A Season Too Far

Welcome to Oh My Word, a podcast about Watford in the 1990s. I'm Matthew and I'm here with Michael. How you doing, Michael?

Yeah, very good, thanks, Matt. Looking forward to it as always.

Tonight we'll be talking about the 1995 to 1996 season. One that was full of a few good things and some pretty bad things. But the good things were really good. I'm looking forward to talking about them. And I think that this season really sets up the rest of the decade, which is, as I hope we all know, full of, full of positive news, really. So. Let's get cracking.

Michael, where were we in August 1995? What was going on in the world?

Well, yeah, August 1995. So I think it's fair to say, culturally speaking, that this is now— we're in like proper Britpop territory now. I know we touched on this in the previous season, but I think by now, I think I'd had my Britpop awakening at this stage. Oasis were very much the band for me. I liked Blur as well. I wasn't one of those either-or fans, but I'd gone to, I went, I'd gone to Glastonbury in 1995 in June, the summer, June '95. I went as a 16-year-old to the 25th anniversary Glastonbury, and I saw Oasis headline on the Friday night there on the main stage.

And after that I was like, yeah, they're the best band in the world.

Do you remember who else headlined that Glastonbury?

It was, Pulp but Pulp replaced the— because the Stone Roses were supposed to yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. And then one of them— was it one of them had broken their arm? And I don't know if it was John Squire or someone else, but someone had broken their arm and they couldn't play. And I cannot remember who the third headlining act was actually, so I'll have to go back and check that. I actually cannot remember. I did see lots of other— I saw like Sleeper.

Supergrass. There was— it was that kind of, you know, I saw the Charlatans. It was it was very much— I was there for the indie, and I, and I lapped it up. And yeah, that was good fun. It was very good fun. So yeah, so that's culturally that we're in that sort of the indie zeitgeist there, and those bands become household names. We had the battle of the bands with Blur and Oasis going for number one at the same time, when Country House pipped Roll With It.

We had— and I suppose like politically speaking as well, there's change afoot with the Conservative majority in the polls rapidly shrinking as Tony Blair's Labour have all the momentum in public support. And election's still a couple of years away, but you can see the tide starting to turn there. And for Watford, there was, there was a lot of optimism. I think maybe not a lot of optimism, but there was some optimism.

Certainly some optimism.

Yeah, after a 7th place finish last season, you know, we'd seen some prime Roeder-ball last season with Watford. Knocking it about. We've seen the emergence of Craig Ramage as a, you know, his creative best in the middle for Watford, spraying passes, scoring goals. We discovered Kevin Phillips at the end of the season who suddenly looked like every time he's going to shoot was going to end up in the net. So there was hope that, you know, there was the makings of a good team. Plus we had that really solid defence last season. I mean, that was the real plus point of the previous season was the fact that Watford found it they were very difficult to score against.

So going into the season, yeah, there was optimism. I suppose counter that, they still haven't signed a centre forward. And in fact, there was very little transfer activity going into this season. They signed Steve Cherry as backup keeper because Perry Digweed had left. That's hardly, that's hardly a signing to set pulses racing, is it? There wasn't, there wasn't really much other business because the club was still pretty skint. I suppose, you know, to temper that optimism, there wasn't money to spend on players.

So you still had, you know, last season's flop Jamie Moralee was still there. You know, there was David Connolly, who we mentioned last time, had sort of been coming through the youth team scoring goals. He was waiting in the wings for his opportunity but wasn't expected to be starting games at the start of the season. And I suppose there wasn't— therefore it was hard to tell where the season was going to go from there. If they could build on the, you know, the positive signs of the previous season, then yes, they would— you would hope to have another good sort of top half of the table finish. The other thing I should mention is the kit. So we'd had the Hummel kit for the past two seasons.

There's a new kit made by Mizuno, the Japanese sportswear brand. I was very excited about this, thought that was, you know For me, that felt like quite a big name even though no one else had Mizuno kits. I thought, well, it's not Bukta, so that's something. Very '90s, weren't they, these kits? Very boxy fit loose, forgiving.

There's really big sleeves, you know, they were like big squares, weren't they? Even the short sleeve shirt was like a big square on the arm.

Yeah. And I get another peculiar away kit of purple and green, which I don't think anyone has— has any other club ever worn purple and green? I think that's quite a unique combination.

What are your what your, what your thoughts about the purple and green?

I didn't love it. I didn't love it. It was a bit too— it was just a strange combination. And I think I actually thought when I first saw it, and I saw it, you know, in the shop, I thought, well, it looks all right. But when I actually saw them wearing it just looked weird. It didn't look like Watford at all. And I just thought, well, what for wearing a purple and green kit?

That just is. No, not for me. I thought the home kit was all right. It was kind of like a more jazzed-up version of the one they'd had. It really wasn't very different, was it? No, because it had the sort of weird bits on the sleeves again, and it just felt like they'd taken that template and tried to make it more sort of in a mid— middle of the decade style. But apart from that, it was, it was pretty ordinary.

It's fine. But yeah, what's your views on the away kit?

I think I liked it at the time, and then In the interim, I think I've hated it, and then I've come back to thinking it's all right again.

Okay.

Like, I mean, it's just— I think I've just come to accept that it's just of its era, really.

Yeah. And actually, looking as we'll go through, when we— I looked back at the highlights of this season. They only seem to wear it about 3 times in the whole season because, yeah, they don't have to wear their away kit very much, do they?

Because not very much clash Wolves and Norwich and a couple of others maybe, but that's about it.

That is about it. So yeah, so I think that's where we were. Some calls for optimism based on what had happened before, tempered by, again, no investment in the playing side which meant that there wasn't a huge opportunity to sort of recycle players or anything particularly new to get excited about. So. So that's where we were going into the first day of the season, Matt.

Well, I really remember the first game of the season. It was a really, really, really sunny day. We played Sheffield United at home. I think looking back on it was a good win, but even at the time wasn't really a great performance. Dave Bassett was in charge of Sheffield United at the time and they were certainly one of the favourites to go up. There are a few big teams in our division this year, and they were one of them that was going to be there or thereabouts. The two goals that we scored were both really good.

Derek Payne scored an overhead kick, which is baffling really to think about it, and Richard Johnson scored one of his trademark long-range goals, but this one sort of delicately caressed into the far corner with the inside of his foot.

Yeah, it was a very cultured strike, wasn't it?

It really was, wasn't it? Like, I looked back at the highlights this morning and he's clearly given a shout to Hessenthaler because Hessenthaler gets the ball and without looking kind of squares it across to Johnson, who runs onto it and just passes it into the far corner. There is a bit of a lack of creativity in that team though, the team that starts the season off. We had Hessenthaler, Payne, and Johnson. I think they're primarily defensive midfielders, you know, they're ball winners, they're not the most creative players. Ramage has been left out he's on the front cover of that first game of the season, the programme of the first game of the season. Ramage is off and running into 95, 96, but he's left out.

We think that's probably because of fitness reasons. So yeah, kind of a fairly industrious midfielder. We play on the break for the majority of the second half, but we do secure a 2-1 win. They did, they score, Sheffield United score, but we managed to win the game 2-1. Things are looking good, but they don't look good for long. So after that match, we lose 3 games in a row. We lose against Huddersfield, Barnsley, and Charlton.

In the Charlton game, Steve Cherry's in goal. We— I think that's one of the games that we lose Kevin Miller to an injury in the warm-up, which happens a couple of times in the season. So Steve Cherry, the reserve keeper, does get his chance a few times. We drew 0-0 against Grimsby. Paul Goldsmith on Twitter tells us that it was so cold, so depressing, and we were so unable to score. But then moving into, moving further into September, we win 3-0 at home against Stoke. This is a game I remember, I was there.

This was the game that my cousin scored with aplomb in the Watford Observer shootout. It was a great win, full of great football, but what I really want to do, Michael, is I want to do an entire podcast on the commentator. For this game. I could stop talking about everything else now and just do 90 minutes on him. I thought he was absolutely incredible.

It's so bizarre. It was, it was like he was, he was commentating on the greatest game of football the world has ever seen. I just— so sort of over the top with his excitement of Watford scoring 3 goals against Stoke. It was just like, who was this guy? Where did he come?

I have absolutely no idea.

Why was he so excited?

He was doing a Jonathan Pearce impression. This was around the time Jonathan Pearce was doing his kind of South American style commentary, wasn't it, I think? Yeah. Kind of best you can say. But the match was great. We won 3-0. Ramage scores twice, Mooney scores.

Good header from Ramage.

And that's a great header and a great goal! Wide cross, Nigel Gibbs, and the goal scorer underneath all that crowd is Craig Ramage.

Mooney crashes one in. There's Mooney.

Mooney will try one. Oh, that was magnificent, Tony Mooney! He cut inside, let one go with his right foot. Thank you very much.

And then Ramage does what he does best, which is diving to win a penalty.

It's the worst dive. It's really bad, isn't it?

It's really bad. Phillips absolutely skies that penalty. Commentator was, 'You can't do that,' which I thought was absolutely, absolutely hilarious.

Kevin Phillips on Sinclair. Oh, he's blasting it over! You just can't do that.

But he Ramage does score a really good free kick in that game. What a damage Craig Ramage.

Ramage will try one. What a savage! Craig Ramage, his second goal!

Yeah, he didn't last too long, that commentator, did he? I don't know.

No, that was his only appearance of the season. He was benched quickly afterwards. The rest of the quarter of the season isn't brilliant. We draw against Palace, we lose up at Ipswich, we have a couple of Coca-Cola Cup games against Bournemouth. The first one's fairly uneventful, as indeed is the second one, but we— the game goes to extra time. We score after 119 minutes, which, you know, you're winning the game then, but there's a pitch invasion for Watford fans, which means that the game goes through a lot of injury time, and they score 4 minutes into extra time, injury time, so it goes to a penalty shootout.

Miller is the hero because he makes a bunch of good saves, and Millen scores the winning penalty. Ian on Twitter reminds us that Kevin Phillips gets hit by a police truncheon after the match because the stewards, or the police indeed, getting mixed up with one of the fans, which isn't very good. Around this time, we signed Steve Palmer for £135 grand. He signed very much as a midfielder. We've got a lot of injuries in midfield, so that makes a lot of sense at the time. You know, our squad lacks a lot of natural width, has a decent number of centre midfielders, or people who are at least capable of playing in central midfield, but they're all out injured, really. So he signs, and we play Tranmere, and we win 3-2 away.

Injuries have given us very few options. Steve Palmer plays in midfield but we end the month in 15th. And then going into October, we lose against Millwall, we draw against Sunderland, we draw at home against Wolves. So we've got 1 win in 9 matches. And after the match, Glenn Roeder is asked about the start to the season. He talks about a really disappointing first quarter of the season. We've drawn too many games.

We've got a small squad. I think it's quite imbalanced. The injuries really haven't helped at all because even in the areas that we've got lots of players like central midfield, we've lost a lot of them to injury. A lot of the performances have been pretty subpar, pretty rubbish. So we're going into like the second quarter of the season and we're really not doing very well at all. We're already dragged down into very much lower mid-table.

Yeah, that's right. It's really not looking too great going into the sort of autumn, real like autumn-winter period. So they do have a bit of light relief in the form of the next round of the League Cup. We have another night under the lights against the reigning league champions, this time in Blackburn Rovers with Alan Shearer and Mike Newell up front. Big crowd, 17,000. We played quite well in that game. I was at that game and we gave it a really good go, took the lead with Phillips and should have been 2 or 3 goals up, I think.

Tim Flowers made lots of really good saves, but eventually—.

Yeah, we were definitely knocking on the door in that match.

Yeah, eventually, you know, it's one of those ones where you rue the missed chances because Shearer snatches one and then Newell nicks it for them and they win 2-1. Probably quite undeserved, that, but you're thinking you know, is that going to be the start of— that's going to be— there's a lot of effort, enthusiasm shown by Watford, and a lot of, you know, actually quite decent football in that game. So that, you know, bodes well, but it doesn't bode well because the next 6 games pass in the league without a positive result. So there's a defeat away at Portsmouth, draw at home to Southend, defeat at Leicester, 2 more draws with Port Vale and Luton, and a defeat at home to Norwich. That is, that is not looking too pretty. In the Luton game, Craig Ramage misses a penalty and it's a really— they draw 1-1 at home and it's a really slack penalty. He's— there's no sort of real disguise on it.

It's one that I think, I think last week one of our listeners was talking about Ramage's penalty technique and, you know, how he met his attempted sort of side-footed dinks, the nonchalance, the nonchalance, exactly, and how bad it looks when he doesn't pull it off. Well, this is one of those examples where he just, he just sort of swaggers up to the ball and it looks so obvious where it's going to go. In his defence, the Luton keeper is about 8 foot tall, which Ramage does say in his interview after the game where he said he felt fairly confident, then he looked up and saw the goalkeeper and said he still looks rattled, doesn't he, in that interview?

He's like, he's brushing his hand through his hair and he's going, he looked about, it was about 8 foot tall or something like that, you know, he said something on the crossbar.

Yeah, exactly. He's trying to defend his, I think he's trying to defend his It's a fairly awful penalty because when you're down at the bottom and you're taking a penalty against your rivals at home, and it would have made it 1-0 to Watford at that stage, I think. It's not great. They do thankfully rescue a point in that game thanks to Kevin Phillips, but it's not looking good. Gerard Lavin gets sold to Millwall for half a million pounds, so another player gone to the top team in the division. They're the top team in the division. Yeah, Millwall were flying high and we played them next, and in typical Watford fashion, we beat them away.

I mean, that result came out of absolutely nowhere. It's the first win in 12 games. Notable point from this one is Paul Wilkinson had been signed on loan from Boro, so we had the focal point in attack that lots of people have been saying, you know, we needed, particularly a lot of the fans been crying out for. Millwall, as you said, Matt, they were top and we were in 21st at the time, so it was a real unexpected result. Kevin Phillips did the damage, he scores a brace, and it's that sort of real like classic Kevin Phillips just sniffing out chances. To making the most of scraps, running onto the Wilkinson flick-ons. Yeah, that you do start to see immediate impact from Wilkinson where the team just have something else, I suppose, and the defence have something else to worry about in terms of having a big unit there, I suppose which frees up a bit more space for Phillips to be a bit more, you know, do what he does best.

Some more, some more very '90s commentary in this one because one of the, one of the goals is a bit of a goalkeeping. It's not so much a howler, but he does, he does let the ball pass through his gloves fairly easily. And to which the goalkeeper, the commentator remarks, he's— it slipped through his fingers, touch of the Nick Leesons there. Which, I mean, I don't know if that was a sort of scripted— he must have had that like a touch of the Nick Leesons. I mean the rogue trader who brought down Barings Bank. I mean, you can't get much more 90s and that, can you?

And I believe Nick Leeson had a connection to Watford. I think he's from Watford.

He's from— I think he's from— yeah, he's not a Watford fan, he's actually a Man City fan. Oh, is he? Yeah, because I don't know why I know this, but he— I think he like wrote some articles for the King of the Kippax fanzine and stuff like that.

Oh, okay.

But he's— yeah, he's not a Watford fan, but he was from Watford. So yeah, so another sort of, you know, infamous local boy that getting name-checked in a very useful victory away at a very good side.

Well, they're a very good side at the time.

They were a very good side at the time. Yeah, then lost away at Birmingham. Andy Hessenthaler got injured again, torn calf muscle, so not one that he could rush back from. He's going to be out for a while. So, you know, first, just constant injury troubles for Watford to key players like senior first-team players. They do get a good win at home against Tranmere after the Birmingham game with Phillips scoring twice and Colin Foster scoring as well. Steve Hodge played in this game.

He'd signed on a free from QPR, a player of some pedigree, wasn't he, Steve Hodge? I mean, he'd been— yeah, he was— yeah, had a great career. Obviously not— he was past his best, but. Knew how to pass the ball, which is something that Watford's midfield was sorely lacking at this point with all those players injured and players just woefully out of form as well. Ramage wasn't an automatic starter now because his performances just hadn't been up to it. He was not hitting the heights that he's hit last season and other players weren't really stepping up either. So Hodge was brought in and Hodge was quickly injured.

So it was a very nice debut. We got a great—.

It was a weird one, wasn't it? I mean, I went to that, I went to that Tranmere game. I remember sitting in the Upper Rous, which was unusual at the time because it always got in the Rookery. And also it's great. I mean, I remember him being really, really good in that match.

Yeah.

And yeah, he— we'd signed him permanently. It wasn't one of these weird Mickey Quinn loan deals. No, we signed him on a permanent contract. On a free transfer, but he played this game and then he plays in the— I think off the bench in the next game against away Oldham, which we draw 0-0. But then he gets injured, doesn't play again. Kind of, kind of a real curio.

Yes, I'd like to not play again because presumably it wasn't a— what if I don't know what the injury was, I don't know how bad it was, but it doesn't— you know, I don't— I've not read what heard that he was ruled out for the season. So it is a bit of a curious one.

Yeah, my— I don't remember it from the time as well, you know, like even at the time, like I thought that he'd signed on loan, and it was only really looking back at the season more recently where I, where I saw that he'd signed on, you know, signed as a permanent player. So yeah, he was, he was in and then he was out and he was gone.

And so yeah, running through the rest of the fixtures during this period We had an FA Cup tie at home to Wimbledon, who were a Premier League team at the time. So the Holdsworth brothers facing off against each other. The only sort of note, we drew 1-1, so forced a replay. Mooney scored a really good goal and they did that weird celebration, the dying ants. Yeah, they just sort of all lie on their back and stick their legs in the air. It's yeah. And then there was Mick Harford, who just sort of is very unimpressed, isn't he?

He's got no time for their bullshit. He just trundles through stamping on people. Yeah, not in the mood, not in the mood at all. What else happens during this period? Well, Kerry Dixon signs, probably one of the most controversial transfer signings of all time. Am I, am I oversaying it? I mean, I think for Watford, like, I think, I think, I can't imagine many players have just.

I think Watford fans are quite a forgiving bunch, aren't they? I mean, we've had other players from Luton. I remember us signing Matthew Spring. Aidy Boothroyd signed, didn't he? And he'd scored a 30-yarder into the top corner when Luton beat us in the League Cup a few years earlier. I don't think, I don't think it's necessarily like a given that Watford fans would not welcome a player who'd previously played for Luton Town, but Kerry Dixon was That was—.

He kind of had the sense he was past his best, you know. It goes the other way as well, you know. Paul Furlong played for Luton towards the end of his career, and they welcomed him. Yeah, okay, for that short period of time. But Dixon was so associated with Luton's halcyon period I— it was always going to be an uphill struggle for him, wasn't it?

And there was just some. Yeah, there were some fairly unpleasant— I think Dixon was involved in a bit of an altercation. I think he may have injured one of the Watford players. I think it was Darren Bazeley or someone who, like, in a previous match, he'd actually gone in really hard on someone and injured them. And there was just a lot of ill feeling towards that Luton team, and therefore him in particular. So it was very difficult to suddenly be like, oh great, now he's one of ours. It was it was one of those signings that sort of smacked of desperation for a bit.

Not because Dixon was useless. I think he sometimes get— well, we'll talk about it. I think it's, it's not fair to say like he had nothing to offer the team, but they had been trying to sign Paul Wilkinson permanently following his loan, and that Roeder just hadn't been able to do it. I think Wilkinson wanted a longer-term contract than the club were prepared to offer. So You know, again, that gets thrown at Roeder, but to some extent, that's also just what he was working with in terms of the restrictions there. So he had to strike Wilkinson off his list and move on to other targets. Kerry Dixon was available for, you know, about 30 grand or something.

It was, it was, it was bugger all the fee they paid for him, and that's who they got. So he comes into the team fairly quickly but the results are still awful. I mean, the team is decimated by injuries. They lose they're losing games constantly. So they've missed out on Paul Wilkinson, signed Kerry Dixon. But speaking of Watford Old Boys, they also had signed Gary Penrice.

So this one was another quite unusual signing. I mean, Penrice was not a striker as such at this stage. He was never an out-and-out centre forward anyway, was he? Penrice was more of a, you know, a forward who would, would play alongside someone, which we already had lots of those these days. He wasn't, he wasn't really one of those either. We'd signed him from QPR. It's more of an attacking midfielder now.

So a strange one for Roeder to then spend his money on, because for a decent amount of money as well, it's 300 grand.

It's quite, it's quite a lot for Watford back then.

That's a lot for Watford when you think, when you think of the fees that we've just been talking about for players. They spent sort of, you know, 50 grand here, 80 grand here, and they couldn't get some of the players that they'd wanted. And to then spend 300k on Gary Penrice Was he the player that Watford needed at that time?

Quite injury-prone as well.

Injury-prone, a very— yeah, it's hard, it's hard to try to work that one out really in terms of where, why the— that was the move that Roeder made in the market at that time. They had a lot of injuries, so to be fair, they did need probably some extra bodies in attacking midfield. And he goes into the team, he scores away at Barnsley, but they lose that game. Defeats continue they lose at home to Charlton, a fairly shambolic game, and then away at Palace. In February, on the 17th of Feb in 1996, they lose 4-0. That sort of hiding, I think, had been, had been coming. The last— it proves to be the last act of Roeder.

In his final act, he also signs Devon White, sort of fairly veteran target man of the lower leagues by this stage. We've been, you know, Watford have been up against Devon White a few times when he'd been playing for other clubs over the years. I remember seeing him play. For a couple of clubs against Watford. The typical big strong target man who, you know, very dangerous in the air, probably a bit more mobile than he's given credit for, but not exactly a player of great finesse. I think it's fair to say.

No, I think, I think it's very much Roeder's revenge, isn't it? It's like, you've been asking for a big number 9, well, I'm on my way out and you can have one.

Well, Roeder's revenge, yeah. So that was sadly it for Glenn. The club are in an absolute terrible state. You know, the results have been an absolute shambles up to this point. They just cannot win matches and Roeder is sacked. Of course, what then follows is the, you know, probably the most unexpected but welcomed managerial change what the fans could have asked for. It's the return of Graham Taylor, Luther Blissett, and Kenny Jackett.

Okay, so Taylor comes back as general manager, and it's interesting seeing the press conference on this one because he's very specific about that, isn't he? He talks about—. He is, yeah, he's—. Because they're asking, do you think, you know, is there, is there a risk in coming back to your old club where you've achieved so much? And he's like, well, I'm not coming back as my old role. I'm in a different role, and I would only have come back— I could have waited until the summer to start being their general manager, but because it's Watford, I'm—.

He gets a bit snappier now, doesn't he? I could have waited until they're relegated, basically.

He could— yeah, been trying to read about this and find out exactly what he actually was supposed to be doing as general manager, because it's a bit of a strange position, isn't it? But essentially, for this running of the season, it seemed like Luther Blissett and Kenny Jackett were the first team coaches. Luther was nominally therefore in charge of the first team, I think, in terms of the actual—.

Yeah, they've brought Kenny up from youth team duties. Yeah, I think Luther's, yeah, like nominally the first team coach in the way that we would understand it now as a Watford.

Yeah, and he seems to be doing the sort of, the sort of fronting up for— he seems to be the one actually then, you know, during the match day on the touchline calling the shots. Yeah, you know, picking the team, etc. So it seems that Luther's actually the one. The focal point are there, but obviously Taylor's presence was going to loom large over that.

So yeah, I kind of get the impression that he's been given like— yeah, it's probably Stuart Timperley at the time who's chairman. I get the impression he's been given this general manager role, who's probably on paper doesn't differ that much from a technical director or director of football, but like he's basically saying, can you just sort this club out?

Yeah.

We're in a bad state.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. It was a last throw of the dice because even at this stage, even with, you know, a miracle, it was going to take a hell of a lot, wasn't it? So they had, they had a huge task to try and turn around what had been an absolute disaster of a season to this point with yeah, we've only, we've been talking for a while now, okay, we're up to 24th of Feb, we think we've had like about 5 victories that we've talked about so far. So yeah, we're bottom, we're bottom, and we've only— I think in that time we've literally talked about, about 5 wins, taking us almost into March.

So probably not that many more goals as well.

Yeah, like in a 46-game season, that is it's quite something, isn't it?

Yeah, it's bad. That game against Ipswich, I was there for that one, and I can remember Taylor walking out in the middle of Blissett and Jackett and them raising their arms up, and it was a watershed moment in many ways because lots of people were crying. Were you in tears, Matt?

Were you in tears?

I don't think I was. I might have been at the end of the season, but I wasn't at this point. Because Taylor, I'd probably been to games where Taylor had been in charge. That's a guess more than an accurate reflection. So he meant to me, he was— he— do you remember when we were talking about Luther Blissett coming back and Luther was a legend rather than someone that we had a great accurate memory of playing for Watford? Graham Taylor sat very much in that seat in terms of Watford managers. Like, you couldn't move for learning about Graham Taylor being in charge of Watford.

He was, he was everything to a huge number of fans slightly older than me, and then all the way up the ages. It was an extraordinary thing for a lot of people at that match, I think. And I think, I think genuinely quite an emotional thing as well. You know, this was our greatest ever manager coming back, admittedly not as team manager, as general manager. But we were at our lowest ebb at the time, weren't we?

Yeah, we were. I felt the same. I think it was a big deal. It was a big— it was a bigger deal for me than Luther because I guess I knew more about Graham Taylor having grown up with him as England manager. I actually— yeah, his previous era at Watford didn't mean that much to me personally because I wasn't at those games. So although I'd since learned more about it in terms of how amazing he was and how amazing their achievements were under him. I knew the sort of backstory, so, but I knew I had more of a connection to him as a person, as a personality, because I'd seen him on TV a lot and sometimes, and obviously in the press, and not always in a very positive light.

But I knew that he was still like our guy, and yeah, so I was excited. I was excited about that because even though he was Mr.

Watford, wasn't it?

He's Mr. Watford, and he did have a certain aura our own presence because of that, because. He'd been England manager as well. I mean, he's like someone who's like been on the biggest stage of football in England at that time. And so for him to then come back to Watford and to be involved in Watford, that was like a lot of— there was a lot of attention, wasn't there? There's a lot of, you know, and Elton John sort of reappeared as well at that time. And so it suddenly felt like, even though the club was in a desperate situation, actually just having that created a bit of buzz again. And it felt like after all this sort of years of inertia and just decline.

It was like, well, there's some guys that actually really, really give a shit about Watford, have achieved incredible things with Watford. I've heard all about those stories, like, but now they're here again, and this is, you know, and I'm around for this, so let's see what they can do.

Yeah, I mean, he'd, he'd been at Wolves, he'd resigned in November after a pretty difficult spell there. And I can remember going to games during the season between November and the February where he joined Watford. And I can remember people shouting out, you know, like, "Bring back Taylor, bring back Taylor." And the reaction against that was other people in the crowd going, "He's past it, he's lost it." He's gone, you know. Don't bring back those— don't bring back people just because they're a part of your successful period. It doesn't necessarily mean that they could do it again. So at the end of February, we've got him in charge and we have the opportunity to do something.

We have a decent number of games left to go. We're obviously in freefall and it's going to take an awful lot to get us out of that. We're a long way back. 'But let's see what we can do.' His first match, we're at home to Ipswich, and so this is a game where they all walk out, and it's one of those games though, it's one of those games of two halves. We score two goals, we go 2-0 up. So the first goal from Devon White, second goal from Steve Palmer, scores a free kick, bounces out, and he puts that away, 2-0 at halftime. But our confidence is just so fragile at that time, Gus Uhlenbeek is the flying right-back that Ipswich have at the time, and he's the absolute architect of everything they do that's good in that game, and they come out in the second half and score 3 times.

And so we lose match 3-2, there's 7 points adrift at the bottom of the table. We lose against Stoke, we've lost every game in February, that's 5 games in a row. In the next match against Reading away, Kevin Phillips gets injured and he ends up missing the rest of the season, which is absolutely terrible. We draw at home against Derby, but that's 12 matches without a win. We've only won 2 points from the 4 games since this big managerial change. But at home against Oldham, it's our first win since mid-December against Tranmere. Ramage scores this really, really interesting kind of like stooping header, and then a really great, really great smart solo goal where he's put through, kind of jinks past one player and curls it into the far post with his left foot.

And a really kind of decent performance, but we're 6 points from safety with 13 games to go. Then we play West Brom away, which is kind of a really curious game. Like, you don't often draw 4-4 particularly when you go 3-0 down.

3-0 Down away from home.

Away from home. And we did. Ramage scores a good goal from the edge of the box. Colin Foster scores twice in this match, absolutely smashes it in. West Brom get a fourth goal, 4-2 up. Ramage scores this really nice kind of glancing header from a cross, and then Foster does basically exactly what he did before, he absolutely smashes one in from 6 yards, and we draw 4-4, which is really good. We followed that up with a couple more draws.

Derby were the next team that we played away, we played away at Derby, they were top And we score early in the match, and then they score a really, really, really late goal to deny us the win. We're still 5 points adrift. And then we play West Brom at home, and Ramage scores a late goal to equalise the game. And then we come to Wolves away. This is a match I remember being at, and I remember it mostly for Dave Connolly being subbed on and then subbed off again. He's had a very disappointing brief spell, but we lose 3-0, and I think all 3 of those goals are avoidable and preventable. Couple of them slipped through Miller's grasp but the kind of the initial impetus behind the change in managerial team has really not really amounted to much.

We've drawn a few games, but we haven't put together any run of wins. We're really quite far behind, and it's not really looking very good as we move into April.

No, I think that's right, and I guess that just shows you that the problems that they had were pretty substantial and not just some sort of ineptitude from Roeder, who'd. Who proved himself to be a pretty useful coach the previous two seasons. But the mess they were in was significant. And yes, they hadn't been able to find any magic touches yet to turn things around. So as you know, we got into April, games running out, it was really now or never to have a chance of staying up. They start that run of games at home to Sunderland. This was a very entertaining game.

Sunderland were a good side that— yes, Sunderland were now top. It seemed like there was— yeah, competitive this season, wasn't it? Because you just, you know, we had Derby up there, Sunderland, Millwall earlier in the season. It seemed like there were lots of teams slugging it out this time. But yeah, Sunderland. Sunderland won 9 in a row and they were, they were soon 2-0 up. Tommy Mooney gets a brace in this game, and one of them an overhead kick from a Kerry Dixon header back across goal.

Very, a very tidy finish from Mooney. And Ramage, Ramage managed to get a close-range header in off the bar to get a point for Watford. But we're still 6 points adrift of Luton and 9 points from safety with 8 games to go. So that is not It's, you know, all of these games, that was an impressive performance, but they needed wins. They lost at home to Portsmouth and drew the next game away at Southend. So by this point, 7 points adrift, 12 from safety, 7 games to play. I mean, that is, that's a pretty tall order, isn't it?

When you're on to the 13th of April, this is when things start to get a bit more interesting. It's almost that pressure-off scenario where everyone, everyone was pretty much, well, they're down. I mean, there's, there's no way that they can come back from this.

I think everybody inside and outside the club was resigned to Watford being relegated.

Yeah, that you don't, you don't when you're 12 points from safety on the 13th of April, you don't stay up. But as we shall see over the next few weeks, it wasn't quite as straightforward as that. So they played Port Vale at home on the 13th of April, and it was a bit of a— having, having been so sort of spluttering in attack for so long this season, it's suddenly like, let's, let's take the handbrake off and go for it. David Connolly, who you mentioned earlier, is having quite an unimpressive display at Wolves. He suddenly emerges in this game at home to Port Vale. Started this game wearing the number 4 shirt, which is pretty unusual for a goal-sniffing poacher-type forward, but there we are. He scores a hat-trick and Devon White scores a brace.

So the strikers suddenly finding goals easy to come by. At the same time, Connolly scores some really tidy finishes actually, and it converts a penalty as well to complete his hat-trick. That was a particular— it's Paul Musselwhite again. Last season, Paul Musselwhite was flapping crosses into his own net. Threw one in, yeah. This time he just—. It's another absolute howler where he's sort of dawdling on the ball and then Connolly charges into him and tackles him and they both fall over.

Connolly gets up first and Musselwhite just pulls him down again so he can't get away from him. And terrible, isn't it? It's just so bad. Absolutely awful.

I mean, and even the Devon White header to make it 5, I mean, oh, that is one of—. It's got to get that.

That's one of my favourite goals of the season that long, just because it's sort of this high cross coming in. There's Devon, there's Musselwhite, and I think two defenders. Devon White just— I think everyone ends up in the net pretty much.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Yeah, Devon White just got the ball, goes into the net, and then about 4 players go into the net with it because Devon White just cleans everyone out. That is, you know, vintage, vintage Devon White, I think, that we hadn't really seen. Let's be honest, it was—.

No, we hadn't, we hadn't, we hadn't. We'd signed him and I'm not really sure what we expected from him, but no, this is a run of games where he does put a few goals in, doesn't he?

Yeah. And so suddenly, I mean, I guess first and foremost it gave everyone a bit of a lift, this game. Just having, you know, having some goals to cheer and actually just playing with a bit of reckless abandon. Obviously you can't play every game like that over the season, it's not going to work, but I think they really needed that this time. And certainly one of our, one of our listeners enjoyed himself. Jason Rose told us that he'd, he'd been in hospital up shortly before this game and basically seems to have discharged himself to be able to get to Vicarage Road to watch this one on painkillers and pinned to his seat by his girlfriend who was trying to keep him calm when the goals were flying. That's just the things that people do to get to support their, their football team.

But I think, yeah, I've just got this image of him like. In a sort of surgical gown, you know, with sort of sneaking out with an IV drip on wheels, just sort of like trying to sneak out of the hospital and then sitting in his chair at Watford.

I've got this idea of him going, "I've gotta get out, I've gotta get out. Devon White's gonna score 2 goals." And they're like, "Of course he will, Mr. Rose," as they inject him with more serum.

It was it's very— I'm very pleased with Jason because I believe he missed— was it Jason who said he missed the Bolton game? I think I might have got that wrong, but I'm pretty sure that it was Jason who had told us he'd missed the 4-3. So he obviously wasn't going to miss this one, and he didn't. So an enjoyable moment for Jason there. We then followed it up with a 4-2 spanking of Reading at home as well. Devon White gets another brace, so 4 goals in 2 games for him. Connolly on the scoresheet again.

And Ramage. So just the 9 goals in 2 games for Watford, and they're off the bottom of the table ahead of Luton, with but we're still 7 points from safety.

So although that was a fun game, I like that game. I like I like Devon White trying an acrobatic kick and it basically going off the standing foot and going into the far corner. I thought that was a— I thought that was a good game. I enjoyed that one as well. I was, I was lucky enough to go to the Port Vale and the Reading game and the Grimsby game, which we'll talk about as well, but lots of high-scoring games at Vicarage Road towards the end of the season, and that was, that was one of the best ones. I think the team played really well in that match.

Yeah, I was just, I was just having flashbacks to Devon White attempting acrobatics in other games that didn't come off, but we won't go into that. It's been like having a flashback to Nam, but we won't go into that now. We followed out, so the Reading game, yes, finally off the bottom. On the 16th of April, and our next trip is away to Kenilworth Road. Probably noticed. I've certainly noticed going back over these seasons, results against Luton, not great actually, you know, to be frank, pretty shit. We haven't beaten them, felt like we were gonna beat them.

Now we've just suddenly started scoring, Luton are bottom, we've got the confidence going into it, but it doesn't work out that way. It's a 0-0 draw. All our senior centre-backs were out for this, so we had a 17-year-old Darren Ward playing alongside Steve Palmer at the back. It's not— it's, it's, it's really disappointing, I think, that we drew a blank there. I mean, obviously, being fielding such an inexperienced defence away at your rivals and keeping a clean sheet is something but it was no good to us, and it was no good to Luton either. Both sides needed to get 3 points from that to have a chance.

So a draw was the worst possible outcome for both of them apart from a defeat, and pretty much did for both sides that he felt like there wasn't much coming back from that. That said, Watford then decided there is still hope because they have Grimsby Town at home on the 23rd of April, and they go 4-0 up in about 5 minutes. I mean, it was 3 goals in the first 20 minutes I think they scored in this game. It— I was, I was at this one you were at this one as well. Yeah, me too. Yeah, it was absolutely— I mean, again, it was a bit like the Port Vale game, wasn't it, that they just, they just went for it.

It just looked like every, every attack they were going to score.

Yeah, I mean, Grimsby kind of made that possible with the way that they were set up as well, I think.

But what I mean, the bonus about this part of the season is that we had— the pressure was off us because no one thought we'd stay up. And the pressure was off a bunch of the other teams because they had nothing to play for. So we were able to rack up some of these 4, 5, and 6 goals against them, but. But we still had to do it, you know, we still had to be there to do it. And it was, you know, it wasn't any easy task, it was, it was still a task. No, and it was good. This was this was the night of the famous I'm calling it the famous, no one's ever called it this before, the famous Devon White through ball.

Because Craig Ramey, I remember Craig Ramey scoring in the first minute from a really, really great through ball from Devon White. That was really good.

I'm gonna be called the famous Devon White through ball.

That's what he's gonna be known for. Yeah.

Yeah, good. I think the creative side of Devon— Devon White, the link man, you know I think that's, you know, a side of his game that is unappreciated, and you've just called it out, Matt. So that's— so no more, let's stick with it, let's stick with it. Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was great that, you know, Ramage was really firing at this stage of the season, wasn't he? He just looked like he had goals in him every time he stepped on the pitch. He was playing much more as a, as an actual striker at this stage, wasn't he?

And really playing up front with Connolly, with White. At one point, you know, like Mooney was getting involved as well, though Mooney's not— he's not really playing as a centre forward at this time. He's still more of that sort of attacking midfielder who gets forward a lot. But you had Mooney, Ramage, White, Connolly. Connolly gets another hat-trick. I think at one point, you know, they still had— have Dixon was still playing, getting, getting minutes as well. And I think, I think it's Jamie Moralee still coming off the bench sometimes as well.

So they're really— yeah, he was. Yeah.

Throwing everyone who can still kick a ball at this stage is kind of getting thrown on to try and chip in. And the match ends 6-3. I mean, it was a— it was an absolutely bonkers game, the kind of game you do get at the end of the season sometimes. But tremendous, tremendous fun to be at. Two— it's two hat-tricks now. Because Ramage gets 3 and Connolly gets 3. When you watch it back, it looks like Ramage's third goal, Mooney is claiming it.

But yeah, Mooney goes for the back heel, doesn't he? Yeah, through his legs.

But it's attributed to Ramage. Yeah, it's one of those ones where. The dubious goals committee might have had to struggle to decide whose goal that was, I think, because it does—.

Yeah, there's a funny one which might be worth mentioning, or not. But the Reading— I think it's a Reading game. The highlights video shows the first two goals from Watford, and then it shows a disallowed Mooney goal and then it shows our third goal as if it is our fourth, and they don't show the fourth goal which Ramage scores, which is a really good counter-attacking move from memory anyway, counter-attacking move, some good play, and Ramage just finishes that off. So I think, I think the good team at Vision Sport International probably, probably mix that one up but it would have been easy for anybody to mix up the last Ramage's goal because it did look like Mooney had backheeled it in. But I think, I think on the night it was given to Ramage, and indeed in the, in the annals since recognised as two hat-tricks, right?

Also worth mentioning listener Graham Cagle was late to this match and was told by a steward that he'd already missed a lot. We were actually already 4-0 up when Graham arrived. I mean, you don't, you don't expect to arrive. Sort of 20 minutes late and have missed Watford scoring 4 goals. That's probably not happened to too many people over the years.

I'd rather Graham Cagle stayed away for the first 20 minutes.

Yeah, I think we might need that during the run-in. I think that, yeah, this season, I think you're right. We then had a very good away win at Norwich with David Connolly netting again and Gary Porter getting on the scoresheet. He's not been with someone that we've mentioned barely at all this season, but pops up with a goal. So the run of results in April after you know, a disappointing start, they've then won 4 of the last 5 which has just given them that, you know, tiny bit of hope going into the last game of the season. Matt Rowson says he had a 50-to-1 bet, 50-to-1 bet on us to win 2-1 and Connolly to score. Doesn't say how much he actually put on so we don't know how—.

No, he said that the steward put that on for him. So yeah, I'd like Hessenthaler to confirm the details of that.

Yeah. But I mean, a very happy man making his way home. Well done, Matt. If you've got any tips for the rest of the season, then do share. And then the final day of the season, so that sets us up for the grand finale. We actually Somehow we can still stay up. Yeah, I mean, the fact that we've dragged this season to the final day.

Is something of a miracle in itself. It's improbable because how are we not already relegated given the results we'd— I think those 4 results I just mentioned, there's sort of 4 wins in 5. Up till that point we'd only won 6 games all season, so we're now up to 10 victories for the season. But that is, you know, the fact that 4 of those have come in the last 5 games for the season, I mean, how they're not already relegated based on that stat alone is incredible. But yes, they have a chance if they win their final game and results go their way, they would survive. It's not entirely in their hands, so because they do need results to go their way because other teams are above them in the league. Leicester are the team that we have to face, so it's not an easy assignment.

They're a good side. We're at home. There's a, there's a full house at Vicarage Road, which is a rarity. So 20,000 in there, probably since they've built the Rookery Stand. That's the first time that we've seen Vicarage Road full. So it is a big occasion, a big crowd, but they're up really up against it against a good side in Leicester who come in good form looking to secure a playoff place. Muzzy Izzet scores a good header and we don't really— we just don't really get going.

It was on TV, this one. I think it was on Sky, at least. Anyway, that was their sort of televised game for the final Sunday of the Division 1 season. We don't rise to the occasion. We just are— we're a bit outclassed, really. Leicester are just a better team, and it's a bit of a— a bit— it's a massive anticlimax, isn't it, really? I mean, you were there, Matt.

A pretty bitter pill to swallow.

Yeah, it was. Yeah, there was, there was a lot of hope going into that game that we were going to win, you know, 4-2 or 6-3 or whatever and it just didn't really turn out that way at all. The Muzzy Izzet goal was a, was a fine header, but from a Devon White error, I suppose. You know, he's, he's clearing from a set piece and doesn't really get enough distance on his header.

But you know, yeah, it wouldn't have mattered, would it?

It would have mattered anyway because other results didn't go our way. Even if we had won, we would have still been a point from safety.

Yeah, so relegation it was after. Flirting with relegation for much of this decade. It was really only a couple of seasons that we've covered so far where we haven't had a relegation scare. This time they had a very severe relegation scare and they weren't able to avert disaster, as they pulled off a few great escapes so far in the '90s. But they were back into the third tier, which is a pretty big slump from where they've been in the '80s, back into the third tier. And as we've talked about, there hadn't been any real investment for a while. Stadium had been smartened up, but the playing side had been allowed to stagnate.

Let's talk about what we think, you know, that looked like, Matt, in terms of why, how we got to there this season and what our reflections are on that.

And what I think, I think the problem this season was that the we had such a well-organized defence last season in '94-'95. Kevin Miller marshalling the defence, Foster, Millen, Holdsworth at the centre of our defence. But that just kind of really fell away a little bit this year. Miller missed a couple of games, more than a couple of games, through injury, and several times that was through injuries in the warm-up, which is, which was kind of strange and problematic. And a large injury crisis. And we've said this on a number of occasions in the last few seasons that we've had injury crises, but you know, if you have a larger squad, you can cope with that. And what if they didn't have the money to build a larger squad, to have more than, you know, more than 4 senior centre-backs?

So when we played Luton, Darren, 17-year-old Darren Ward came into play just like Gary Fitzgerald did the year before. Steve Palmer spent a lot of the last end of the season playing in playing in, playing at centre-back. We signed him as a midfielder, you know, he would go on to establish himself as a very versatile player, but that's not what we signed. And I think that strong defence that we'd assembled. Kind of a year ago, a year or two ago, had kind of— it'd become a bit slow, it'd become a bit error-prone, and it really wasn't doing everything that we knew that it could do and we hoped it was still able to do. And that was a big disappointment, I think, for a lot of fans. And but it was clear right from, right from the first game.

I mean, we beat Sheffield United, but after that, we started losing, we started, started drawing, and it would be a long, a long time before we put any sort of results together.

Yeah, I agree with all of that. I think, I think the defence, the defence crumbled away from what this sort of impregnable force that had been there, you know, last season and record-breaking run of clean sheets. Suddenly just, it just disintegrated through a combination of injuries and loss of form. What I really like noted looking back, I mean, you mentioned Kevin Miller had a few like injuries, but also when he was playing, he lets in some really crap goals. Like, there's a lot where he just looks really slow getting across, and there's lots of sort of really sort of slow-looking shots that just catch him wrong-footed. And you think, oh, he's going to get there, he's going to get— oh, he's not got there, and it's crept into the corner.

The funny thing is, he's probably one of our better players across the season. Yeah, like across the season as a whole, you know, it's one of our better players, but some notable errors.

Yeah, some notable errors. We're just— I'm just not the presence that he had been the previous season where you just felt like he would just be able to— you'd be able to soak up a bit of pressure with him and he would just like all the bread and butter stuff he was just so good at. And, you know, with him and Foster and Millen in front of him, he just felt that there was such a unit there all of a sudden, and that just didn't that wasn't there this season.

I wonder why that was. I mean, it can't just be because of age and confidence. It was kind of— I don't know what the reason was. I mean, they didn't have— they all had—. I mean, they were, they were good players.

Yeah.

But suddenly became— they became bad players. I don't really know why.

No, they were— I mean, Foster started to look a bit of a liability at times, didn't he? Because he looked so sort of— his strengths became weaknesses. And in last season, you know, the '94-'95, his even though he was quite slow, he looked like he had such a sort of calm presence and reading of the game. And in this season, he looks. Awkward at times and gets caught out of position a bit and making mistakes, getting caught the wrong side kind of thing. And yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's just sort of everything starts to go wrong at the same time. I think, I think, you know, I'd like to— I'd also like to reconsider my positions on Craig Ramage, I think, from this season, because having waxed lyrical about him a bit last time and, you know, gone a bit overboard in my praise for him.

But, you know, to be fair, the '94-'95 season showed us what a talented player Craig Ramage was when he applied himself. And when the team was sort of settled down, he was, you know, a cut above a lot of the other midfielders who were plying their trade at this level in terms of just what he could do. But he was, he was not at it this season. I mean, fair enough, he finished with a decent goal tally, but a lot of that comes at the very end of the season, and by then it's too late. And so it's kind of like, not to say it doesn't count, but it's like kind of if you contributed more earlier, they probably, you probably wouldn't have died. They wouldn't have been in that situation. And there's, there's, you know, the fact that he comes back unfit, clearly has issues with the manager from there, that point on is, you know, in and out of the team, is just not contributing a hell of a lot.

For a large, large chunk of the season. And then yeah, he does, he does get himself going at the end of the season and starts—.

He ends up, he ends up with this, it's really weird, the kind of strike record of 15 league goals in 35 league games. It's amazing for midfielder. But like you say, I mean, that is bolstered by hat-tricks and braces. Yeah, towards the end of the season, you know, he probably gets 10 of those goals before the end of the— exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He gets, you know, gets half those goals before the end of the season.

But there were a lot of rumors, you know, that he was overweight, you know, he was unfit, he was bad at timekeeping, and he's fallen out with Roeder. And he wouldn't be the first player to fall out with Roeder. Is he a Graham Taylor player? I don't know. I don't think he was, as we'll find out. As we'll find out later on. Yeah, an interesting one because he's done so well the year before and he's, he's so capable of grabbing the division, not just a match, but the division by the scruff of the neck.

And you know, you can look at his stats and say he did that this year, but he didn't do—.

No, he didn't. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't influence the same amount of games because it wasn't just his goal scoring the previous year, it was his overall contribution in games and his ability to create. Which is what this team so lacked, I think, was having a sort of creative spark. And with the midfield chopping and changing all the time with players in and out of the team, you know, Hessenthaler had injuries as well, didn't he? And Gary—.

Yeah, I think, I think that as much— I think that probably contributes strongly to Ramage's decline, if we can call it that. Yeah, because without Hessenthaler without Payne, or, you know, without anyone to win the ball back. I mean, what is our— what is our midfield going to do? There was a period where Darren Caskey was on loan this season, and he was— it was not good. You know, we had two creative midfielders, Ramage and Caskey both in the team at the same time. But if no one can win the ball back for us, yeah, what are they going to do? Like, Ramage and Caskey, or, you know, throughout the season, Ramage they're not going to do that.

So it was, it was very difficult. And when we lose that base of the midfield, when we play with such a narrow midfield with a lack of natural width, we're really relying on someone to hustle the opposition to win the ball back, to pass it to more our more creative midfielders. To then play it through to our strikers. And there are several steps broken in that, in that chain this season. We didn't have the defensive midfielders that were winning the ball back. Ramage was there, wasn't playing great, but then we didn't have the attackers really to speak of that were, that were doing very much to affect games.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. I suppose the other thing we should mention before we sort of appraise Roeder more thoroughly is the issue with centre forwards was— became a bit of a stick to beat him with. But they struggled there, didn't they? I think. And, you know, they chopped and changed, they brought all sorts, tried all sorts of different solutions, but they never were able to find a player to be the focal point of the attack in the way that they'd had in some previous seasons, where, you know, when they'd had Paul Furlong or Paul Wilkinson. Not to say that's the only way to play, but they didn't— he wasn't able to find a long-term solution.

He kept chopping and changing. That forward line, and it was never able to find like a settled, like, this is how we want to play in a way that was going to bring out the best of players with, you know, obvious talent like Kevin Phillips.

Yeah, I think that's evidenced by the large number of strikers that played under Roeder. I can list them for you and it'll be a very exciting thing. Alex Inglethorpe, Bruce Dyer, Craig Ramage, Darren Bazeley, David Connolly, Dennis Bailey, Devon White, Gary Penrice, Jamie Moralee, Ken Charlery, Kerry Dixon, Kevin Phillips, Lee Nogan, Mark Watson, the centre-back who played up front, Mickey Quinn, Nathan Lowndes, Neil Shipperley, Nigel Jemson, Paul Furlong, Paul Wilkinson, Peter Beadle, and Tommy Mooney. That is 22 strikers. That Glenn Roeder tried. Yeah, whether they— whether he signed them himself, around half of them he did or they were at the club anyway, that is an extraordinary amount of strikers to try over 3 seasons. From that, what can you— can you pick a great partnership or even a, or even a great success story other than Phillips?

No, I mean, I suppose he inherited Paul Furlong, didn't he? So he— that was you know, he had that in his first season. But after Furlong's departure, no, I think it's, it's very erratic and scattergun in terms of the attack, the attack that he wants to have and how he wants them to play. I still think, you know, I come back to Jamie Moralee signing and the fact that one didn't work out. I think he really wanted that one to work. Obviously we all wanted that one to work because that was quite a significant investment for Watford at the time, but didn't. Then they discovered Phillips, and he looked like he did know how to score, but.

Needed.

I think there was a lot to play with him though, really, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was a fluke. It was a fluke you know.

So you could say that his one success was a fluke.

I mean, no, I mean, I don't think that was his one success in terms of in the market, because I think he signed—.

No, for strikers. I'm just talking—.

Yeah, I mean, obviously he signed Craig Ramage as well for, you know, next to nothing, which turned out to be as an attacking—.

I mean, he transformed the defence. I mean, as we said tonight, the defence crumbled away, but I think his ability in the market— I mean, Steve, he signed Steve Palmer this season.

Yeah.

And he was a fantastic signing, very good in central midfield, very good at central defence. I think Glenn Roeder's eye for signing was almost uniformly great except for signing strikers.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's fair. And unfortunately, I think it, you know, really handicapped him over the 3 seasons that he had overall, I think he was a good coach, Roeder. I think I would agree. Yeah, I think he was really up against it in terms of the financial restrictions at the club. Like, that was— there was really, really tight.

And I think he didn't— when he did use money, he didn't make the most of it. And that's ultimately what I think why he had a reputation of not being the, you know, the best in the market, was because when he did spend money— and we're talking like relative speaking— but, you know, £400 grand for Mooney, £300 grand for Gary Penrice, like, you need those players to really contribute a lot because you Yeah, the fans will be thinking like, those are our big signings. And yeah, I certainly did. I thought, well, those— we've just paid decent money for them. But he also was— he gets, he gets credit in the bank because he worked some miracles with very little amounts of money as well to restructure the team, you know, several times and bring in some really good quality experienced players for very little money who played a lot of games for the club and were, you know, really significant players for us that time. I also think he played like— he tried to get them to play football. Like, sometimes it was— sometimes it was awful, especially this season.

It was just— it was pretty boring and ineffective. When it worked, it was really good to watch, and they moved the ball around very easy on the eye and actually played some really nice stuff.

I just think— I think there was a— there was— this team had no pace. No, it was really, really slow team, and the way that we were going to score goals was going to be. You know, passing through or, you know, crosses from deep, things like that. There was a real lack of, a lack of dribbly wide men at the time, particularly our club. I mean, Roeder picks this out in one of his one of his programme notes early in the season that, you know, he says that he's trying to sign these players, but, you know, over the course of three seasons before, he hasn't really signed any of them already. So I kind of wonder if that's true or not. For whatever reason, the club has ended up with a real lack of width, and you know, it can be at its best, it's intricate and results in goals.

At its worst, it's ponderous.

I think that's right. So I think with Roeder, you know, I have fond memories of him. I know it wasn't always pretty, and I know ultimately it didn't end well, but I look back on him as someone who did like genuinely care, who was learning his trade to some extent but was trying to, trying to coach the right way and get the most out of players. And, you know, I think he had a really difficult set of circumstances, and I don't think the reason that we were relegated was all because of him. I think we were relegated as because we said at the start, we didn't sign any players at the start of the season. We sold more players during the season, and, you know, we kept selling players there was very little money to go back into the squad. He had a terrible run of injuries.

I think without all of those injuries. I think, I think the season might have been different. But yeah, what, how do you remember him? What's your sort of your take on Roeder, Roeder's time?

Yeah, I can't describe what he said really. I think I think he was limited by injuries this season, particularly, particularly the likes of Hessenthaler, who he'd installed as a club captain or at least a team captain and he'd missed a lot of this season really. I think, as I've said already, you know, without someone biting at the heels of the opposition to win the ball back for us to do something with it, I think we really struggled. I question not so much his ability to sign a big number 9 because, you know, that might have been what the fans were after, but, you know, I'm not really sure that was what Roeder was wanting to spend a large amount of money on if available. But he just seemed to, seemed to consolidate our signings. He seemed to consolidate our signings into a particular type of player.

And there was a, there was a real lack of natural width in that team. Yeah. So there was only one way to beat teams, and that was to go through the middle on the ground. And that might have been great, that might have been the West Ham way, but it wasn't the Watford way at the time, and that wasn't the way that squad of players could play. And whilst we're able to do it to a certain degree the previous season, this season we just we just really fell apart, you know. I think the injuries really hurt us, and the loss of form from significant players in our team really hurt us, and. There's just no way back.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's fair. So the season drew to an end with Luther in charge, but that's not— that wasn't the long-term plan, was it?

No, there wasn't. That wasn't the ultimate goal. Taylor said that he was bored stiff by being a general manager, which I assume is akin to being a technical director or a director of football right now. I'm not really sure why he said that because he installed Kenny Jackett as team manager for the following season after we'd been relegated. But he didn't really enjoy it at all. And I don't know if Luther did as well, but the three of them, we had Taylor, we had Blissett, we had Jackett back. I don't really feel like there was a clear, to the public at least, other than Taylor, I'm not really sure that there was a clear person that was, that was definitely in charge of this team, both on the in charge on the training field and in charge during matches as well.

I felt like the three of them sort of, sort of melded into one a little bit. Does that, does it carry with you?

Yeah, I don't really. I think the Luther era and, you know, then Jackett, it doesn't really— for me, it was just that it kind of was all about that Taylor was back. And even though I didn't— there was, like you say, it was a slightly sort of opaque a role and relationship that he had with the first team at that time. He was there at the club, and that meant something. I think, I think there was a lot of probably Some people, I think people were splitting it. People thought, you know, now that we've got that out of our system, we've gone down, but we had this sort of dream team back that meant everything was going to be fine.

And others were more, well, actually we've just, you know, dropped down into the third tier and it's a long way back from there and we still don't really have any money and. You know, we haven't got a great squad. So certainly not one that, you know, got a bit of a mess of a squad now because they've made a lot of sort of slightly panicked signings over the last few seasons. So it didn't feel to me like— I personally was not feeling great about the future for Watford at that stage. I thought this is— could be like really crap because this could be— I mean, we may have we may have really, you know, being a struggling First Division team might have seemed like really good from where we were going now into the third tier. And I thought, you know, it's bad enough that we were under the radar before going into the third tier. I mean, it's like, this isn't, this isn't what I signed up for.

So it was, yeah, it didn't feel good and we were going in the wrong direction. Everything was all glitz and glamour and football, and, you know, football's coming home and everything's looking all amazing and sparkly, and we're just going further and further away from the light into darkness. And yeah, I wasn't feeling particularly great about it. I thought, you know, great that we've got these, these guys back, but. That just having them alone, I thought the club's just in a mess, right? I didn't feel like they alone could wave a wand and suddenly we'd be in European football again. That seemed a long way off.

It did, it did. And indeed, the, you know, the late season emergence of David Connolly, you never really got the impression that he was going to be a natural foil for Kevin Phillips as well, you know. No, we had two strikers basically capable of doing the same thing. We come back to this idea that, you know, where's the presence up front? You know, we've got lots of second strikers, auxiliary strikers, but, you know, is Devon White going to do that? Yeah, time will tell, I suppose.

But good '90s hair on David Connolly though.

Yeah, we had the curtains, didn't they?

Did have the curtains, so bonus points for those.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, moving beyond Watford, we've been relegated, so we're gonna have to swallow that and deal with it. Leicester beat us on the final day, as we, as we've said. They ended up winning the playoffs, and Sunderland and Derby get promoted, Leicester join them into the Premier League, they swap places with Man City, QPR and Bolton. Yes, teenage Watford fans, Man City were not always the team that you think they are. We went down with Luton and Millwall who had this absolutely crazy collapse, you know, they were top when we beat them in December with Phillips and Wilkinson scoring, We won 2-1 away and they absolutely collapsed after that and ended up being relegated, which is really crazy. And speaking of collapses, Michael, do you remember Newcastle being 12 points clear of Man United at the start of the season?

The famous Keegan rant season.

It was indeed.

Yeah. Yeah, that was, that was, that was painful. I really wanted Newcastle to win. I really wanted them to win the league. I was really gutted that Man U reeled them in. It was, it was horrible. And it also horrible to see Kevin Keegan just basically losing his mind over it on it's like watching a man in slow motion just collapse.

Oh, it was horrible.

It was really, really unpleasant. But I empathised a lot with him because I think. He was a man who was— before we talked about being rattled, that was a man who was the embodiment of being rattled. And I can empathise a lot with that as a man who finds himself getting easily rattled.

I have to be very careful what I say in these podcasts, lest I rattle you. Yeah.

I could throw my headphones off at any moment.

Yeah, I know, exactly. I'm just wondering if any of these any of these podcasts will finish in October. Yeah, but yeah, yes United did overcome Newcastle that season. They won the double. Just lovely, I suppose, you know, all of our school friends being Man United fans. Yeah but then Euro '96. Got— have you big memories of Euro '96?

I mean, yeah, I mean, obviously held in England. I think we had a We had a fun group, didn't we? We drew against Switzerland, Shearer scored probably for the first time in a while, and then some pretty famous victories there against Scotland and against the Netherlands.

I was at the Germany semi-final, so I do— yeah, we probably shouldn't— this will go on for hours if I then go on about, you know, talk through that. Night in detail. But yes, needless to say, I have very vivid memories of Euro '96. I was at the England-Germany semi at Wembley. I also went to watch an Italy game at Anfield as well, the one, the only one that they won. They beat Russia 2-1 at Anfield, and I went up to that as well. So yeah, I have.

Like, I just have insanely vivid memories of Euro '96.

And yeah, I never went to any of those games, and I kind of, I kind of I kind of regret it, you know. I remember, I remember Euro '92 and the talk that the next European Championships were going to be in we're going to be in England. Yeah. And it was going to be we'll all be, we'll be 15, we'll all be 16 by then, we'll be going to all the games, and Sadly, I never did. But yeah, my memory as a, as a television fan is. And obviously I've relived this over and over and over again, but he said we really missed out there, you know, we missed a good opportunity. Our home games were against— were all at Wembley, you know, big crowds.

Not all of those matches were like sellouts big Wembley crowds that we played at. Shearer, probably one of the best, if not the best striker in Europe at the time, and Gazza having a real kind of flourish there as well, you know. Yeah, obviously we had the dentist chair type stuff before, before the tournament itself, but kind of get the impression that they probably wouldn't have a chance like this for a few years to come. And that's pretty much what happened.

It was absolutely devastating. And that game, the game against Germany, I think was typical England for me at the time, and it very much sums up England in the '90s in the sort of like heroic failure of England, obviously penalties, but also the missed, you know, the near misses and things as well. Like, that is just— and Germany ending up winning, that's just. What you just assumed happened at international tournaments growing up in this decade. So yeah, so in that sense it was very much of the time. But yeah, it was, it was great fun. It was great fun and lots of good memories from there.

The only other big thing has come from this season is the Bosman ruling, which actually has an absolutely enormous effect and is still having it to this day. And that really allows for greater player freedom as their contracts expire. Players are now able to move much more freely from club to club after their contracts expire. Several of our players over the last couple of seasons, their contracts expired and we're still able to sell them for £100,000 here, £200,000 there. Absolutely not possible anymore. And it also put an end to that 3 foreigner rule, which had affected other nations within the United Kingdom as well. So English clubs.

As we are an English club, we're suddenly able to field more players from the other United Kingdom nations. And this is a time of accelerating transfer fees, you know, we've had Chris Sutton and Stan Collymore being sold for sort of £7, £8, £9 million, but it's really blown out the water by Alan Shearer signing for Newcastle for £15 million, which which really blows away the previous transfer record and puts Newcastle, having had a very difficult end of the season, back in place to challenge again. But I think that's as far as I can, I can think of about 1995-96. Michael, have we missed anything or do we need to move on as quickly as possible from our relegation season?

I think we've covered a lot of ground there, haven't we? I think it's probably best to leave that there now and say goodbye to 1995-96. Like you said at the start, I think it was— even though it was a season of failure, it was also the catalyst for what would then follow. So without it, if they had another mid-table season, for example, or even if they stayed up and, you know, not made the change, they wouldn't have been forced to make the changes. Who knows how the decade would have gone from there? So I think it's, it's a pivotal season in terms of what follows, and I think that's why— absolutely, we've covered a lot there because of that. So yes, with not a lot of positive memories to remember, but a really important season to cover in terms of the decade.

And I actually, you know, I quite enjoyed going back over a lot of that because there's a lot of players I'd forgotten about, or just games that I'd forgotten about as well that season. So yes, so thanks very much for listening to us. I hope you're still enjoying our rambles through each season, and do keep sending us your contributions because they really are appreciated, and we enjoy hearing about your memories as well. And anything that just sort of pops into your head about, you know, whether it's particular moments— doesn't have to be about a particular season, but just anything particularly sort of '90s Watford related— do send us that as well. Particularly enjoyed the photo that I think it's Ian, although I don't think he has his— I'm just assuming it's Ian because his initial is I on his Twitter handle, but sent us a photo of him in his bedroom, his very '90s bedroom, pointing at a teletext screen with a scantily clad Kathy Lloyd poster in the background, and apparently had a Kula Shaker poster just out of shot, and he was wearing one of those sort of beaded indie necklaces as well. It was—.

He's wearing the AC Milan kit.

He's wearing the AC Milan away kit. Yeah, the Watford AC Milan kit. Yes, to clarify. Yeah, it was— but it was like, that was, that was the essence of '90s. Sort of lad watch following Watford there.

So anything like that yeah, I mean, we try to be inclusive and I hope that we are, but if there's something that captures the essence of Oh My Word, yeah, it would be that without the without the Kathy Lloyds.

Yes. So do please keep sharing stuff. We're gonna obviously carry on going through the seasons to take us through to the end of the decade, but we are going to do a few more feature episodes as well, or look at a few other themes. If there's anything in particular you think is good for us to sort of dig into in a bit more detail, then also please share your ideas with us as well, because we're happy to take— please do— suggestions. But otherwise, yep, as always, you can get in touch with us and follow us at @OhMyWordPod on Twitter. Thank you very much for listening. We're gonna take a break next week because it's the Easter holidays, but we'll be back shortly after that with another episode.

So thanks very much and goodbye.

Oh my word! No wonder the smiles are there.