Kevin Phillips Emerges

Hello and welcome to Oh My Word, the podcast about Watford in the '90s. We're Matthew and Michael, two Watford fans who started supporting Watford at the turn of this decade. Just as they became crap. Our regular listeners will probably know the drill by now. When we're going through seasons we like to sort of pull out some of the key moments from each season, some of the key players, the key memories that we have of that particular season. Today we're going to be talking about the 1994-95 season, so we're smack bang in the middle of the decade. Hello, Matt.

Hello, how are you? Yeah, I'm good, thank you. I'm good, thank you. What are we— what are we feeling about this one? What are your what's the sort of the vibe going into the '94-'95 season?

This is a season that kind of lives long in my memory. It's one of the seasons I went to the most matches, went to lots of home matches, lots of away matches as well. So lots of strong memories. Hopefully we'll be able to pull those out. And other than a short spell for you, I think you went to quite a few matches this season as well, didn't you?

I did, yeah. A lot of games few home and away actually. So yeah, should be lots. I think the challenge will probably be what we leave out and trying to focus on what we think are the key things.

Yeah, exactly. Where are we? We're in 1994. So John Major is still in charge of the country, Tory Prime Minister, but Tony Blair takes charge of the Labour Party around this time. And this kind of follows what we were saying last time, the kind of the Cool Britannia, the resurgence in sort of patriotic feeling in the country, in and around the country. And I think lots of people our age, when we think back to that era, we think a lot about music, don't we? What were you— what were you— what discs were you spinning, Michael?

I actually think, because I was thinking back to this time, I'm thinking like, this is when Parklife and Definitely Maybe came out in 1994, but I actually didn't really get into them. I started my indie phase probably in '95, was when I really started to. Towards the end of this school year, that was when I really got into it. So I was actually like, a lot of the, a lot of the lads were still into like, we were listening to a lot of LA gangster rap and stuff and wearing American sportswear. Like everyone was wearing anything black basically, like the LA Raiders and any of the teams, any of the teams that were black, which yeah, it's quite funny. I think coming from sort of like the leafy home counties, and that was the look. But yeah, so actually probably more likely to listen to like Cypress Hill and Snoop Dogg's first album at this stage.

I thought I'll be listening to like more of the sort of Britpop stuff, but that came later. How about you?

Things sort of straddled the divide a little bit there. Yeah, so definitely some of the early '90s hip-hop was still, still in rotation, you know. I had moved to— had moved into the guitar world a little bit more. I was never the biggest— even in retrospect, never the biggest Blur fan, never the biggest Oasis fan. Pulp was my favourite of that crew, but around this time, Ash were my favourite, I think. Okay, yeah, I think they were, they were much closer to age than us, you know, they were 17 years old around this time, so yeah, felt like the energy and the, like, the weird Star Wars influence and stuff like that was on their music, I used to really, used to really enjoy that when I was a good— when I was a teenager. Yeah, that was my, that was my jam.

What, and what else was going on in the build-up to this season then?

Well, this is a time where the Premier League starts becoming even more exclusive. It drops from 22 teams to 20. And the way that they handled that was this season there were to be 4 relegated from the Premier League and only 2 going up. So our division, Division 1, had 1 automatic place up for grabs rather than 2, and then 1 through the playoffs as well. So the playoffs were contested between the teams in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. It's also the first season following on from the Taylor Report where grounds in the top 2 divisions had to have all-seater stadia. It was no longer a recommendation, it was mandatory.

We'd done the North Stand, the Vicarage Road end, a year or 2 before, and this is the season that the Rookery End is finally replaced. And construction of the new South Stand, as it was referred to at the time happened throughout the season. So we didn't have the 3-month throw-up of the Vicarage Road end like we had last time. This was, this is slightly more relaxed construction, wasn't it?

A more considered build.

Yeah, they could take their time.

Yeah, but it was, it was the first time I think going to the stadium where there was actually just a big empty space, because obviously we didn't really experience that with the previous building work. So actually just having a proper three-sided ground. And at the start of the season there was just some hoardings up, but you could just see right back over the allotments when you were sat in the Vicarage Road end. It was a bit— it was a slightly odd one to start the season with, but that was going on around the country, like you say.

I mean, on the pitch, we were the favourites to go down.

I didn't remember it that way, but I guess we'd only just stayed up last season, so it kind of makes sense. I just, I don't think I was aware of that at the time, that people have really had us down as relegation fodder.

Yeah, I guess, I guess probably not helped by the fact that we'd sold our best player and sold our second best player the season before. The favourites to go up were Bryan Robson's Middlesbrough and Graham Taylor's Wolves. Yeah, but yeah, we'd sold Furlong to Chelsea for £2.3 million, so a kind of tenfold return on what we paid for him. Glenn Roeder's decision was to replace him with Jamie Moralee. So he'd had a couple of fairly nondescript years at Millwall, I think. I think his strike rate was kind of like 1 in 4 or something like that. We signed him and Jeff Pitcher for £450,000.

But you had some better ideas, didn't you? And you told the club about it.

Well, I think first of all, on Paul Furlong, I remember actually like my mum and dad, I think they must have heard on the radio when Chelsea had signed him, because I remember them sort of breaking the news to me. It was almost like someone had died in the family, them saying, you know, Michael, we've got— we've just heard something we've got to tell you. Because I think they knew I'd be really gutted by the way it was. Are you sitting down? Yeah, it was a bit like someone had just passed. But yeah, I had some ideas for Glenn. I wrote, I wrote a letter to him advising him on how to reinvest the Paul Furlong money.

I was confident that with some of that, it wouldn't need all of it, he'd be able to secure the signature of Kevin Campbell from Arsenal. I don't know why I thought that we could afford Kevin Campbell and be like, why Kevin Campbell want drop down a division to play for. He wasn't getting much. I think he was starting to be sort of second fiddle at Arsenal, so I thought, you know, maybe, maybe here we can, we can go aim high. But yeah. Nothing. Obviously that didn't happen.

It was also quiet for a while, and then I got a letter in the post from Glenn explaining the business that he'd done. I mean, I say explaining, he just literally said, thank you for your letter. I've listed the players that he'd signed, including Jamie Moralee, and said he thought they'd do well for the club. So fair play to him for replying. Still have the letter, which I'll be sharing on Twitter later. But no, I was very I was very pleased to get the reply, I have to say. So it shows that he's, you know, he took the views of, you know, teenage Watford fans seriously and felt the need to reply.

Good on him, good on him.

But you were never fully appointed as Chief Scout then?

Never fully appointed as Chief Scout, no. Just a volunteer's job.

Yeah. So as well as that multiplayer deal from Millwall, there was another one, ins and outs, a deal with Southend. So we swapped Derek Payne for Keith Dublin. Sad farewell to Keith Dublin from me. Derek Payne, be much— be a tough-tackling centre midfielder. At the same time, we made the choice to sign Tommy Mooney permanently. He'd had a really good loan spell in the, in the run-in previous season, so 90k it cost to turn that into a permanent deal.

A few other ins and outs, Kevin Miller being the notable one, goalkeeper from Birmingham who would firmly establish the number 1 shirt as his own. Dominic Ludden, left-back from Leyton Orient. Peter Beadle, young player from Spurs who they picked up from Gillingham a year or two before. Kenny Sansom joined us player-coach, but very much on the coaching side of things. Going out the door, Perry Suckling went to Doncaster, so we no longer had two goalkeepers with the first name Perry any longer. And Jason Drysdale left for a fairly sort of ill-starred spell at Newcastle, hence us getting in Ludden, I think.

So it's kind of left us with this squad that was quite heavy on central midfielders, not a real amount of natural width and wing play, and really no strong centre-forward, no target man, which was obviously the little and large role was very— was combination was very popular at the time. We had a bunch of sort of fairly slight forwards, I think, no real— no one to really lead the line. And we'll definitely definitely come back to that as the season progresses. Nigel Gibbs is still out, he ends up being out for 2 years in total so Hessenthaler is installed as team captain, and the team are playing in the same kits as last year. Blaupunkt have renewed their sponsorship deal, so remember they joined partway through the season last year, they signed on for another 2 years for a bit of stability in the sponsorship department. Also, the Sky Sports empire begins to build, you know, the attention is very much on the Premier League at this point, and they launch a second channel which they use to good effect towards the end of the season, which we'll talk about. But before the season itself kicks off, we had a fun pre-season game versus Spurs, didn't we, with a notable introduction.

Yeah, so this was a huge event for Watford at the time. I mean, it was obviously a bigger event for Spurs. They had signed Jurgen Klinsmann, which was the big sort of marquee probably the big marquee signing of any English club that summer. It was very unusual for you know, such a bona fide international striker of, you know, world and European pedigree to be playing in England. It didn't happen very often, so it was quite a shock that he had come and a major coup for Spurs to get him because they started the season on a massive points deduction. His first game then turned out to be a preseason friendly that had been arranged at Watford for some time.

And normally, I think, when we had preseason friendlies against the big London clubs, you'd expect a, you know, a decent turnout. But they weren't— it was just, you know, they happened quite regularly. I think we played Chelsea and Arsenal and QPR and stuff in previous seasons, but this one suddenly became like a national media event with everyone wanting the first glimpse of Klinsmann. So I went, I went with my mum and dad to this one because they wanted to go and watch. They wanted to see Klinsmann. I don't think they were that bothered about having an early look at Jamie Moralee. But it was, it was— you had to— classic Watford, obviously it wasn't ticketed, it was pay on the gate, so you just had to get in there early.

We were there about an hour or so before kickoff to make sure we had good seats. And then the line of journalists on the pitch waiting for Klinsmann to start his warm-up, there was just like a corridor of, you know, those big press lens photographers, like the cameras with the massive lenses. There was just a massive a trail of those almost stretching back out to the, to the centre circle from the tunnel at Vicarage Road, waiting for Klinsmann to run out. You could tell when he started to come out of the tunnel because there was suddenly this sort of like manic burst of activity as they all started shuffling back and getting there, getting their photo. He suddenly emerged out of that tunnel, this sort of big blonde, you know, the streak of blonde, and in a Spurs white kit, sprinted around the pitch, just started doing this ridiculous over-the-top sort of sprints up and down the touchline, just sort of showing off a bit. Spurs fans are obviously going absolutely nuts.

It was, it was, it was quite a fun sideshow to start the season and not the sort of, not the sort of atmosphere I've witnessed at a preseason game since, to be honest. It was, it was something quite unique. So that was, that was a lot of fun. We'd be seeing Jurgen again at Vicarage Road shortly, so we'll get to that. So let's get into the season proper. We kicked off with an away fixture, tough opener actually, away at Sheffield United, who'd been relegated the previous season. So I actually went to that.

It's my only trip to Bramall Lane, went up on the coaches. Actually went with quite high expectations because I think, because Watford have played quite well in that preseason friendly against Spurs, they draw 1-1, actually played some all right stuff. So, and obviously when you've got new players, even though I didn't, I didn't know much about Moralee, I thought, you know, maybe he'll be really good. So I went up there with quite high hopes. We lost 3-0, didn't really have a shot. Mitch Ward scored an absolute screamer for them, so that was brought down to earth with a bump. And I guess the lack of punch up front was the thing that you'll see through the opening few months of the season as the most concerning aspects.

Early on, as you said, we'd lost Furlong. That was always going to be a big ask to replace a player who just, you know, basically guaranteed 20 goals a season. And in the immediate sort of following on from that, in the league with— and in the cup We didn't score any goals. So first 3 games, we drew a blank, including, you know, a draw at home to Grimsby, nil-nil. I mean, we did hit the woodwork twice, but Craig Ramage gets us off the mark in the League Cup at home to Southend. But then, yeah, the form is not great early doors. We just can't get any goals, which is obviously what you need to win matches.

We play at home against Wolves at the end of August, and this is Graham Taylor's return to Vicarage Road. He's the Wolves manager now gets a very warm reception. This match was the best performance of the season by far, I think. And Matt, you were there, so you can tell us a bit more about how that unfolded. But I think crucially, like, this was the emergence of Richard Johnson, wasn't it, as an instrumental part of Watford's midfield? Do you want to tell us a bit about that game?

Yeah, just, I mean, the pattern of the game was that Colin Foster scores quite early on in the match. He's lingering up in a centre-forward position and puts it away. So we lead for a large chunk of the game, and Wolves score with about 5 or 6 minutes to go. I think it was Neil Emblen scored. But then on 88 minutes, Gary Porter takes the corner, it's kind of half cleared and it's kind of bobbling and bouncing around and Richard Johnson, we didn't know really he could do this at the time, but he just ran up to it and absolutely leathered it right in the top corner, kind of what became a kind of trademark goal for him and indeed he'd score similar goals throughout the season. But yeah, I remember that, just huge celebrations all around the pitch, all around the crowd, you know, it'd been a rubbish start, we went into that game bottom I think. Yeah, complete lack of ability to score goals and a kind of real release of pent-up frustration, I think, as that flew into the top corner. We realised we're probably going to win, we're probably going to hold on to it.

We played quite well throughout the game.

Yeah, and Wolves were one of the promotion contenders as well. I mean, they had spent—. Yeah, they were. So it was, it was a really big result, I think, to get that win and to obviously get the winner late in the game as well. It was much needed, as you say.

Yeah, really satisfying to score, to score such a good goal so late on. Yeah. And it was a night game at Vicarage Road, and we've, we've talked about how, you know, in the '90s, the night games at Vicarage Road were often quite special. And that was certainly one of them that sticks out for me.

Definitely, definitely. So we followed the Wolves game up with another home game against another of the promotion contenders. It was Bryan Robson's Middlesbrough. So player-manager Bryan Robson. Boro were top, they'd gotten off to an absolute flyer at the start of this season. There's another big crowd. Boro brought, you know, a big following with them.

I was at this one and again, it was a really good performance from Watford because Boro were— you could see the confidence they had. They were knocking it about. Clayton Blackmore, former, you know, Wales and Man United defender, he's got the opener for Boro. And then there was a real moment of injustice. I know Graham Cagle on Twitter mentioned this as well, and this was certainly my recollection, so I'm glad he got me riled about this one again. Bryan, the ball goes through, Bryan Robson's chasing, there's no defender near him. Kevin Miller comes out to try and get there first and boot it out of play.

Robson just gets there before him and sort of taps it past him, and Miller takes him out, which is a fairly, you know, you see that happen a lot. The referee comes over and shows Kevin Miller a straight red. The problem with that is that Bryan Robson had just basically booted the ball out to the corner flag or the lower Rous. So a terrible decision which puts Perry Digweed back in the sticks for Watford. And I think, you know, everyone's hearts sank a bit because Miller had made a decent start to his Watford career and the defence was starting to look a lot more settled. So really up against it, down to 10 men, but it was Richard Johnson again scoring for Watford and getting a very deserved equalizer, which ultimately got them a point. It was a sort of half-cleared set piece, but it was another absolute thumper from Johnson where he just runs onto it, absolutely leathers it.

It does take quite a meaty deflection on the way in, but it's hit so hard it gave the keeper absolutely no chance. And Watford have got a you know, 4 points from 2 what would have looked on paper very tricky games. There's probably other things to pull out from this opening spell. We then had to have Digweed in goal for several games because of Kevin Miller's suspension. So he missed 3 games through that. Part of that spell included a fairly miserable 4-2 home defeat against Luton Town. Moralee finally gets a goal, and against his rivals, opening the scoring for Watford, a little pitch invasion from the fans.

And you kind of think, guys, he's going to be up and running now. But it certainly comes to nothing as Luton take control of the game after that and end up winning 4-2. There were lots of errors.

And yeah, we're in the middle of the defensive crisis. We only had Holdsworth started the game alongside a youth team centre-back, Gary Fitzgerald. I guess we had. You know, Colin Foster, Keith Millen, Mark Watson, probably, probably others, all out injured, all of our senior centres, and Perry Digweed in goal. So, you know, to concede 4 at Luton, obviously unpleasant probably understandable.

There were mitigations. Yeah. So probably, again, given that, given what you've said about the defence and the confidence, or lack of, and lack of experience in that back line the next player we faced in this spell was Jurgen Klinsmann again. This— we got drawn against Spurs in the League Cup. So this was, you know, again, another really big high-profile game. TV cameras there for this one, live coverage on ITV, I believe it was. Spurs at home.

We score in the first minute thanks to Craig Ramage and go 1-0 up. And you're thinking, could this be Watford tonight? But it's Spurs, absolutely take control after that. It is one-way traffic. Klinsmann, what we didn't see from Klinsmann in the preseason friendly, he gave, he gave everyone, you know, the real demonstration of what he was all about in this game. He scores a first half hat-trick and it is just brutal watching him dismantle Watford's defence, just everything that comes towards him ends up in the net. And poor old David Holdsworth does his best but just can't get anywhere near him.

There's one header he scores where he just sort of peels off Holdsworth and then just plants it back past the good past Perry Digweed, and it just looks so effortless. The only thing I would say about this one, again, another sort of burning sense of injustice, is Moralee does really well, he goes around Ian Walker and gets— he's about— he basically has a tap-in and Ian Walker cleans him out and gets a yellow card, so stays on the pitch. And Gary Porter, the ever-dependable Gary Porter, misses the penalty. And it, you know, that could have really changed. Watford had a lot of momentum at that time and it might have, you know, I'm not saying they would have won, but it could have changed the course of that game a little bit, might have made it a bit tighter in the end. So Porter missing, a worrying sign given how reliable he has been.

And we will come on to penalties. Penalties will come up again as we go through the season. But Matt, where, where do we go next?

Yeah, so we've lost that first leg 6-3, and the second leg at White Hart Lane is also full of goals as well. And that shifting momentum of the overall tie is still there in the, in the second leg. Foster scores a good header and a couple of goals from Lee Nogan as well. One of them he kind of slots home from a knockabout chaotic set piece, and another one, a Mooney cross is essentially going in, and he just runs in and chests it in at the far post. But Klinsmann scores again, Barmby scores again, so we win on the night, but we lose the tie 8-6. You know, Graham again on Twitter says that could have been 14-10 given the chances, and he's absolutely right. It was an absolutely crazy tie.

Spurs were booed off after losing on the night. And it kind of starts two things. One is the start of Lee Nogan's goal-scoring run. Never had you thought those words would go together, but they do. And it's also the beginning of the end of Ardiles at Spurs. That was their 4th consecutive home defeat and they'd scored, you know, like 2 goals a game over the 10 games. And he would be gone before October was finished.

He would leave Spurs.

That's a shame because the thing about his team that he sent out at Vicarage Road was that it was genuinely, You know, there's sort of the old tactic that it was apparently, you know, where they used the inversion, the inverted triangle, where you had like 7 players up front and then sort of 1 in midfield and 2 in defence. That seemed to be basically Ardiles— that's what he was playing with Spurs. He just had all his forwards on at the same time. Yeah I mean, obviously it was, it was disastrous, but it was, it was really good fun while— for the short time that he had it.

It was, it was. And even the notional defenders were players like Popescu who would just go, yeah, go on crazy runs up the field and join those, those 5 attackers.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, it would have been— if you weren't a Spurs fan, it would have been a lot of fun to watch, but I imagine it was, it was nail-biting every single match. And worse than that, because they weren't, they weren't doing well. They were— no, they weren't doing the lower half of the table. And yeah, Ardiles was gone. But we move on and back to the league. Porter misses another penalty against Derby. We draw away, Nogan scores again.

We had a decent 3-1 win against Notts County. Notts County would end up going down, so it wasn't a great result, but it was a decent performance. Lee Nogan scored again, so this run continues and he flicks the ball over the goalkeeper later on, and Moralee heads it into the empty net. So a bit of a confidence boost hopefully from, for Moralee there. And Ramage scores again. A kind of a neat, a neat passing move through the midfield. We play another home game after that, play Tranmere, win 2-0.

Nogan scores twice, and I think it's kind of noted as one of the best performances of the season. So by this point, Nogan scored 6 goals in 4 games, just absolutely out of nowhere. The league table is really, really tight. There's only 7 points between the relegation zone and the playoffs. You know, we're a chunk of the way into the season now, we're getting into late October and winning that match moved us up 5 places. Indeed, Roeder talks, I think, in the programme for that match how Tranmere had won the week before and got up 9 places. So things were really, really tight.

There was— there were no real breakaway teams at either end of the division at this time and teams were beating each other. So our ability to go on a good run would really help us. So obviously we were comfortably outclassed in the next match against Bolton, and we lose 3-0. But we enter a decent stage, you know, 5 games without defeat. Nogan's among the goals again, Mooney scores against West Brom, he scores this kind of really, really powerful half-volley into the roof of the net from an angle. We come to a game against Southend at home, we win that 1-0, and it's quite fun watching that back because it completely— my memory of it is exactly what it was. We were on top throughout the game, but there's this succession of late chances.

We really feel that we're going to score. Ramage hits the post and it rebounds straight into the keeper's arms, and Lee Nogan scores his late diving header like 4 minutes of injury time, gives us our 4th successive home win. And, you know, putting a few results together here and there— we've lost a couple of games, but by and large, the defence is doing well. We're able to get those 1 or 2 goals a game that's going to give us— that's able to give us the result. Instantly in the programme here, it references David Connolly signing a pro deal, and I can remember talk around him at the time as a 16 and 17-year-old. He's already, he's already knocking on Roeder's door wondering why he's not playing because the strikers are— the first-team strikers aren't playing well. It was, he was never short of confidence, was David Connolly.

All this time has been without Keith Millen in the team. He's been out for a while and he comes back in the next match. We beat Sunderland away 3-1, which is great. Mooney has taken over penalty duties and he scores. Nogan gets his 9th goal in 9 games, but he's kind of now one-to-way striker, Lee Nogan. That turns out to be his last goal for Watford. He and his agent are really pushing for a move, you know, he's got some notoriety, he's got some visibility now as a goal scorer in Division 1.

He does get his move, but it doesn't happen for a couple of months.

I don't know. I mean, he did— he was, he was definitely looking for a move then, Nogan. But having read his side of the story there, I think because he was— I, you know, very much portrayed him as just sort of being Billy Big Bollocks and he scored 3 goals for the first time and he wants to move. But he'd also said he never felt like Roeder fancied him, which I actually think is fair because I think Roeder was forced to play him at this time because he was, you know, Moralee had flopped by this stage his confidence is already starting to look a bit short. He'd been forced to give Nogan more game time. He wasn't— he didn't start the season with Nogan really, and he still even now I think was sort of sometimes benching him or bringing him off the bench. And so I think it was reasonable of him to think like, this manager doesn't really fancy me, I'm gonna go elsewhere.

I think obviously, yeah, used his burst of form. To get the move, which I think is fair enough.

Oh yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, like you say, we weren't blessed with options up front. Indeed, it seemed like everyone was having a go.

No, and it was— it really would feel like a kick in the teeth that we find someone burst into form like that and then they were wanting to bugger off as soon as they had finally learned how to stick the ball in the net. But yeah, I do think that was probably a failing of Roeder there although I love Glenn, but I he didn't, he didn't manage that situation very well because they lost a player in form at a key point in the season.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, he doesn't really feature very much after, after then. I say he doesn't score again, and we get his move to Reading kind of, kind of slightly later on. But, you know, we round out November with a goalless draw against Stoke, but it's been a really good month. We're up to 9th, so we've been bottom in late August when we played against Wolves. We peaked in 7th, but there'd been a lot of postponements due to a very wet autumn that year. So by the time those teams played their postponed matches, we were in 9th. But Roeder wins Manager of the Month and Miller wins Keeper of the Month, which is an award that I don't hear very often anymore.

I wonder if they should bring that back, like Right Back of the Month or Utility Player of the Month. These positional awards should be very much a thing, I think.

Yeah. I know I don't think I remember anyone getting Keeper of the Month. I do remember being very pleased that we had Kevin Miller but I don't, I don't remember the Keeper of the Month award. But well done, Kevin. Yeah, so as we came to the end of November, this has been a weird period for me because I've been in hospital having surgery on my back for scoliosis. So I'd been, I'd actually been in hospital for 5 weeks having quite major operations. So following Watford from my hospital bed I still got my get well soon card from the Watford team that someone got organised for me.

So yeah, so basically— Not signed by Kevin Campbell though.

Not signed by Kevin Campbell, but you know, there's some pretty good names on there. I'll have to have another look. I'll dig that out as well. I've still got that. But I just remember, yeah, I remember those games more than the results and the games, obviously, because I wasn't there, but particularly that late winner against Southend United. I can remember like BBC— well, we talked about last week, the vidiprinter coming up. That, yeah, that was a classic one, like Watford-Southend result not in yet, and then.

Goal, Nogan! I was in my hospital bed absolutely delighted with that. So it's actually quite a nice little run of games that we had whilst I was recovering. I didn't get straight back to Vicarage Road after hospital because I had to take it easy for a bit, but I didn't miss very much because the start of December was back to sort of struggling for goals a few nil-nils in there. As we come up to Christmas, things start to get a bit better again. Boxing Day we are at home to Portsmouth. That was a good, a good Boxing Day victory.

Ramage scores a really good header in that game. A proper sort of getting in front of the centre-back and really sort of powering it back past the goalkeeper into the top corner.

And yeah, he's, he's playing up front at the time, isn't he? He is, it's his turn.

And he's— although he was quite a, you know, but he was a bit of a showboater and a flash bastard, he could get stuck in as well, Ramage, when he needed to. I think he wasn't intimidated by players very easily. I mean, I say you get stuck in, he was lazy, but I mean, he didn't shy away from. Getting, getting on the end of things basically. So he plays really well. And yeah, Neil Shipperley on a loan spell scores— it makes a good finish actually. That's his only, his only goal during his loan spell, Shipperley.

But you can see a bit more of a shape, I suppose, the team, in having more of a recognised centre forward on the pitch, which is what Shipperley was. You know, he was, he was a strong unit up front who could hold the ball up a bit more And you do see it since a bit of like, well, there's a bit more of a shape to the team there than playing without one. As we said in previous seasons, there was another game the very next day on the 27th, which we lose at Millwall. But another victory, this was my return to Vicarage Road, so I've got to talk about this. The 31st of December, New Year's Eve, home to Port Vale, glamorous New Year's Eve fixture. Port Vale were in the relegation zone at the time, and it was actually Nigel Gibbs' return to the first team squad after 2 years out injured. I hadn't realised it had been that long.

But yeah, a long injury break for Gibbs. So he returns to first-team action. Well, we win this game 3-2, but it's really notable because they win it at the absolute death. I mean, it is deep into injury time that Craig Ramage gets on the end of a long punt forwards that somehow falls sort of in between the goalkeeper and the defence, and Ramage lifts it over the keeper, tucks it away. For his third goal in three games. I think it was quite harsh on Port Vale. They played really well in that game, and their goalkeeper somehow sort of slaps the— slaps a cross into his—.

He kind of throws one in, doesn't he? Yeah, really throws in the game as well. I remember that quite clearly. Yeah, I think one of their goals was a— was it— was a keeping error on our part as well. It wasn't— it wasn't a great game for keepers.

No. And they also someone hits the bar where they lift it over Miller. I think they're sort of from a slight angle, and I think one of their strikers lifts it over Miller, and Miller just sort of collapses to the ground, a beaten man, because he knows it's going in. And then it smacks back off the crossbar. So they had a huge let-off there. It was pissing with rain as well towards the end of that game. And the best thing I remember best about was that the last sort of 15 minutes were just both teams really going for it.

And yeah, I think Ramage had already— had also smashed one against the post quite late in the game as well. So it really— it was, it was brilliant entertainment at the end. It was both teams sort of really lost control and just went for it, and Watford, you know, came out on top in the end.

So yeah, that was a fun game. I have fun memories of that match.

Yeah. So as we go into January, the most impressive thing about this spell. They do start to pick up some positive results. It starts with a lot of nil-nils. The key thing there is the nil in the opposition's column. Watford suddenly really— the defence had looked pretty good so far this season, but now they really lock the door. They are sort of fully staffed at the back.

Kevin Miller has got everyone really organised and calmer, and there's a real sense of calm about this defence now. They really learn how to defend and make themselves an impenetrable side for a good early chunk of the year. They finished the year with getting through to the fourth round of the cup. They'd had a terrible, terrible third round tie up at Scarborough. I think it's widely regarded to be one of the worst matches Watford have ever played in it, especially for those who were there. It sounded absolutely horrendous. They beat them in a replay on the night, another sort of, you know, rainy midweek game.

The pitch is starting to get churned up. And then shortly after that, they beat Swindon in the fourth round thanks to Andy Hessenthaler slotting one home. Matt, you've said that you think it was clearly controlled with his hand. That's not my recollection. May have looked that way, but I think it was a perfectly legitimate goal and a classic Hessenthaler burst from midfield.

Oh, Hessenthaler's clearly been on to you as well because he runs through and he knocks it with his forearm or his hand. The camera angle doesn't allow you to see it. We didn't have VAR in those days. We didn't have VAR, no, didn't have a second camera in those days. But yeah, no, I remember the ball hitting his arm. Yeah. And yeah, he's asked about it in a post-match interview and completely sidesteps the issue.

Said, yeah, headed it down, put it away, you know, like, I've hit it and it's gone in, that sort of thing. So yeah, fair play to him.

The other, the other thing I just want to mention before I we get into the next stage is that during this period as well, we'd signed Nigel Jemson on loan. So he was the latest throw of the dice up front as well. I mean, it is it was really, you know, anyone that they could get their hands on at the moment for Rotherham was getting their chance up front. So another loanee brought in but he hasn't featured on the score sheet so far.

Yeah, at this point we'd signed Kevin Phillips as well from Baldock Town. Yes, he hadn't, he hadn't, hadn't appeared, he'd been on the bench.

£10,000.

£10,000, Absolute bargain. Yeah, recommended to the club by Nigel Callaghan, who had a, had a game or two at Baldock, you know. Obviously he'd been back at Watford 2 or 3 years previously. But yeah, we'll go on to talk about Kevin Phillips and he, you know, he certainly gets his turn as well. And by this time Connolly's made his debut, so, you know, we're trying everybody up front. Nigel Jemson's the latest one. The next game I think we ought to talk about is the 4-0 win at Southend.

I went to that match. This is Bazeley's turn up front. So Bazeley, you know, came into the team as a winger, played a chunk of this season at right back and was given to go up front, probably alongside Jemson. And out of nowhere, he scores a first half hat-trick. None of them penalties, is all completely from open play, all in the first half. That's his kind of odd duck walk celebration, which I never really really enjoyed. But my memory of that, of being in the stands as an away fan, was that the noise of the Southend fans we could hear, it was like a bunch of primary school children shouting, 'Southend!

Southend! Southend!' And so we returned in kind, and I remember doing a lot of impressions, all of us doing impressions of young children shouting Southend. But that was a really fun match, you know, you don't often go don't often go away and win 4-0. I mean, Southend, Roots Hall, not the most luxurious of surroundings, and Southend weren't a particularly good team this year, but. Yeah, 4-0, great result. Bazeley scored a hat-trick and Ramage scored a penalty, Ramage, as he had done in the previous game as well. So he was currently on penalty duties after Porter missing and Mooney missing before that as well.

So our run of clean sheets is obviously still continuing, and we get a couple more. We beat Burnley at home 2-0, and then we draw Palace in the 5th round of the FA Cup. And Palace had won the championship the year before, the Division 1 championship the year before, so they weren't doing terribly well in the Premier League, but they were still, you know, a team that had done much better than us the year before, that had strengthened since. And our pitch was just dreadful at this point. So it'd been a really wet autumn, but at this point they'd put out the sawdust and the sand to try and dry it out, so it's really patchy. We draw 0-0, so that makes it 9 clean sheets in a row. That goes to a replay, and then we lose up at Sunderland.

They score quite early on in the match there, as I remember. But yeah, the first goal we conceded in 1995, and that was on the 21st of February, so some record, it's a club record, still stands. Phillips makes his debut in that match, he's the 10th player to play up front for us, which is pretty good going. I mean, you struggle to do that throughout the course of a season normally, but to do that by the end of February is, yeah, I think it really shows how much Roeder struggled to get any kind of functioning attack going. Yeah, it wasn't even just the individuals, it was the combinations just weren't clicking at all, were they?

No, not at all, not at all. My dad wrote off Kevin Phillips after that date we were at, that Sunderland game. And I mean, Watford really didn't lay a glove on Sunderland in that game. And so because of that, my dad was very quick to write off Kevin Phillips. Not good enough, not good enough at this level. Can't just be picking players out in non-league, which obviously never let him forget just as I never let him forget that he'd also written off Tony Yeboah after his Leeds debut as well. So, and then was subjected to, you know,.

Yeboah getting 2 Goal of the Season nominations in one month. So obviously, you know, I didn't pass up the opportunity to mention that to Dad. Oh yeah, look, Dad, he's really rubbish, isn't he? Can't cut it in this league. Look at him now, what he's doing. Yeah, it's the kind of thing, and you know, in before, before Twitter, where you would just sort of quote tweet journalists with their old takes and make fun of things that they got wrong. All you could really do was bring up your dad's old opinions, which had come back to bite him in the ass.

But point at the Watford Observer.

Yeah.

So we go to— we have the replay against Palace and we lose, and we lose in the last minute of extra time as well. With it, you know, we'd gone— got a match and then another match and then a period of extra time, or neither team scoring. George Ndah scores a header right at the end. Paul Goldsmith puts— points this one out. He driven down from Leeds. Where is it? You need to watch the replay.

Must have been pretty galling for him to do that. And then we have a pretty dreadful performance against Reading away, a match that I went to. Same. I remember going with my friend Jamie, who listeners may or may not remember went with me to the Bolton game when we won 4-3. At that match, I remember him saying to me, why are people leaving? It's just been halftime. And this was a match where we left early and we got in the car and went home early because we were 4-0 down.

So you didn't see the Phillips goal?

So I didn't, no. I heard the Phillips goal as we were walking to the car, as we were just outside, because that was quite late on. He'd come on, scored a late consolation. I think he and Hessenthaler chased down a centre-back with a loose pass and they managed to, he managed to kind of loop it over the keeper from the edge of the box. Yeah, that's his first goal for the club, first of many thankfully. We go on and we have a mixed set of results, generally positive though. We lose to Middlesbrough.

We play a match against Swindon and we win 2-0, Hessenthaler and Phillips scores. But this is probably the scene of one of the worst penalties I think I've ever seen. Lots of players have missed penalties already for Watford this year, to the point where it's just kind of going round again. It's like at the end of a long penalty shootout where everyone gets another go as well. You know, everybody is missing them. As a listener, Graham Cagle points out that the trademark nonchalant Ramage penalty is a thing of beauty. I think he just gives the keeper the eyes and he just side-foots it just to the wrong side of the keeper, sends him the wrong way.

But when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong, because this is an extremely gentle side-foot pass and the keeper just, you know, he more or less just bends down and picks it up. It was particularly bad. And then a couple of matches where Phillips, as he does throughout between now and the end of the season, scores a couple of late goals. This Watford team seems pretty good at scoring late goals which is in stark contrast to a couple of years ago where we just kept conceding late goals and we kept losing leads and losing from a drawing position as well. But this team seems to be able to dig in a little bit, and the goals that we are able to score, a healthy portion of them I think are in the last you know, 5 or 10 minutes of matches and even after 90 minutes. He scores a late goal against Wolves in the away game against Wolves and does again to help win. Helped us win against Barnsley 3-2 at home.

Notable perhaps for the appearance of Mickey Quinn, who's the latest person to join the club on loan, latest striker to join the club. Roeder's getting to the bottom of his list there, I think.

There's not many, I can't, if you Google image search, there isn't much that comes up for Mick Quinn Watford. I think that says a lot about his loan spell there. It's one of those ones that's very hard to find much evidence of. I think he was testing the makers of the shirts there with sort of finding the right fit for him by that stage in his career. Not exactly the most athletic centre forwards to play up front for us. Like that, as you point out, like at that stage of his career, I mean, I don't think he was massively in demand. He'd been a brilliant striker, to be fair to him.

Yeah, he had a real proper goalscorer. So I don't want to disparage the rest of his career, but it was desperate stuff by that stage, really desperate to have—.

Yeah, I think he would kind of get 50 or 60 minutes and then Beadle would come on for him. Yeah, I mean, that pretty much happened with every—.

What a depressing exchange of— I know, it went on for 50 minutes, replaced by Peter Beadle. Yep.

Yeah, very disappointing, very disappointing for everybody involved.

Yeah.

We play Luton and it's a match on telly. Phillips gets his fourth in 4 games and we have a chance to win the match but Porter misses a penalty. He's the latest one to miss. Again, he's missed earlier in the season and it's his go again and he's missed again.

So they've been around the whole team by this point. Everyone, literally everyone apart from Kevin Miller, has had a go at being penalty taker. And so it's kind of back to Porter. It's like one of those penalty shootouts that goes on forever. It's like, yeah, oh, it's me again. And it's back to Gary Porter. And in the 6 months that's ensued since, you know, he got the duties taken off him, he still doesn't seem to have learned how to take penalties again.

So I was livid about that one because I just wanted us to beat Luton so badly because we still hadn't beat— since they'd come down, we still hadn't beaten them in the league. And we really, like, we really had them on the ropes. And I think, like, because Phillips really had them, he put the, you know, given their defence the jitters. He was, you know, he scored a really good equalizer, and then the momentum was completely with Watford in that game. And their defence was really worried about Phillips. And yeah, and then they won this penalty, and that would have been that, but they failed again. It's very frustrating.

It's really annoying. Yeah, there's one chance he misses and he really should have knocked it square to Beadle to knock into an empty net. Beadle gets— he's absolutely furious. You can really hear him shouting.

Would you square it to Peter Beadle though, Matt?

I mean, it's a very valid question. Yeah, no, I probably wouldn't.

Probably wouldn't.

Well, regardless, that's the end of March. And we're in 9th still, so we're kind of sticking around the same place, kind of up mid-table, but the gap between us and the playoffs, so, you know, position number 5, is beginning to lengthen. And we're now 8 points off going into April, so it does kind of seem, you know, it's going to take a pretty drastic run of consecutive wins for us to make our way up, and it does seem a bit of a way off now. And I think I think fans realised at this point we weren't going to go up, but we were playing well enough, and it was nice to be in, you know, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th. These were relatively heady heights after the last few years, weren't they?

Yeah, that's right. It was nice to be in the obscurity of mid-table. I think you're right, it was going to take a massive finish for Watford to have an outside chance of reaching the playoffs at this stage. So obviously they lost the next two games. But I think that's still, you know, they were, they were very much in mid-table with. A relatively easy run-in actually towards the end of the season. They've got all the most sort of challenging fixtures out of the way against the best sides pretty much.

So the run-in was not too bad. And to be fair to them, they did, they did make the most of it. There were— after those two defeats, the results were much better. They got a couple of wins back to back including another televised match, a really strange sort of dead rubber game against Millwall, but which saw Jeff Pitcher on his debut scoring against the team that we signed him from. It's one of those really strange— it's sort of like, have we just chosen him to play this game because it's against Millwall? Because they brought him in, he scored, and then that was who we kind of never seen again. It was very much a classic bit of Watford business, I think, sort of let's just throw him in there.

He does quite well, but we'll take him out of the team again and just pretend that never happened. They lost away at Portsmouth, but then. Another sort of good run of results at the end where they win 3 of their last 4. Kevin Phillips continues to be amongst the goals. I must say, after my earlier comments about Peter Beadle, he does— with 2 games to go of the season, the penultimate match, Beadle gets on the scoresheet, his first goal in his 19th game. And he really does— he really, to be fair to him, he really does celebrate. I think it meant something for him to at least get off the mark that season.

There was a real release, there was a real relief that he wasn't ending the season with naught in the goal scored column. So fair play to him. Phillips scores again in that game, and Phillips scores again on the last game of the season at home to Derby. So I remember this one quite clearly. I was at this game. It was a real, like, a classic sunny end to the season where, you know, you're not going down, you know, you're not going up. You really can actually relax and enjoy your team playing a competitive game.

When does that happen? Like, I mean, it was— you literally, you were playing for where you finished in the table, but it's so unusual, especially for Watford, to sort of end the season and just think, I can actually just. Sit down and watch a game of football and hope we win, but it's— I'm not going to be sort of sick with nerves throughout it. Thankfully, Watford did win, and they played really well in this game and finished the season on a high. Kevin Phillips, as I said, scores again. He has a go at a penalty after— again, another penalty. Gary Porter is not taking this one because he missed the last one, so Phillips is the— is the player who gets the opportunity this time.

And despite being on, you know, a red-hot streak of form, he misses as well. And we then get another penalty in the second half with the scores at 1-1, and Craig Ramage against his former team decides he wants to have, you know, attempt number 70 of the season. This one he gets right. He doesn't do this sort of he doesn't, he doesn't overthink it. He does still place it, but he slots it nicely past the goalkeeper, and Watford win 2-1. I think it was Ramage actually wins that penalty as well with a he does get taken out, but in classic Ramage fashion, definitely makes the most of it.

He makes the most of it. So it was a— we finished the season in 7th. In normal, in normal years, if you said, as you said, Matt, that would have been one place outside the playoffs. In this season, with the reduced number of teams going up it was— you had to be top 5 to get in the playoffs, and Watford were way off that. So it wasn't a season of sort of just missing out, but 7th, given what we've already covered in this decade so far, that feels pretty good.

It does, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, we'd had a poor previous season and a bad start to this one and so I think it represents a season of progress. We'd spent most of the season after we got out of our terrible start, we spent most of the season just in upper mid-table, you know, relatively comfortable. We were winning more games than we were losing. If we could keep a clean sheet, we'd probably be able to score one or two goals, and we did keep a lot of clean sheets. Yeah, and that was. That was what we were doing really, and the football was pretty good.

Yeah, we never really hammered anyone. I mean, I know we got the 4-0 at Southend, but that was—.

Yeah, they tended to be sort of out of the ordinary results rather than—.

There's a lot of 2-1s or 2-0s, wasn't there?

Yeah, exactly. But I think we played some nice football. We did. Roeder talks about—.

Roederball.

Sculpting the team in, you know, yeah, exactly, the sort of the football that he likes to watch. There are, there are a handful of— more than a handful of goals looking back on it where the result of sort of half-decent passing moves through the middle of the pitch because we had those, those central abundance of central midfielders. And I guess Ramage was pretty much at the heart of that. He was— if he wasn't playing up front, which he did for like a quarter of the season, he would be playing behind the front two, or certainly, certainly in an advanced midfield role. And a lot of the play went through him. And I think he was really at the heart of a lot of the good things that we did this season.

He was, yeah, he was. He had a fantastic season. I think there were some really good passing moves leading up to goals in this season, like the one that you mentioned earlier, the Notts County one. He, you know, there's a lot of like nice one-touch passing going on, and then Ramage just steering the ball past the goalkeeper. I think I'm doing analogy at this point but you know, Totti-esque perhaps in this sort of— I never would have guessed that, but I was gonna go with Totti or Socrates. These as I think it's a sort of, you know, the libero of the team, playing between attack and midfield, floating around, carrying the ball forwards and popping up with goals and the creative spark of the team as well.

I think, I think that's— I think I'm happy with that analogy for this week. I do, yeah. I mean, they played the best football that we probably— in terms of just passing the ball around and keeping possession. They played it much better than any of the previous teams that we've talked about so far in this decade. They actually were, you know, relatively comfortable on the ball this side and were quite happy to keep hold of it. They just— they almost had to do that, I think, because they didn't have the outlet of a target man, did they? I mean, they were just— there just wasn't one.

So maybe that almost forced them to, you know, keep the ball for longer than they would have done if they'd had a Paul Furlong or Paul Wilkinson playing.

But yeah, I think Roeder would have kept Chipperley. He was, he was up for sale from Chelsea, and Southampton ended up buying him for £1.2 million, which I think was probably a little bit out of our price range. Yeah, 2 or 3 times what Roeder valued him at, or I suppose what he would have been able to spend. But yeah, I think he was, he was the closest we came. And he didn't— he wasn't at the club long enough to settle down. I mean, he scored and improved the shape of the team while he was there, but you know, when you're getting these players in for a month here and a month there, it's not really— it's not really going to change the way that we play, is it?

No, and it's not— I mean, it's not that every— you didn't have to play like a 6-foot-5, you know, lamppost up front to be successful in this league. Not everyone had that, so it wasn't a case of like you had to have, you know,. A huge physical presence, but because—.

Yeah, I think it's that kind of strength, a combination of strength and mobility.

Yeah, they just, they just didn't have a focal point, did they? They didn't have anyone who was like the, you know, leading the line for such a long time that season. And that's what I think gave him a bit of lack of cutting edge, especially when you know, that was just how football was played at that time, especially with everyone playing 4-4-2. You needed to have, you needed to have something in your attack that you just thought was gonna you know, everything could be aimed towards one way or another. And they didn't— they kept changing it so much that it just always felt like disjointed. And every now and then something would slot into place and they'd get on a bit of a run of form. And when they did, they were really good and they won a lot of games, you know.

But I guess he just, you know, he really— it— the Moralee thing really, really hurt, I think, their prospects this season because It was— he was in no— there's no way you can view Jamie Moralee's transfer as anything other than a failure. I mean, it just—.

And it was a lot of money at the time. A lot of money, exactly. I think at the time we'd only spent more money on Luther Blissett.

Yeah, it was a big fee.

I know that the fee included Jeff Pitcher, but that must have been a nominal fee really for Pitcher. So I mean, he does stand out as a failure really. I don't think we can make any. No, and that was for no lack of effort.

I never felt like there was a lack of effort from Moralee when he played. He did, like, yeah, he ran around a lot. It just— he just didn't— he was just not visible enough during games, and he wasn't on the end of things enough, or things just didn't fall for him.

And when he did, he would miss, you know. I can, I can think of, you know, several examples really where he got himself into a good position and the ball was played to him, and pretty much all he had to do was tuck it away and he would blaze it over, or he would scuff his shot or something. Yeah, definitely. It did seem to be a confidence issue, as—.

Yeah, he— as the season went on, that did— that definitely happened, where he would have, you know, fairly presentable chances that he'd snatch at and, like you say, lash over the bar and things like that. I think that was— that was once his confidence has really— had really taken a hit, I think, through his lack of form. So no, I think, I think that's fair.

Probably evidenced by the fact that Ramage was top scorer with 11.

Yeah.

You know, you know, he was. Someone that you view as the creative spark of the team is also your top scorer. I mean, that sounds great, but he could have, he could have made more for someone who was able to convert the chances that were being created.

If they'd had Phillips in the team earlier, then who knows, because he could— yeah, just Phillips's movement was so good that, and he was so confident in front of goal, he was sort of what I guess Roeder had hoped Moralee would be. But he was— he just— once he got off the mark, that was something amazing to see, wasn't it, that season?

In terms of a player, I mean, he says— he says in one of his post-match interviews that he'd gone 4 games without a goal and he didn't let it get him down. And it's like, the player he's playing alongside, Peter Beadle, didn't score in his first 18 games. It's remarkable what Phillips did when he came in, like you say, from Baldock. 9 Goals in 16 matches at the end of the season, aged 20, 21. He was a real find and one of a few of Glenn Roeder's. I think by this time it's now Glenn Roeder's team. He's made a few signings that didn't amount to much, and in Moralee, a big signing that didn't amount to much.

But, you know, particularly with the recruits at the tail end of the previous season and the likes of Miller, and the likes of Phillips. I think, I think he can, he could be proud of his transfer work to date at this point, couldn't he?

Yeah, definitely. I think, like you say, the defence is, was an incredible transformation given the state it had been in until the end of last season. And to go from that to what they had this season, which was, you know, the best, the best defence, one of the best defences I can remember in supporting Watford, you just felt so calm Are you not obliged to reference AC Milan and Catenaccio? I'm not going to go that far on this, but they were like incredibly just efficient at what they did.

Yeah, and they're very miserly, weren't they?

Yeah, they were very miserly. And Kevin Miller, you know, didn't seem to drop clangers, and the back four in front of him seemed to be immediately more assured with him behind them. I think he obviously kept them very well organized, as you know, good goalkeepers do. And yes, what you notice, the difference between him and Perry Digweed was, you just felt like Digweed was very quiet and timid in comparison to Miller, and that had an impact on the defence who didn't have that confidence when he was in goal. So that did, that did definitely make a difference. But I think in terms of transfers, yeah, the thing that Roeder struggled with was, as we've talked about, was just, you know, the centre, the centre forward role.

Phillips was one of those ones that I suppose they got lucky with to some extent, and it was very low risk because it was. Such a small fee from non-league, those are sort of free hits, aren't they? Because if they don't come off, he's on very— he must have been paid an absolute, you know, pittance at that stage as well. He'd been on a real, like, sort of probably one of the lowest earners of the first team squad at that stage. So it doesn't really matter if it doesn't come off. And a bit like the way the Beadle one didn't— I mean, that was a very low fee as well, but it's the ones that you're judged on. And that's true now, isn't it?

Managers are judged on the big fees, the players that they really invest in. If they don't come off, that's what people, you know, ultimately remember in terms of getting it right with the— and because you don't have limit, you don't have unlimited funds at Watford. The Moralee one was a bit of a— was a real difficult to overlook, wasn't it, this season despite finishing 7th. But yeah, but only 2 going up and 4 coming down means, you know, potentially a bit more of a difficult season in store next time with I suppose it's a calibre of sides, 3 sides that are relegated from the top flight, always expected to be amongst the challengers. And yeah, 4 of them coming down means you're going to get, you know, a tougher challenge in the season to come. But I wasn't really worried about that at the time. I felt quite excited about it because we'd finished season 7th and played some good football.

Yeah, there was some momentum with us, wasn't there? It certainly felt like there was something, something there to build on, and it really was just you know, the emergence of Phillips kind of softened that need for you know, the crowd had been crying out for a traditional number 9 centre forward and it kind of always felt like, you know, Roeder unearths one of those at a decent, a decent price then. That we could do something.

Yeah.

The emergence of Phillips kind of softened the need for that, but he always kind of thought you were— had a decent, a decent side. Not too many of them were too old either. Certainly two of the— a couple of centre-backs were in advancing years. Yeah. But it felt like, you know, a couple of good signings could turn this into a playoff team at least.

That's what I felt. That's what I felt. Although, you know, having said that, the teams that have gone up this season— I mean, Robson led Middlesbrough to the Division 1 title in the end, and they did look, you know,. They grew as the season went on, I think, that Boro team. Initially you just thought that was just a momentum of having him as player-manager, but I think as the season went on they started to look like a really complete side. And he did, yeah. And he obviously had a huge influence over them as player-manager.

And he was able to draw on some of his contacts, like, yeah, I mean, he said earlier Clayton Blackmore was there towards the end of his career, but yeah, you know, he was a good, a good player in the, in Division 1, I thought.

Yeah. Oh man, Lee Nogan at Reading. He finished second in that season but didn't go up because they didn't get promoted in second, and they played a really dramatic playoff final against Bolton, which Nogan scores in that game. And Reading, I think, were a good couple of goals up in that final and playing really well, and Bolton came back into it and won a dramatic game. It was Fabian De Freitas, from memory. Do you remember him?

Oh yeah, I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about him in a long time.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he won that. He scored the winner in that game. Swindon went down and they'd come down a previous season, hadn't they? So they did a sort of a double drop through the, through the divisions, Swindon. So a very, you know, a real brought down to earth for them with a bump after the, yeah, the highs of going up through the divisions with Glenn Hoddle. Yeah, the Glenn Hoddle days, well past them by this point. Well past them.

And they also had Jan Aage Fjortoft scoring a hell of a lot of goals that season as well, and still got relegated. It was him and Aldridge, wasn't it, banging the goals in? John Aldridge at Tranmere. And then, yeah, and then we had the— in the Premier League, a really exciting title race with Blackburn. The original sort of I suppose. The club that have been transformed with a wealthy backer. Obviously it looks quite tame compared to what we have now, what Jack Walker did, but he had brought in, you know, title-winning talent in Shearer and Sutton, who— Shearer scores 34, Sutton gets 23, the SAS partnership.

Yeah, and they just kind of, kind of played this very attack to I don't know who their central midfielders would have been. Batty and someone else.

Sure, Tim Sherwood was the player.

Of course it was Tim Sherwood. So two kind of defensively minded central midfielders, which enabled them to have Wilcox and Ripley.

Stuart Ripley.

Wilcox and Stuart Ripley on the wings. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, supplying those two strikers. I mean, yeah, there were so many goals in that team. They just happened to be scored by two players.

Yeah. Yeah, but it was a great title race, and it was obviously— I was really delighted that Man United didn't win for once, so that was great. But the other thing to mention about this season was the Cantona kung fu kick, wasn't it? Yeah, that was, you know, still talked about to this day. It's hard to imagine how— oh wow, the way I think about these events now is like, what would they be like now? Like if someone did that now try to imagine how that would be, you know, that. The reaction, the public reaction to someone doing something.

What do you think would happen now if that happened?

I think the calls for— I think given the sort of the way that fans are and the pressures on clubs and things like that in terms of being seen to be responsible, and the pressures on the FA, I think it would be more than the suspension that Cantona had. He got 8 months, didn't he, which I guess is quite, yeah, quite a long time. But I think there would be— there would probably be more calls for you know, a lifetime ban from football?

I think it would. So this was— his punishment was essentially handed down by the league. Yeah. And the police, because he was given a 2-week prison sentence, which he never served. That was knocked away on appeal. I think nowadays you just get sacked by a club. I don't think it would go that far.

I don't think— I mean, I suppose the football—. I don't know if they would. I don't know if they would.

I don't trust clubs to do the right thing ultimately, especially not the sort of the big clubs, but probably actually not any clubs. I think where they— I do think, like, over the last few years you've rarely seen clubs actually sack players.

Yeah. And someone of that visibility as well.

Yeah, I mean, without going into it, there's clubs, you know, with players that are currently employed by the clubs which are, you know, have done a lot worse shall we say, or are in the process of, you know, legal action for doing a lot worse than what Cantona did. So I don't think— I just don't trust that the club would have—.

That's a fair point.

I'm not sure that— I don't think he necessarily should have been sacked either. That's not me saying I think Cantona should have been. Thrown out the game, I just think it's interesting to think about what the reaction would have been.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Is there anything else? Is there anything we've missed from this season, Matt?

No, I think just briefly talk about Arsenal because they had an interesting season. Yeah. This was a season of the bungs and George Graham kind of being found guilty of that. I think it was a deal that brought John Jensen and one of his compatriots into the club. So some shady underhand deals were found out. And I kind of, I feel very sad looking back on the Paul Merson controversy because he was suffering from addiction to, I think, gambling, alcohol, and cocaine, and was really paraded out by the club and by the football authorities to kind of talk about this to the press when he really wasn't in a position where he ought to be doing that sort of thing.

You know, there ought to have been a lot more care, I think, taken with the Merson case. And I think that probably did have a destabilising effect on the club, you know, in combination with the George Graham stuff. I mean, they finished mid-table, and because of the 4 teams going down, there were only 2 wins off being relegated. It was only 6 points. So kind of one of the lowest ebbs, I think, for Arsenal in terms of their— how the fans would have been feeling at the time about their performances and kind of the attitudes and actions of the senior members of their club. And top it all off, they lose in the Cup Winners' Cup final to Zaragoza with Tottenham player Nayim scoring in the last minute from 40 yards.

Yeah, Nayim from the halfway line. Yeah, that's the chant went.

So I think that more or less brings us to the end of it. Season lives long in my memory, Michael. Same for you?

Yeah, I think there were, you know, going through that one, there were so many games that we, that we've been at, it was quite hard to skip over them for that reason because there were so many memories of things that we, you know, it's still quite, still quite vivid in our minds from the games that we've been to this season.

So those are our memories. Feel free, obviously, to get in touch if there's anything that we've forgotten, and we'll certainly share your thoughts. You can get in touch with us and follow us @OhMyWordPod on Twitter. So thanks again for your time, Michael, and see you next time.

Great, see you next time.

Oh my word! No wonder the smiles are there.