistency. One of those, in fact it is the match after the two wins, is this loss at home to Swindon that people have kind of agreed is really terrible, really poor. Interviews at the end of season, that Drysdale and a couple of others that I've seen and read, they described this Swindon team as the hardest to play against.

And Swindon are not challenging for the title, they're doing well, but they're not you know, they don't look like they're going to go up automatically. They ultimately do go up in the playoffs. But Hoddle, as you said before, has kind of got them playing this kind of really great, attractive passing football, very much in his own image. And yeah, he's still there on the pitch, of course. So we lose that 4-0 at home. One listener, Jason Rose, says they ripped us a new one. Other people have mentioned that even the Watford fans were applauding the Swindon play at times, that, you know, they were that good.

I think it was after the fourth goal that Swindon scored, because that one is particularly sweet. Where is that, the one where—. Yeah, Hoddle kind of standing over the free kick.

Yeah, the outside of his foot kind of fades away, the cross comes in, and yeah, I remember that one. Yeah, he's a good guy.

I say like people were applauding, I think— I don't think everyone was applauding. I think a lot of people were probably going home at that point.

But yeah, scattered polite applause is easier to do when you fall 4-0 down, isn't it? So yeah, one other thing just to, just to briefly mention it, and it's off the pitch completely, one of the programmes— I was looking through some of the programmes online, and I don't know how it caught my eye, but there was a of the new intake of schoolboys, so obviously very young players. Paul Robinson is one of them, so it'll be another few years before he plays a first team match, right? But I expect that we'll talk about him quite a lot as we go through, you know, big favourite, one of my favourite players. In that schoolboy intake were the twins Andy and Chris Johnson. I kind of remember being in the '90s. They're both really, really highly rated in the youth team.

Neither one of them actually breaks through, and they're actually sacked in the end by Graham Taylor for breaching club rules around alcohol. Yeah, which I don't remember knowing at the time. Something of a shame really, because, you know, Richard Johnson, Andy Johnson, Chris Johnson, I think Lee Johnson was in the youth team as well, you know, he never played for us, go on to have a League One playing and management career. But, you know, we could have fully stacked half the team with Johnsons and wouldn't that have been brilliant?

Yeah, no, Paul Robinson, I knew, there was a couple of guys I went to school with who were at an earlier stage, had been on a very early stage of Watford youth teams, and Paul Robinson was one of the players in their intake, and they were quite surprised that he'd gone as far as he had because they didn't, they didn't think he had, like, you know, he was like the best in their class, which I guess, but when you're sort of kids, you don't necessarily recognise and you don't see that sort of development, I suppose, the players that are going to actually develop and have the mental strength, I suppose, to go the distance, which he clearly did. So yeah, I will be enjoying talking about his exploits later in the series, I guess. But yeah, so going into towards the end of March, we had another big night under the lights at Vicarage Road. It's another one that I have very fond memories of. So we're playing Newcastle United at home, and this was Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United. And Keegan had come in the previous season, hadn't he? And pulled off a sort of a great, a great escape for Newcastle because they were actually headed— very decent, you know chance of them heading down to the third tier at that stage.

They were really in trouble, and he'd come in and kept them up. And then this season, you know, this— John Hall was in charge now and obviously put a bit of money into them and was. They were a club on the up, and, you know, they were taking, taking the league by storm at this point. They'd signed Andy Cole for a decent amount of money almost £2 million and he— we'd seen him the previous season at Bristol City scoring a couple of goals against Watford at the end of last season. So he was— and he was not struggling to score at this level in this sort of early stages of his Newcastle career. So they brought a real, like, the most potent goal threat in the league. They were, they were beating everyone.

They were full of confidence and. Given our defence, you did not hold out much hope that we would be able to repel them for very long at Vicarage Road. But it was, it was one of those, yeah, similar to the Leeds game in a way, in that they really battled it out, Watford, under the lights. And there's something about that, this era, I think, for Watford, like those big games under the lights, there was something they could, they could get themselves up for them. There was another good crowd. Newcastle have brought a very big following down for a, you know, a game under the lights at Vicarage Road. It's a long way for Newcastle fans to come in at that time, but they brought a very large following with them.

It meant a lot to me because I had a friend at school who was a Newcastle fan. His dad was a Geordie, and he was— and we'd always been in the same division since we both got into football. And then suddenly his team was like amazing, so I was really jealous of how good Newcastle had suddenly become because. It was sort of like, well, at least his team's crap as well, because everyone else supported, you know, Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal, and then we both supported two crap teams. And then suddenly his team's like amazing and getting promoted. So it felt like I really just feel like I needed this, I needed us to beat them and they hung in there. They got they got a fairly scrappy goal from Furlong, and then after that, all I remember was like Newcastle laying siege to Watford's goal.

I think, I think at one point Andy Cole sort of knocks one past the goalkeeper, and someone— it might have been your man Keith Dublin— clearing it off the line. And I was so, I was so wanting them to win this game. It was the first time I sort of felt like almost like I was going to be physically sick with nerves at that point because it looked like it was going in. And it was a real— it was the whole sort of stadium held their breath. That's. As Dubbers hacked that one off the line. It was, it was— but they hung on.

It didn't really, you know, mean it that much to Newcastle in the end because they still got promoted, no bother. But it was another great night for Watford fans under the lights, to just another moment, I suppose, for this season, which is what this season was really turning out to be, was a collection of some really great individual moments that, you know, didn't really add up to the sum of its parts. But Other than that, this period, again, you sort of got this sort of amazing result and then a lot of drab mediocrity that followed, including nil-nil at home to Luton. So this is following our— the battle that we had on their absolute bog of a pitch at Kenilworth. By this point, the Vicarage Road pitch was looking pretty ropey as well, to be fair. And that usually happened, didn't it, with pitches? Yeah, they would— you'd get to this stage in the season and they just— the sand would come out to sort of fill in and it's trying to soak up some of the moisture and the grass was sort of vanishing.

They certainly didn't look like the snooker tables that we have now. They would, they would get— you get to spring and they were really churned up. And this is before we even had a rugby team playing on it. So yeah, that Luton game, I went to that game and it was, it was rubbish. I was hoping for this sort of big cauldron atmosphere and it was, it was just rubbish. It was a really boring game and we drew nil-nil. The only other thing I remember about this one and this period was that we played, we had another really boring nil-nil that I went to.

I don't know how, why I got into football at this time because I did go to a lot of boring nil-nils. We played Southend at home and Stan Collymore was playing for Southend. I didn't know who Stan Collymore was at the time, I just noticed that he was really good and realised sort of when he was then at Forest and. And his exploits there, that was, that was who I'd seen. But he really gave Watford's back four, back five a torrid time in that game for Southend. But that was, that was, yeah, it wasn't it wasn't a great period. It wasn't a great end to the season to be honest.

There was, it really petered out. There was a lot of draws, lots of nil-nil. Suddenly the goals ran out at the end of the season. I think you can see in that sort of final stage that Furlong's goals suddenly seem to sort of dry up right at the end, and then the results dry up as well. So there are, there are a couple more positive results before the end of the season, but the curtain comes down with Oxford United at home. They lose 1-0, again failing to score. Don't really understand what happened there at the end of the season and why the goals had suddenly stopped.

But it was a bit of a depressing end because it was the last match at the Vicarage Road Terrace, you know, whilst. You could, you know, we could go to town, couldn't we, on talking about the Vicarage Road terrace and probably get a bit carried away. It wasn't exactly the Kop or the North Bank or the Stretford End, but it had been the site of Watford's, you know, greatest achievements and triumphs over the last couple of decades, and particularly, you know, everything that they'd achieved in the '80s, that had been packed a lot of the time, the Vicarage Road terrace. And had been, you know, a place that lots of people had spent a lot of time enjoying football. So I think, you know, I'd only just started. Standing on it. That season was the first time that I'd been on the Vicarage Road terrace so I couldn't say that like I had the sort of affinity to it that some of the older fans might do.

But I did enjoy, I did enjoy the experience, however short-lived, of standing in the home end. It felt, you know, that felt like sort of grown-up football.

Yeah, that was— that Oxford game is the only time I ever stood on it. Okay. Yeah, I mean, because it was going, that was that was why we, why we were there. So yeah, I don't have extremely fond memories of going there week in, week out.

No roof. I don't think anyone lamented the fact that, you know, we would have an end with a roof over it. It was the only part of the stadium that was completely uncovered. The away fans had a roof, the home fans didn't. That always seemed—.

Well, the managers didn't have a roof at that time, did they? I think that's true. Taylor had always said, you know, have a roof on the Vicarage Road end before there'd be a roof over the dugouts.

I think the thing that— but the thing that was more famous about the Vicarage Road end was the scoreboard, wasn't it? That was the thing that was most iconic, and those, you know, the little jumping men when the goal went in. And that was, that was the thing that, you know, everyone associated, I think, with Vicarage Road at the time was that old scoreboard and just, you know,. Lots of grounds had scoreboards, didn't they? And they were all different, they were all quite quirky, but Watford's was a real, like, focal point of the ground, I think. That and the floodlights, they're sort of like towering floodlights, and particularly like those night games where they would loom over the stadium. Yeah.

And you'd see them from a long way away, wouldn't you? Because you wouldn't have the sort of structure of the stand around them, but you'd see those big tall pylon sticking up above the houses at nighttime. Yeah that was, you know, a real like vivid sight, the image. I can— you can still remember what that looked like walking towards the ground and seeing those floodlights as you came around the corner. So I think, you know, for a lot of people that was probably quite emotional. I wouldn't say I felt emotional because I didn't have that connection with it, but I was actually quite excited about, oh, we're getting, you know,. So getting some building done at the ground, see what it looks like, it's gonna you know, this sort of brave new world in a way.

I was— felt like I needed to be there, like you wanted to be on the terrace for that game, but I didn't have quite the same level of emotional attachment as some of the older fans would have done. Did you get any of the merch that was created when they sold off bits of the stadium, like when they smashed it up? Did you, did you manage to bag any of that?

I didn't, I had forgotten about it. I did notice it happening at the time, but I didn't get any, didn't, I didn't get my hands on any of it, did you?

I did, I had a little bit of, I had a piece of acrylic that had a bit of, I mean, they said it was a bit of the Vicarage Road terrace in it would just look, I mean, it was just like a few splinters of smashed up concrete basically, it could have, it literally could have been anything. If someone was actually going through the rubble of the terrace and sort of bagging some up, and it had— it said it was like one of, you know, a limited— they had made a limited edition. Yeah, limited edition. It was like, literally like, it was— had a sort of piece of paper inside it that said Vicarage Road Terrace in sort of a piece of clear plastic with a rock, a bit of concrete sealed inside it. It was like the cheapest made thing of you can imagine. But I had that was my keyring.

For many years and then I lost it. So sadly no longer with me, but if anyone still has any of the merch then please send us some.

Yeah, I'd be keen to see that, see what else they were putting out.

The other thing I remember, and I'll be dead chuffed if someone's got one of these, was a— there was a floodlight. A bit of floodlight pylon that have been turned into a pen, a pencil holder, basically a sort of desk weight pencil holder. Like, just, they're just sort of sliced off a bit of metal.

Yeah, desk tidy sort of thing.

Yeah, I know, a desk tidy. Yeah, a desk tidy, exactly. Apparently made out of, made out of real authentic floodlights. So, well, again, if someone's got one of those, then I would—.

Yeah, let us know and let us know what the asking price is. I wouldn't mind having that.

Yeah, it could be opening yourself up to quite a healthy scam there, Matt. But yeah, it was, and that was, and that was that. So they finished, they finished 14th, the season came down on the Vicarage Road terrace. I suppose we should also point out, it wasn't the only bit of building work that was due to be done, because at this point as well, the lower, the lower tier of the Rous Stand, as it was called then, they still had the garages, didn't they? It was basically, I mean, it wasn't garages, but that's what it looked like, a row of garages with some like temporary seating put in front of it. And so that was finally getting developed as well, which I think had always been the plan, but. They hadn't had enough money to do it at the time, so they just done a classic.

Yeah, I mean, it's been years, hasn't it? Been years like that.

Yeah, they basically just built half a stand and left it half finished just because, because I guess like they just didn't have the cash to finish the job. So they, so they were going to do that as well, which would obviously, you know, have quite a big improvement on the aesthetic of the ground. But we didn't really— yeah, but they had shown us, they'd shown us some pictures, I think, in, you know, in one of the programmes. There'd been a few you know, artists' impressions of what the new stands were going to look like, and it all looked very— it all looked very modern and impressive. And I suppose a lot of that was going on around the country as well, wasn't it? Like, there was a lot of that, the building.

Yeah, Wolves were in the middle of transforming their ground. It's quite interesting looking back at the footage there. I went to quite a few games in the mid-'90s onwards, Wolves, whenever we would play them away. Would go to those games. So my memory of Molineux is this incredibly modern all-seater stadium. So it's quite interesting watching the highlights and seeing it is actually a decrepit mess that's kind of half been. Half being renovated, just started to be renovated, and yeah, it doesn't match my memory of it in any way.

No, and they had an enormous old terrace at Molineux at that stage as well. I think the old— I think it was the South Bank at Molineux, which was an absolutely massive old terrace. So a lot of those were, yeah, were on their last legs, and they did look very shabby at this stage, didn't they? I don't— I mean, I didn't— I never felt going to the stadium like Watford was not, you know, it was a fairly shabby stadium at this time, Vicarage Road. But it wasn't— I suppose, and maybe it's slightly different speaking about it as Watford fans because Watford had a slightly different, you know, experience, I suppose, to a lot of clubs at this start. They managed to sort of not have the worst elements of what went on in English football in the sort of '70s and '80s and early '90s. So it never felt like— I kind of, I think, as a sort of a young.

Teen sort of wanted to feel like it was a bit edgier than it was because I wanted to feel like I was sort of doing, you know, being a bit of a lad and going to football. But actually it was a very sort of safe and often quite a sterile atmosphere at this time. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't exactly, it wasn't exactly a cauldron. So yes, so Matt, what, anything else we could sort of reflect on in the end of season and, you know, looking back at what happened?

Yeah, so yeah, we finished 14th and really we never I think we said that we'd hit the heights of 9th, but the vast majority of the season we were never higher than 10th, never lower than 16th. It was odd given that we, like I said, we'd never put together any consistent run. We only had those consecutive wins on 2 occasions, so it was once as we described earlier on in the season, and then I think the 2 games before the Oxford match at the end of the season, we won both of those. I think Drysdale scored penalties in both of them. Looking back at the footage, and it This would probably would have been obvious to more seasoned Watford fans at the time, but it wasn't to me as a kid. The number of late opposition goals that were going in, it didn't seem to matter if they were late winners by the opposition, late equalizers, or even just consolations or clawing a goal back to make us feel nervous, but we just couldn't seem to hold on for a result, to grind it out. We just seemed to collapse in the last 10 minutes of matches.

Which I think is probably, probably the source of our lack of consistency. I have no idea of the figures, but you're kind of reviewing the footage, you kind of think if all the matches ended on the 80th minute, we probably would have been much higher up in the table.

Yeah.

Which I thought was quite unusual and kind of probably speaks to a kind of more psychological than physical or skill aspect of the game, I would have thought.

Yeah, I think there was definitely like, they just were defensively really fragile, weren't they, at this time? And they just, you never always felt. That they were just gonna do something stupid and throw the ball into their own net. They, there was never any sort of sense that Watford knew how to see out a game at this point. Some of that's slightly, I guess, coaching, but it's also like, I don't think they had those sorts of play. They weren't that sort of team. They didn't have those sorts of players.

They always seemed to be a bit sort of chaotic, didn't they at this time. They probably should have— I mean, maybe they did have those players and it was just that they weren't— that was Perryman's failing. But I don't think it entirely was. I think it was partly like collective as players, they just didn't have the mentality to be that sort of team.

Yeah, I think I think Perryman kind of viewed it as the best, the best set of players that he'd had during his time at Watford, but they really didn't seem to become more than the sum of their parts, you know. They didn't, didn't translate that theoretical ability into any sort of good performances on the pitch, you know, over the course of a season. That was a real shame. I think the shining light though is obviously Paul Furlong. He won the Player of the Season, 22 goals from 44 appearances. So nice 1 in 2 there.

That's an incredible— I mean, that is— yeah, he hadn't shown anything like that in— I know he had— he was of limited experience, I suppose, at Coventry, but. There wasn't a lot to suggest that he was going to deliver that kind of form. I mean, that was probably better than expectations.

Yeah, it must have been.

Yeah, you know, a striker with that sort of pedigree since, since Wilkinson, and he's good. Like you said, he's got all sorts of goals, didn't he? He was like— I mean, I just thought he was— I really, I really thought he was the business, Paul Furlong. Like, he was— there would— there seemed to be nothing that he couldn't really do. And Nogan talks about him in one of the interviews saying how, like, how strong he was and how in 5-a-side no one could get the ball off him. And how much he, like, liked playing with him because he just was so big. I mean, obviously he was strong and you did see, like, defenders trying to pull him down and he just sort of shrug them off sometimes.

But he was really technically good as well, like you said. But there's a goal he scores against— away at West Ham where he's just— he just makes it look so easy, sort of running at the goal from quite an angle, and then he just— he hits this sort of side foot. Places the ball sort of around the goalkeeper into the bottom corner. It's sort of like— I'm going to say one of my ridiculous comparisons again— it's kind of Thierry Henry-esque in terms of you know, keeping a straight face as I say that, which is good. But you know what I mean? He opens up his body. It's the way he would open up his body.

Yeah, passing into the far corner.

Yeah, I'll put it on— I'll put that goal on Twitter and people can say if they think that it's— yeah, or not.

But I think, I think that— well, I would hope that they would agree with you. Yeah, I think this might sound absolutely stupid, but like the fact that he was left-footed as well kind of really jumps out at me in the footage. He just— there's just something about that just looks so good. There's another great goal he scores where he gets put through, there's a through ball that kind of takes him through kind of midway into the opposition half, and he runs and runs, bears down on the goalkeeper, he just kind of does this little shimmy to sit the keeper down and just more or less walks it into the empty net. There was no small amount of skill about him.

Kanu, that's that Kanu goal. It's Kanu, exactly, it's Kanu. It's Henry and Kanu in one player. I mean, no wonder he was unstoppable.

God, Arsenal must be kicking themselves. They could have solved all their problems. But you said about Nogan talking positively about Furlong. Charlery does as well, and he just seems to be the sort of player that anybody could play with, you know. Like, if you've got Furlong in the team I know that there were, there were times under Perryman's reign we would play 3 up front, and indeed we spoke about that and about partnerships in the previous episode. But you kind of feel like if Furlong was playing,. Whoever was playing up with him would probably have an okay game at least.

There probably would have been a decent partnership there. Nogan got 12 this season and Charlery 11. So as you said going through, they were amongst the goals, and I bet they wouldn't individually have got anywhere near that if Furlong hadn't been on the pitch.

Yeah, I mean, I think like the fact that they have front 3 that got like— you've got 22 goals from Furlong and then the other 2 getting into double figures. Yeah, that— you can see why they finished comfortably in mid-table, and it probably is frustrating really that they weren't a bit higher up the league. I think there were no other goals in the team, were there?

There were no other goals in the team. There was, there was Drysdale, a few dry penalties, but that was really it, wasn't it? Hessenthaler, Hessenthaler comments that he should have scored more. I mean, he scored 2 in one game and maybe another couple throughout the season, but yeah, you know, we didn't, we didn't see quite as much of that him beginning and ending the moves as we did after he signed the previous year. He, you know, he'd go on and score more goals for Watford in the next couple of seasons he was with us. But yeah, no goals from midfield really whatsoever. Nogan would have played some of those games in midfield because, because, because he would occasionally be stationed out wide.

But yeah, Furlong, comfortably Player of the Season. And what a great start to his Watford career.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, he's one of my— he is— he's one of my favourite players of the '90s. I'm sure he is for most. That's a fairly obvious statement to make, but I think you love to have that sort of player in your team that you can kind of like, you know, is nailed on to do some damage basically. Yeah, you know, opposition, opposition are actually genuinely quite worried about. Yeah, you know, to have a sort of focal point in your attack. It's like— and I loved, like, you know, I went on about Paul Wilkinson. I love Paul Wilkinson, but Furlong was even better because he could do, he could do even more.

He seemed a more modern player, didn't he?

Yeah, he was more modern. He was a lot— he was probably more mobile, and he could bring players into the game, which I think is probably evidenced by the fact that Nogan and Charlery were both netting as well on a fairly regular basis. But we'll, you know, we'll talk about him again next season where he has another fantastic season and scores some really outrageous goals. But really enjoyed watching him this season. And I think, you know, I think everyone did an absolutely deserving player of the season. Yeah, a tremendous signing from Perryman.

Probably worth talking about Perryman. It turns out to be his last season. He leaves to join Ardiles at Spurs. He's the, the assistant. And yeah, there's a body of work now at this point to look back on and to kind of consider. I kind of feel like he would assemble these teams that were somewhat hard to embrace, you know, they weren't always boring to watch, you know, as we said already, there were goals at both ends, so you could get some entertainment by going to watch.

This season more than the others, for sure.

Yeah, I think they weren't always, they were more open and more to enjoy this season than I have in previous seasons.

Yeah, he just seemed to be stuck in this kind of never-ending cycle of— he talks a lot about wanting more fans and more atmosphere at home and wanting to kind of bring the, the approach to our night games that we've discussed, to the Saturday 3 PM games, but kind of not realising that the fans did really want something a little bit more to warm to, I think. I think quite, quite people look back at Perryman's tenure as kind of a bit boring, really. Over the course of researching these episodes, my overriding memory now, if I close my eyes and you tell me to picture Steve Perryman, it's kind of him sat down really relaxed, his head kind of always permanently at this weird 45-degree angle, and he's kind of just constantly just bemoaning both our kind of inconsistency and this quiet, sparse crowd that I think he felt that he deserved better. But he goes, I mean, I don't really know what more we can say about Perryman.

No, well, I guess the lure of Spurs was too strong. It was going to be, you go taking It's always a bit of a weird one, isn't it, when you're a manager and then you get offered a job as an assistant? You would have— because he never really went. Back into being a manager after that. It's a bit of a strange one from that point of view because you just always assume that people, you know, once they're into their management career, that they want to, you know, develop their own management, you know, style and build their career. And, you know, maybe he had aspirations of managing a big club himself one day, but he kind of don't have that opportunity when you're quite willing to, you know, become an assistant.

So he kind of did both, didn't he? Yeah, he took that job as assistant, I think, later in his career. I had a friend at university who was an Exeter fan, and I think he took a sort of director of football type role at Exeter, kind of, you know, later on, probably in the— either in the late '90s or the early 2000s. So yeah, you're right, kind of never went back to being a sort of a team manager, but was kind of a coach and also kind of an overseer as well.

Yeah, I think if I was to get, you know, appraising his time at Watford, then I think you have to say it was a net positive in a, you know, just the mess that he took over from— yeah, and they were like, they were, they were headed in wrong direction at that time, which was down to the third tier, which could have been absolutely catastrophic for Watford at the time given that, you know, they were not in great shape anyway. And the— you wonder where, where they'd be now if they'd gone down to that level at that stage. Yeah. So I think, I think, you know, the fact that he kept them up very dramatically and, you know, against the odds, brilliant. The fact that he then kept them out of trouble the next two seasons, great. He did make some good signings. I think, you know, it's probably always in that cycle of what managers were at the time as well, as if you did find a good player and they perform well, they would be sold and then you'd have— but you wouldn't get that money back to invest in the team yeah.

Some of it would go to the club, the other bits of it. Well, who knows where all the money went. It was always a bit— it was very opaque, wasn't it, at the time, in terms of you get a big fee for someone, you'd be like, great, we've got some money to spend. And then it'd be like, he's got 50 grand to spend on a striker having sold someone for, you know, 1.2 million. So I guess those fees went to, you know, being charitable, that they were needed to sustain the club at the time. And then, but from a managerial point of view, it doesn't give you much if you don't have that much backing, then it's always going to be very difficult to put a team together that's really competitive. And even though, yeah, it was— it wasn't like it is now in the Championship in terms of how some clubs in the Championship now spend all sorts of money, we still had some big names, didn't you?

I mean, Newcastle, just taking that example, they had John Hall's money had come in and, you know, they got Keegan in there and they signed a lot of players. We talked last season about Blackburn, you know, Derby would spend a lot. This season West Ham were down there and they were always like too big for that division, basically. So there was always— it's a matter of time that they would. Get out of it again. So for Watford, on a very sort of small budget, relatively speaking, they weren't one of the big draws. It was always going to be a bit of an ask for them to.

Do much. And I guess that's quite frustrating for a manager when you're there and you've seen what they have achieved in the past and you've always got that looming over you, I suppose in terms of what you can do with the team. And yeah, I kind of felt like he was always a bit grumpy about that. Yes, that's probably why he never really had a particularly, like, close relationship with the fans, Perryman. That and the fact that he always sounded a bit miserable and had his weird sort of, like you say, 45-degree head angle. But yeah, but I think, you know, it was a good appointment for Watford at the time because, you know, like I said, they could have been in a lot worse scrape without him. And I don't know, I enjoyed this season. I think this is fun because of the moments, and that's what I think.

That's it.

That is a kind of key point though, isn't it? It is the moments rather than any sort of stronger, broader narrative that stitches it together. It's a season that's memorable for a few games. Yeah. And the fact that we weren't in a relegation dogfight. So yeah, as you said before, Keegan's in charge at Newcastle and they end up winning the division, 96 points. Just a really great season.

They won the first 11 games in a row and kind of looking back at their, their fixtures. There were a lot of, you know, there were a couple of 5-0s, there was a 6-0, a 7-1. They were a big scoring team. And you'd also mentioned West Ham, they were definitely the pre-season favourites after coming down and they went up in second and joined by Swindon in the playoffs. Portsmouth had troubled the pace setters as well, and Whittingham, we spoke about Teddy Sheringham scoring 38 goals a couple of years ago for Millwall. Whittingham scores 42 this season, so he was a fairly scary prospect.

If your team is coming up against Guy Whittingham, he's probably going to score at least one against you. We say goodbye to Brentford, Cambridge, and Bristol Rovers. Rovers were comfortably the worst team. Interesting fall from grace for Cambridge. They've done really well last season having come up. They lost a key man, Dublin. Dion Dublin went to Man United, John Beck had been sacked, and the other team, Brentford, just collapsed in the second half of the season.

They were mid-table at Christmas and they were down at the end. Looking upwards, United won the— Man United won the Premier League ahead of Villa, so they ended that 26-year wait for a league title. And in that division, Norwich were the surprise package, I think. They finished third, qualified for Europe, and they'd have a quite a memorable run, I think, in the UEFA Cup the next season. And next season we'll be joined in our division by Palace, Middlesbrough, and Forest, who are all relegated. Forest going down is pretty notable. They've been a big club in the top division for a long time, and it sees the end of Brian Clough's tenure.

He retires at the end of the season. Arsenal play Sheffield Wednesday in both cup finals. You might remember, listeners might remember Steve Morrow. He'd been on loan with us the year before. He scored the winner in the League Cup final, picked up by Tony Adams, falls down, breaks his arm, misses the FA Cup final. So terrible, terrible bit of luck for him there. And this is the last season with Barclays as a sponsor.

They were replaced by Endsleigh, or Endsleigh, I'm never quite sure. Still a going concern, I looked them up, they specialise in student insurance now, so obviously all that money they spent on sponsoring has done them good, has kept them going.

You don't hear anyone referring to it as the Endsleigh though, so they're a bit, you know—.

I think I do see it now, I do see it now and again, but it's always with a, you know, a knowing wink, isn't it, with a glint in the eye. Yeah. So yeah, we're going into the next season and we got a vacant management position.

Yeah. So going into the '93-'94 season is when we will be welcoming back to Watford, Glenn Roeder. Very popular figure, certainly. Well, popular on this podcast. We love Glenn and loved him as a player. Absolutely. And yeah, a very decent man and popular appointment, I think.

But we'll see how he gets on in his first season in charge of Watford. Yes. Looking forward to that one. If you've got any memories of the '93-'94 season, or any of the seasons to come, to be honest, let us know. You can get in touch with us on Twitter @OhMyWordPod, and we'd love to hear from you and get your feedback as well. If there's any sort of things in particular you'd like us to focus on as we progress through the '90s. But really enjoyed this one, hope you did too.

Thanks for listening. Thanks.

Oh my word! No wonder the smiles are there.