The Year of the Hornet

Welcome to Oh My Word, podcast about Watford in the 1990s by Matthew and Michael. So I think most people know the drill by now. When we're going through the seasons, we like to take a look at what was going on at the time, talk about some of the key incomings and outgoings, you know, who was in charge, the context for that. Been through a lot of seasons already. We're now going to be talking about the '97-'98 season. It feels like we've been on quite a journey to get us to this point, this point in time when things— there was a glimmer, there was hope on the horizon. We've been through a lot of ups and downs, more downs than ups I think so far on our journey through this decade, but now there's Graham Taylor back, there's the optimism that brings, there's the opportunity for Watford to actually do something positive and change afoot.

So I've been really looking forward to this one, Matt, I'm sure you have too.

Yeah, really looking forward to this season, it's, you know, for a bunch of different reasons, it's one of my favourite ones. And it all kicks off really with yet another reshuffle at the top table in Watford football management. Graham Taylor's had a year as general manager, with Kenny Jackett being in charge of first team affairs. Graham Taylor's got itchy feet by this time and wants to come back and show everyone how it's done properly. So he returns as manager, with Kenny and Luther as assistant coaches. And that and the return of Elton John having repurchased the club, Watford are one of, if not the favourites to go up. So promotion is expected both inside and outside the club.

Incidentally, another big player in the division this year is Fulham because Mohamed Al-Fayed has taken over. They've got a kind of slightly familiar management structure, although using different names and terminology. Kevin Keegan is Chief Operating Officer, not a term that carried over from the business world to the football world very much, other than that instance. But Ray Wilkins is kind of essentially in charge of first team affairs. So Keegan's doing the general manager type thing. Wilkins is the trusted lieutenant. They've got lots of money and good things are expected of them as well.

Last season was pretty disappointing, pretty boring season, and it signalled the end of a lot of Watford players' careers. Contracts came to an end. Players who had stayed for a year in the third tier were given opportunities to get to move back higher up. So some of the key players that went out Kevin Miller went to Palace for £1.5 million plus Chris Day, so a player and cash part exchange deal there. Kevin Phillips made the jump up to Sunderland for £325k, so not a huge amount of money considering the career he would go on to have, but as we discussed with him last time, he was a— at the time, a sort of fairly injury-prone, you know, third-tier striker. There's no bones about it, we were in the third tier and this was his chance to jump back up a division and prove how good he really was.

Yeah, I think there were some instalments added on to that as well, like, yeah, in terms of— but the initial fee was a— was pretty low. Yeah, and even with the extras, it was— it wasn't a huge amount of money.

No, it certainly wasn't, you know, like million plus. No, that was it, which is the sort of money we would Probably we— well, we had come to expect million-plus figures for our top strikers in the '90s. But yeah, for a variety of reasons, Phillips, Phillips didn't draw that sort of transfer fee. In terms of players, we spoke about this in the tail end of the previous season review, but in terms of players that left due to expiry of contracts or were just released: Gary Porter, Colin Foster, Gary Penrice, Craig Ramage, David Connolly. So a range of different clubs that they would go to, some at the early stage of their careers and some very much the opposite end. So there was a bit of a job to rebuild the team and squad, and the players that Graham Taylor brought in at the beginning of this season were Jason Lee from Forest for £200 grand, kind of an old-fashioned target man, the sort of striker that fans of the club had been clamouring after for a while. Jason Lee had a sort of up and down few years and had been in the media spotlight for a variety of sometimes distressing reasons.

But this was a chance for him to install himself back into the first team of a club and show that he was, you know, all the things that we were looking for, you know, quick, strong, clever, goalscorer. So as we said, Chris Day came in as well. Graham Taylor brought in Peter Kennedy from Sam Allardyce's Notts County for £130 grand. I'd never heard of Peter Kennedy when he signed. I don't know if you had.

No, I don't think anyone— he was a real, like, 'Who is he? Where's he come from? What's he done?' type signing. It was really sort of out of nowhere, I think, Peter Kennedy.

Yeah, so he played— I think he played mostly as a winger for Notts County, but as we'll see, he kind of took up a left wing-back berth in this team. For a similar amount of money, so around £100,000, David Dai Thomas came in from Swansea. Micah Hyde came in from Cambridge, about 22 or 23 years old. He'd been captain there. We paid getting on for quarter of a million pounds for him. Lars Melvang was a full-back who came in on a short-term contract. It was essentially an extended trial, but that started at the beginning of the season.

And days into the season, so he wasn't there right at the beginning, but after a couple of games, we brought in Ronny Rosenthal from Spurs on a free. Now, my memory of this is it was a kind of pretty big deal, a bit of a coup. He dropped down two divisions. He was 32 or 33, so it was, you know, we weren't buying an up-and-coming young striker, but he seemed to be the sort of player that was going to drag this team on and be something of a leader in the dressing room and an inspiration to some of our younger, younger strikers, of which there are a few.

Yeah, I think it was quite unusual to get a player for Watford at the time. Certainly felt unusual for me, for us to be signing someone like Ronnie Rosenthal, someone we all knew, someone you knew and who you thought wasn't actually finished either. It's not like he was like, this is his last, you know, he's, he's gonna play like 3 games and that'll be it. Like, you did think like, he's, he's, he's still been playing until very recently in the Premier League, you know. Definitely felt like dropping down two divisions. Like, I think there was an expectation that came with that. So, yeah, he should be useful.

Like, I mean, I don't think he felt he was there just to sort of wheel off the bench occasionally as a sort of, you know. Yeah, so that was a big deal. I think that was a big deal for us to sign a player like that. It must have been a bit of a stretch for the wages as well, I imagine, to get him. I know he came on a free, but I imagine his contract must have been quite a— he must have been one of the higher earners in that division.

You would expect so, yeah. Outside of I mean, there may be one or two others in our squad, but— and some of the players that Fulham would sign this season, I mean, yeah, you would expect that was, that was very definitely one of the more expensive third-tier players.

Yeah, Fulham had Peter Beardsley, didn't they? He did, yeah. And Paul Peschisolido went and signed for them as well for a decent sum, I think, as well. Yeah, so they were obviously throwing money around. And I think, you know, most of those signings that you said are quite astute you know,. Small fees, or relatively small, but like, you know trying to spread it around and just, like you said, rebuild the squad because so many players had gone. So we needed.

Right from sort of back to front, we needed reinforcements. Actually, probably the area where you haven't seen— you know, the players you've mentioned, obviously Chris Day came in as a, as cover for Alec Chamberlain in goal. But defensively, we haven't— there's not— we haven't spent a lot of money on defensive players there. But then defensively, still, you know, with Page and Palmer and, you know, and Millen we're still relatively sorted there, weren't we? We probably did.

Yeah, I think we've been sort of relatively well blessed with although we'd had a couple of this, let you know, maybe make no bones about it, we had a couple of rubbish seasons, but still one of the stronger areas of the squad I think was centre-back. Now they may have lost the ability to play with each other for a decent period of that time, but individually I think they were good players and they probably just needed a bit of solid coaching and a well-organised team, a well-drilled team, and they could get back to their best. Added into that, of course, Tommy Mooney. This was his season where he was kind of reinvented as a left-sided centre-back of three, kind of ball playing, ball carrying, and still turning up in the opposition area to bag us a few goals, which we'll definitely get on to. It was— I really enjoyed watching him play at the back this season.

Well, visionary stuff from Graham Taylor again there, you know. Now we're back in vogue, the 3 at the back and ball playing centre-backs, but Tommy Mooney was doing that in 1997. So yeah, he's blazing a trail, wasn't he? Blazing a trail. Yeah, but I think the other thing that jumps out at me from this, what you've just said, is just this is the first season, I think, so far that we've talked about where there's actually a significant number of players coming in. Yeah, because so many of the seasons have been, you know, one or two signings, and usually like a free transfer reserve goalkeeper or something like that.

There's a— there's just, you know, a significant number of new players coming in there, and most of those were signed to be in the first team and to have an impact straight away. So yeah, that just gave you a bit more— I think as a fan, that was exciting because you're like, well, there's a lot of new blood coming in and players who are going to want to make a mark in our first team and actually do something. And, you know, that just gave you a bit more. Something to look forward to, I suppose, as the season got closer.

I think, and by and large, they're attacking-minded players. Melvang there is the defender, and even he's kind of really a wing-back. But yeah, you've got wingers, you've got strikers. Micah Hyde is essentially an attacking central midfielder, isn't he? So those players and the players that we did retain from last season, there was a bit more width and dribbling ability than I think there had been in the last few seasons, which had led to some stodgy, kind of one-paced football. And this strikes me that this is Graham Taylor building a team kind of the way that he knows best, you know, that can stretch to play wide, that can play on the break when necessary and can possess the ball and can work the ball when we have the upper hand against opposition clubs. So I think there's a little bit more to get excited about there.

That sort of 5-3-2 can easily move to 4-4-2. You'd have Mooney pushing out to the left back, and Kennedy pushing on, is playing as a much more sort of orthodox winger and getting into the box more often. So it's kind of slightly sort of fluid, fluidity of that formation, which could deal with kind of whoever we were playing, really. There's a new home kit this year, it's a yellow shirt with a big red vertical stripe down it, red shorts and socks. This is a period of a few years where we were playing with red shorts, but we kept last year's AC Milan red and black vertically striped kit away from home. This is the season that Saracens started playing at Vicarage Road, and you can tell once we get into autumn and winter and even spring.

The pitch has not been looking great for a few years. Obviously, it would be a few more years before the real science of pitch laying and groundsmanship would really come on a few stages. So we did have to deal with some rubbish pitches, our own and around the country as well. And the season actually started off— when we spoke to Pete Fincham a few episodes ago, he gave us the tales, some hilarious tales actually, of Watford going to Finland and Lithuania. This preseason, the players talk about having to run a lot, don't they? But I don't think that was the Finland and Lithuania part of the preseason. I think they'd been pretty well drilled in London Colney, wherever it was they were training at the time, and then kind of went for some match practise and team bonding.

Team bonding, yeah, team bonding. Yeah, we'll leave it there, I think, for the preseason. I think that speaks for itself.

Yeah, do you want to get us going into the season proper then and how we kick things off?

Yeah, so I think this like first period of the season is really defined by. Like I said, I think it's defined by players wanting to— a club that want to hit the ground running, a team that was really hungry to get going after what was quite a frustrating season last season. Felt like last season was a bit of a missed opportunity and they were setting out to sort of not make the same mistakes twice, I guess. Like you said, there's a lot of anticipation going into the start of the season because of the new players, because of Graham Taylor back And that started really sort of, I remember that first game of the season at home to Burnley just because it was really hot sunny day, early August. And quite often it is anyway because the season starts in the middle of summer, but there was a real like, yeah, there was that sort of real feel-good vibe around the place, I think, going into that game and hoping that Watford would turn up and put on a performance. And they got off to a great start because Jason Lee scores on his debut and you always want your centre forward to get off the mark early. The thing that, you know, they won 1-0, like they probably should have won 2 or 3-0 against Burnley in that, in that first game.

But the thing that really stood out for me in that game was Micah Hyde immediately making an impact as well in the midfield and looks very much like someone who was gonna be really useful for us, driving forwards from midfield, getting on the end of things in the box, and looked a really good foil for Richard Johnson straight away. And it was evident from that first game, you know, sometimes players take a while to settle in, but I just remember thinking like, he looks the business, like just getting the ball and driving forwards from midfield. And he was really unlucky not to score on his debut himself, actually. I think he hit the bar in that game. But they make a really, really strong start to the season, Watford winning their first few games in the league and the cup. As you said, Ronnie Rosenthal joins just after the season starts. He scores on his debut away at Swindon in the League Cup which is another game that they win 2-0.

They go up to Carlisle, that long trip up to Carlisle, and win 2-0 up there with a ridiculous Johnson 35-yarder into the top corner. I mean, that was just this— if you watch that one on the highlights video, it's from absolutely miles out that goal. I don't quite know how he manages to pull that off.

It's absurd, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, it's a free kick, and I think, I think it's Rosenthal just plays it very short, like literally taps the ball and sort of goes, 'Go on, have a go.' Yeah, it's sort of one you see every now and then players try and hit those these days, and they often like, the ball flies all over the place. And but Johnson, yeah, he knew how to strike a ball, didn't he? Really did. And it absolutely flies in from all you know, sort of between the 18-yard box and the halfway line. It's that far out. Another game that sticks in memory from this period that was another really impressive one was a 3-1 home victory over Brentford, where they were 2-0 up, Brentford pulled one back, and then Watford scored the third with another Richard Johnson. I think it's a classic bit of Mike Vince on the comms with Johnson at the help yourself counter and coming away with a basketful.

Lovely bit of commentary from Vincey as our Johnson slams one in from distance. Micah Hyde was really impressive in this game again as well. And Stuart Slater, who we talked about a bit last season, didn't we, and the impact that he'd made— he was fit at the start of the season and was really turning defences inside out. Like, he wasn't scoring, but he was, he was giving fullbacks nightmares, I think, at this level. Because, because the team were playing with such confidence early on and pushing teams onto the back foot. If you're a winger who likes to run at players, then you're in dreamland, aren't you? Because you know that, you know, you're pushing them back and you know you're going to get the ball and you know you've got, you know, you're encouraged to run at them and it doesn't matter too much if it doesn't come off straight away.

Yeah, I think the other interesting thing about that is just by the nature of the formation, the sort of 5-3-2, he kind of played as a midfielder, but kind of just behind the front two. And like, you're right, he's a winger, But starting from a central position gave him, you know, he could choose which wing he was going to attack. Yeah, you know, and he would float from side to side, and if he was having trouble beating one fullback, he'd just play on the other side and beat that guy instead.

A couple of other things just to mention from this opening couple of months of August and September. First of all, it's just. This is purely just based on the video, but the Preston North End away, the coverage of that starts with just the camera zoomed in on the back of someone's head because it's such a low-down camera angle, and there's sort of like someone holding a cigarette, and you can— and it's just people having a chat, and it's just a hilarious camera angle that you're basically there with the fans watching the game. This is a defeat, it's the first defeat as well, and it's the first time we haven't scored in a game. So going down at Deepdale, 2-0 to Preston. But it's not a huge setback, they rebound well and win the next 3 games on the bounce, Watford. So they're really, you know, absolutely flying out the blocks at the start of this season.

And then we have one of the seismic moments of the '90s culturally towards the end of this initial run of form with the death of Princess Diana. So that happens a couple of days before Watford go to Plymouth on the 2nd of September and win 1-0. Then everyone knows that there's, you know, this is, this is a national period of mourning, isn't it? It's like it was. Truly, whatever your feelings on the royal family and on that event, it was like, it was inescapable, wasn't it? I mean, the entire country was in Diana lockdown, basically. And then we had the funeral, and the funeral was, you know, a global event, not just a national event, but an absolutely global event with all of the people who were— the world's media trained on that, the people who were going to be there, the amount of grief and the sort of, you know, the people lining the streets, it was like nothing that had— it was unprecedented, I think, for modern times as an event.

And of course, Watford had the connection there with Elton John. Elton John was not only in attendance, but he was actually performing at Diana's funeral and sang at her funeral. Adapted version of Candle in the Wind. And I think the reaction to that nationally was that he, you know, there was so much warm feeling to him for doing that. He then came to Watford, to Watford versus Wycombe Wanderers. I think that was the day after the funeral.

I don't know if it had been announced he was going to be there. I think it wasn't announced he was going to be there. I think it was just he had obviously decided to come. And were you at that game?

I was, yeah. I don't remember, I don't remember either expecting him to be there, but no, they've just passed me by.

The reception that he got was, yeah, I mean, I think once people noticed him he sort of emerged into the director's box. You realize, 'cause people had started to turn around in the main stand and start applauding as he came into the director's box. And then the entire stadium stood up and started applauding him, including the Wycombe fans. And everyone was singing like, singing Elton John and chanting his name. And it was, I mean, it was very rare that Elton John would be applauded by away fans. He would usually be subjected to, some chants that, you know, were pretty out of date then and even more so now. But so for the entire stadium to applaud him was also like, it's quite a moment, I think.

Yeah, there was a real sort of sense of pride about it, wasn't there?

Yeah, I think so. And just, you know, reinforcing, I suppose, that he was back at Watford's— Graham Taylor was back at Watford's— dynamic duo back together. Yeah, that, you know, created an amazing atmosphere before the start of that game against Wycombe, and Watford went on to win that 2-1 and followed that up beating Chesterfield and getting a good draw with Sheffield United in the League Cup. So a fantastic start to the season going into mid-September where they'd really been off the blocks. The new players have made an immediate impact and the team was looking in pretty good pretty good shape going into the latter stages of September and into the autumn.

Yeah, one of those players who'd who'd made his mark on the team so far was Jason Lee. He hadn't scored a bundle of goals, but he was that physical presence that we'd been lacking, a kind of focal point for shaping the attack. Perhaps a little bit too physical though, because he'd been sent off earlier in the season for elbowing, and he would be sent off again against Gillingham. Richard Johnson scores a goal in that match, we draw the match 2-2. Richard Johnson scores, and it is a pretty great strike. It's hit with this combination of power and swerve, outside of his right foot.

The TV cameras kind of, it just looks like it goes straight, but it doesn't. He really sort of puts a nice bit of swerve on it. Mike Vince says, 'Cometh Mr. Johnson, cometh the back of the net,' which is just absolutely Fair enough, it was one of my— that's one of my favourites. Yeah, well, and speaking of favourites, Rich Johnson calls that one of his favourite goals, or his best goal that he scored for Watford so far. So, you know, he had a lot to choose from. Yeah and for that one to be picked out at the top means it must have been good. We had that great draw against Sheffield United, but in the second leg we lose heavily, so we go out of the Coca-Cola Cup in the second round.

We play York at home, and by this time Watford are playing well and they're playing attractive football, and the club is now regularly getting home attendances in excess of 10,000, which is great. You know, we've spoken a bunch of times about how. Particularly in the early to mid-'90s, attendances could be very low. So for us now to be regularly in 5 figures is great. The York game, it was basically a sellout because we gave away 6,000 tickets to local school kids. It's not ideal because York kind of sat back and played on the break and we couldn't break them down. We draw 1-1.

They, in fact, they scored first, but we pushed for an equaliser. But that means we end the month in first still, level with Northampton, who've also had a good start of the season. But really the big thing to talk about in this period of time is the 4th of October 1997, going to Kenilworth Road and winning 4-0. An outrageously famous win. I still remember it very, the event very clearly now, and I think it sticks in the memories of a lot of Watford fans. Were you in attendance or was this something that you observed from afar like I did?

Yeah, I observed it from afar, and I can't— I've actually never seen Watford beat Luton, so in the flesh. So I was really gutted that I wasn't there because I would— I very nearly went to it. I was actually— I'd gone to university in Birmingham I didn't actually stay in Birmingham beyond my first year, and. But at the time I felt like I couldn't come back straight away to go to a Luton Watford game. So that was a poor decision. I should have just gone to Kenilworth Road and to hell with university. But.

It was, yeah, just incredible. I think I had the radio on and then the goals were coming in on the updates. I couldn't quite get my head around it, what I was hearing.

Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. I mean, just to kind of set the scene, we were top, obviously, as we just said, and they were second from bottom and had this pretty horrendous injury crisis at the time, something we could obviously empathise with. And there was a sense that, you know, this was our chance to go there and to win and beat them for the first time in 10 years. So we took a big load of fans with us, 2,000 fans. And all the goals came very early on. I think we were 4-0 up after sort of 32 minutes. So Richard Johnson scores typically from the edge of the box, as he always does.

Some of our goals are really due to defensive errors on Luton's part. They did not play well defensively that day. Dai Thomas takes advantage of a mix-up and he pulls his shirt off and I think he got in a little bit of trouble for that by Graham Taylor because that's not the sort of thing Graham Taylor likes. But he'd not been near, his body had not been near sun, I think, for several years. He was paler than pale. But, you know, I think he speaks in the highlights videos about loving derby matches and he would go on to display that in some other ways, I think, being from the Cardiff and Swansea rivalry. But I got the sense he kind of really got it.

He got that it was a big match and he loved scoring against them, I think he did. Then Peter Kennedy scores a couple of goals in a couple of minutes, I think, and it really should be 5 at halftime. Rosenthal is taken out and really should be a penalty, but the ref doesn't give that. We go in 4-0 up, And the Luton fans, as you can imagine, I think, as we all remember, I think were absolutely incensed. And there was genuine fears, I think, that there could have been some trouble. I remember Lennie Lawrence, the Luton manager at the time, kind of.

Saying at the time, and has gone to say more about it as he's got further away from the event, how scared he was with the fans climbing on the dugout and banging on the roof and stuff like that, you know. And it was a little bit more than, you know, 'Sort it out, Lawrence.' It was— there was some not so thinly veiled threats there.

Yeah, I think from like reading back on this and remembering at the time, actually, that Taylor— they want— they were— there was almost like— it felt like there was a bit of a an unsaid agreement almost that they would just play out the second half a little bit. Yeah, try and take the sting out of the game because Watford definitely didn't go for the jugular in the second half.

No, they could— I mean, they could have scored more. But yeah, I definitely agree. I think that's— I think your analysis of that is correct. There's a kind of second narrative that Taylor pushes as well, is that the players didn't know what to do when they were 4-0 up. But I don't think—. I think that's I think that's him just saying that for the media. I think the reality is that it was more no, we've won the game, you know, and let's not cause problems.

Sometimes it's hard to— I think when you come flying out the traps like that, then it's halftime and that takes the momentum out of it. It is sometimes— I get that it is actually sometimes hard to then kick on again and to do all of that again. It's sometimes— it doesn't always work like that, football. Just because you've hammered a team in the first half doesn't mean you're going to hammer them again in the second half. So that wasn't necessarily the case of what we're going to score another 4. But I also think you know, even the ref was affected in that game because, yeah, he did not want to give that penalty, like, because it was a clear penalty. And I don't believe that.

He didn't think— for— there was no doubt in his mind that it was a penalty. I think he probably thought that might be a penalty, but I'm not going to give it because it could cause a riot. Like, I genuinely think that there was, you know, from— like you say, like, the atmosphere had turned towards the end of that half from people who were there and from reports of people who were there. So it was, yeah, it was getting pretty hairy. And yeah, we hadn't been in that situation against Luton for such a long time. I don't think anyone really cared by the end of it how much they won by. The fact is everyone knew that we'd absolutely battered them on their own, on their own park.

And that was that. Which, you know, when we hadn't beaten them for, he said, 10 years, it felt, it may as well have been 50 years as far as I'm concerned, because it was my lifetime. We hadn't beaten them. So it was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful.

Yeah, it really was. And kind of encapsulated that early early season form. You know, we were scoring goals. Peter Kennedy, unlikely source of goals, he was scoring lots. We were taking our chances, we were pretty strong at the back, you know, we obviously didn't concede in that match and hadn't been conceding many. I think it was around this time that most fans kind of thought, hang on, this is going to be it, I think, this year, you know, we've been top now for a couple of months, you know, it's ours to throw away. And we didn't throw it away throughout the rest of this period because.

We lost at home to Millwall, and Graham Taylor refers to that as having our bottom smacked a bit, and how the team would need to learn from that because there would be challenges along the way in the season. But other than that, it was really kind of clean sweep of victories. Rosenthal amongst the goals, Lee grabs a couple. That performance against Blackpool at home in early November, I think, was really good. Hayden Johnson kind of like running the midfield. Jason Lee scores two really towering headers, a rare Richard Johnson goal from inside the box. Ronnie Rosenthal's goal was absolutely brilliant, kind of runs more or less from the halfway line you know, shuffles past a couple of players, drops his shoulder, chips it over the keeper, and he's got— by that time he's got 4 in 5 because we've beaten Fulham before that with Paul Robinson's first goal for Watford.

Beaten Grimsby as well. Darren Bazeley's back in the team, he's missed all of the season through injury, which gives us an extra option on the right-hand side. And then we come to a match against Southend away in early November. Goal-scoring kind of nominally full-backs at Watford have a good record, a goal-scoring record at Southend. Darren Bazeley, scored a hat-trick a couple of seasons ago. Peter Kennedy does that as well. Really great performance.

It's a brilliant hat-trick.

It's a really good hat-trick. The free kick is excellent. The other two goals are great as well. We won that 3-0, and yeah, I think it could have been an even more handsome victory. So that's, you know, a great run through October, going into November. Really great running results. We're looking like.

We're looking like champions-elect, I think it's fair to say. There are a couple of teams that have started the season well. Northampton's one of them. I think Chesterfield started quite well, and Bristol City, who would, who would stick with us for the remainder of the season. So we're not out on our own, but we're, we're proving that we're much better than most of the division, and we're consistent, and we're able to score goals as well. So yeah, lots of, lots of optimism for the rest of the season, I think.

Yeah, and I think, you know, this period up to Christmas, basically, the— you can see the confidence of players like. Peter Kennedy and how they've improved since the start of the season. I mean, he obviously made a good start, an encouraging start anyway, but the type of goals that he's scoring now, like that hat-trick at Southend with a brilliant free kick and two other well-taken goals, his second goal at Luton as well where he— they, I mean, Luton give the ball away, but the way Kennedy sort of runs at them and cuts inside and then arrows his finish into the bottom corner. I mean, yeah, he's really enjoying his football by this stage, isn't he?

I think Yeah, and I think the wing-back role gives him quite a, quite an opportunity to join in. Like, he scores some goals from the centre-forward position, doesn't he? He does. He will do that throughout the season. Paul Robinson gets a couple of goals in this season, and he's, you know, broadly playing the same position, and his goals are like that as well, that you would expect a number 9 or a number 10 to score. So with these kind of really, really attacking wing-backs, yeah, teams just have too many players to defend against. There's always going to be an overlap somewhere.

And when on those matches where we're able to take advantage of that, we dominate. And thankfully, that was more often than not.

Yeah, and I think the other thing you see at the moment is the goals being spread, and that continues during sort of November-December time. There isn't one player who is gonna— it's already quite evident, I think, that there's not going to be a sort of 25-goal striker in this season. The goals are being spread around quite a lot. Jason Lee is chipping in Ronnie Rosenthal is now in some fairly decent form. Gifton scored a couple, but he's not sort of hammering them in every week. So the goals are being shared.

Then you've got players like Micah Hyde and Richard Johnson scoring from midfield as well. So I think, I think that's that sort of pattern of, you know, it's a team effort so far this season, which which is evident and which is what you need in a successful side. They go into this next period, I think really the thing to say about this, you know, November into December, they're not thumping teams. They're not winning like 3, 4, 5-nil at the moment apart from at Kenilworth Road, just to mention that again. They are grinding out results more now. There's, you know, 2-1s, 1-0s.

Again, without me sounding like a big book of football clichés, but that is— you need that. You're not going to win 4 or 5-nil every week, or it's unlikely that you are. So just being consistent and finding ways to win is really important. During this period, they have another good run of league victories, 3 league victories in a row. Dai Thomas gets on the scoresheet a couple of times, and so does Tommy Mooney. So Mooney's actually, due to some, you know, injury crisis and poor form, Mooney's thrust forward temporarily from his abandoning his ball-playing centre-half position in the back three and in his more sort of natural habitat of attacking crosses in the 18-yard box and playing up front with Dai Thomas, helping us to 2-1 wins over Oldham and Wigan at home, which is very helpful. Tommy Smith comes off the bench to make his debut at this time as well, so both he and Gifton had been selected for England Under-18s around this time, so just.

Evident of the pedigree of youth players that Watford are still producing at this moment in time. And not just producing, but giving them a real, you know, an early path into first-team football. And Smith was one definitely. I'd seen Smith play a year or two earlier in an FA Cup, Youth Cup game. They played Manchester United and beat them, and Tommy Smith scored in that game for the Youth Cup team. And so you could tell straight away that he was, you know, the pick of that bunch.

Yeah. Because I think Gifton was already in a first team squad at that same— probably just. Purely from his sort of physicality, had progressed into the first team a year earlier. But yeah, so Smith, another one, it was very early stages for him, but not the last we would hear from him. Kennedy's continuing to score as the month ticks on. A couple of draws and things, you know, they're not, like I said, they're not hammering everyone They play Bristol City at home in mid-December, and Bristol City, managed by John Ward, who is obviously one of Graham Taylor's apprentices as well, so an interesting narrative there as him being part of the, you know, the other promotion-chasing sides and the side that would push Watford all the way this season. They drew 1-1 with Bristol City at home.

But this was first versus second, 16,000 in attendance for that one. Obviously Bristol had taken quite a big following as well, but again, the signs that people are starting to get behind the club again, that, you know,. Enthusiasm is building around the team and people recognise that as a big game and have turned up. And that was, you know, the biggest crowd we'd had at the league fixture for a while. Well, certainly one that wasn't a relegation crunch encounter. So good, really, you know, encouraging signs. Gifton scores a late equaliser to get, to get Watford a point in that game.

The other thing, this is, this is the dawn of a great information age for Watford, the information superhighway. Watford launched their first website, and the programme, in the programme, the club introduces its first website to fans. And I think, Matt, you've noted they had very detailed instructions about how to access it.

Yeah, it was a real idiot's guide. It was the sort of thing you'd read out to an elderly grandparent or something like that. Yeah, all the things we absolutely take for granted now were being introduced to people for the first time. What is What is a computer?

What is a modem?

Yeah, absolutely. What is a modem? But yeah, they were pleased with the results. So in a later programme, they break down the figures and obviously internet traffic was calculated in a slightly different way and they sort of have to estimate it based on number of hits, which is a metric which is no longer in use. Yeah, but they worked out that it was around 2,000 people visited in the first 2 weeks. Of Watford, so they probably get that in a minute now.

Fantastic. Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. The dawn of Watford's internet age— actually, that's not true. The dawn of Watford's internet age was Ian Grant and Matt Rowson several years earlier, but the official launch of Watford's internet age was on the 13th of December 1997, according to the programme notes. So there we are. I'll finish this section just by noting that they had defeated Torquay in a second round replay at home with a brace from Gifton Noel-Williams to get past stubborn Torquay.

And that set up a third round tie at home to Sheffield Wednesday, who were Premier League opposition. So something for Watford fans to look forward to in the third round of the FA Cup.

Yeah, before we get to that, we've got to go to Bournemouth away. The team plays really, really well in that match. We'd had our typical, typical for the '90s, injury crisis, but we were able to ride it that bit better, both with strength in depth and I think just in a kind of player-by-player increase in quality in what we'd seen. So numbers and quality were both higher and we could ride that out. Peter Kennedy scores a free kick, Pete Fincham calls it out, a crucial winner, you know, a winner in an important match to go to Bournemouth and win with a slightly, slightly less experienced side was good. A couple of draws against Wycombe and Peterborough, and that brings us to the Sheffield Wednesday Sheffield Wednesday game you just referred to.

So we draw the match, we draw 1-1 at home, but it's a really good team performance. It's on TV. Nathan Lowndes makes a rare, a rare start for Watford. Wednesday, this is the year of you know, Benny Carbone, Paolo Di Canio who is completely taken care of by Nigel Gibbs, and Kennedy scores our goal. They score, I forget who scores for them, but Kennedy kind of scores the equaliser almost immediately afterwards, which is sort of arrowed drive from slightly to one side, outside of the area. Looks really good on TV, and a good celebration means that goes to a replay. So good performance against, like you say, a top-flight side.

I didn't get into that game. He didn't get any time. That's the only time I've turned up to Watford and not been able to get in, because in classic Watford style, it was only, I think,. Like some of the stands were ticketed, probably like the Rous Stand and the main stand, but not all of them were. And then I think the Vicarage Road end was basically just sort of turn up and pay on the day. And I didn't— by the time I— I wasn't late, but it was already— they basically closed the turnstiles and they weren't letting any more people in because they hadn't done an all-ticket game so which meant that they had to— they had— they couldn't just sort of absolutely fill it because I had to sort of judge how many people were already in there and where the space was, etc. So anyway, yeah, so I got all the way there and had to come around and turn around and go home again which was pretty disappointing actually.

But the only time that's ever happened and probably will never happen again because. That doesn't really happen anymore, does it? You don't really turn up and then they're like full, you know, sold out, you can't come in. Yeah, exactly. Either all the tickets have been sold beforehand or that's not really going to be a problem. So, but, you know I was also— it was exciting that we'd got a draw, and Kennedy's goal was an absolute rasp as well. He absolutely spanked it.

Yeah, it was a really good one. That's a really good one. Before we get to the replay, we lose, we lose to Burnley. So we kind of almost by accident, gone on a bit of a crap run. We hadn't been losing games. That loss to Burnley is our first in a while, but we've drawn, drawn a few. So that means we've only won 1 in 6, and Bristol City have caught us on points.

So whereas we had opened up a slight gap at the top, we're now pegged back by Bristol City. The great thing about the Sheffield Wednesday replay, I think, is Di Canio getting sent off. And I must admit, I'd completely forgotten about this, or I remember it happening, but forgot that it was against Watford. Yeah. Essentially gets sent off because he's conceded a throw-in. The ball goes out, the throw is given to Watford, he goes way over the top in appealing to the linesman and he's booked for it, and then goes even more over the top in his frustration at being booked and he's immediately sent off. So yeah, two yellow cards, both for dissent, within sort of 5 seconds of each other.

And I think that was in the first half, halfway through the first half as well.

I was at that. I'd gone up to Sheffield to Hillsborough, and it was a midweek game. I was— I'd gone up from Birmingham with a mate. I can't remember, we just decided after we didn't get in, we were like, well, let's go to the away game. So we just decided to do that. We got— he— my mate had driven up to Birmingham, and then we got the train up from Birmingham to Sheffield. And it was very cold, and being complete idiots, we hadn't like we just assumed we'd be able to get back again afterwards, which which we couldn't because especially if we got back to the station quite late after extra time and penalties.

So when we got back to Sheffield to the train station, there wasn't a train to back to New Street until about 5:30 AM. So. And being a couple of students, that much money, we basically just meant sitting around on like a bench at the bus station for the next like 5 hours in the freezing cold. It was a long night, a long night, which we sort of, you know, try not to think about too much, Matt, to be honest. It was a dark time.

Yeah, I had a fairly similar thing happened to me in about, I think it was about 2004. I'd gone to London from Milton Keynes to watch a gig. I think it might be Sonic Youth and got the train back to Milton Keynes, got the last train back and fell asleep on it. And I woke up in Wolverhampton and had to spend the night at Wolverhampton.

That's a bit of an overshot.

Yeah, it was, I think it was the end, the end of the line. Yeah, I had to sleep on a, sleep on a bench. I didn't sleep, but I tried to sleep on a bench probably covered in copies of the Express and Star or something like that. It wasn't, it wasn't very good character building. Yeah, it's made me who I am now. Yeah, as you said, we lose the tie because we draw that replay 0-0. It goes to penalties in the end and we lose 5-3.

Kevin Pressman, renowned penalty-taking goalkeeper, scores the decisive penalty. But I think the top flight opposition, we're in the third tier and we've, you know, we've taken them to a replay and extra time and then penalties in that, you know, we've shown that we're a we're, you know, a match for them. Which is great and it's kind of a reflection, I think, on the sort of season that we were having. The next match after that is against Preston and it's David Moyes' first league match in charge. I think he might have managed a cup game in between, I couldn't find detailed fixtures or I didn't look hard enough, unfortunately. And around this time we had signed Alon Hazan, Ronnie Rosenthal's countryman, an experienced pro, and kind of, I think, relatively slight but very technically able midfielder, which gave us sort of an extra option in the middle of the park. Kennedy scores twice, we win the match 3-1, Kennedy scores twice on Hyde, so that takes Kennedy up to 13 for the season.

We're in the middle of January, but after such a great start to the season, he actually doesn't score again. You know, you think he'd be on track to get 20-plus goals from ostensibly a wing-back position, but through a combination of factors, he doesn't score again. We make that 3 wins in a row. We beat Brentford, we go to Brentford and win 2-1. Johnson again scoring from outside the box, and Gifton Noel-Williams scores quite a cute goal against Chesterfield, again away. We win 1-0. He takes it around the defender and then round the keeper and kind of prods it home from 8 or 10 yards with his slightly— with the outside of his foot.

So we've won 3 in a row, and that means that we end the month of January 3 points clear at the top, but more importantly, 19 points clear of third place. So. As we said before, you know, there were a couple of, a couple, a couple of 3 teams that were keeping pace with us by and large, but really now it's just Bristol Rovers, excuse me, just Bristol City. I think promotion is sort of a fait accompli now. I think the team and the fans know that we're going to get promoted. It would take something extremely strange for us not to be promoted, and the question really now is it going to be us or Bristol City that to win the title in May.

Yeah, I think where we are now, like you say, is promotion is expected now from this situation. The opportunity for Watford is really to then take the rest of the season by the throat and really, you know, make sure that they're gonna, you know, run away with it and take the Championship. That would require them to maintain the really impressive form that they'd shown over the first half of the season into February and into the spring. And it doesn't, it doesn't quite go to plan in this next spell. They— this is where we start to see, I suppose, it's a sort of slightly familiar pattern from what we saw in a previous season, where games that they were winning turn into draws, and games they were drawing turn into defeats. There's a lot of To be fair, they don't lose loads, but they start to draw quite a few games that they probably, you know, would want to be winning. In particular,.

At home to Luton, they draw. It's a game they should have won. I think they were, they were again the much better side over Luton, and unfortunately the Vicarage Road fans are denied a victory over their rivals. But Paul Robinson scores, which he greatly enjoys, as you can imagine, scoring against Luton. It's points dropped, they draw the next couple of games away at York and Millwall. I really like— I think one of the memorable games from this era is a home victory over Bristol Rovers. Memorable because of— it's just classic Tommy Mooney.

It really epitomises what he ended up sort of becoming for Watford and what he meant to the club and his relationship with the club and the fans in particular. Because it's a game that Watford, you know, they should have— they almost had put it to bed. They were 2-0 up, should have been done and dusted. But Bristol Rovers mount a spirited comeback and get it back to 2-2. Jamie Cureton, who I'm sure everyone from watching Watford during this year will remember him, who, you know, what an incredible career he had in the Football League as a, as a goalscorer. He seemed to— I think he carried on playing until he was about 50. He seemed to just go on forever.

He still is, yeah.

He's still listed as a player at Enfield. I think he's 46 or something.

Amazing. Yeah, he just was, you know, just a real, like,. Classic goalscorer Jamie Cureton. But anyway, he scores the equaliser for Rovers. Time's ticking on, we really do need to get a win to get back on track. And step forward the marauding man, you know, up from the back, Tommy Mooney, who, you know, in these situations would be thrown further forward and get forward. And he gets on the ball, it's one of those ones where you're not sure exactly what's on his side, right on the out wide on the edge of the 18-yard box, and he just Through sheer, sheer force of will, manages to sort of.

Hold off the defender and, you know, barrel his way through and then absolutely slams the ball in from a really acute angle. Yeah. Into the, into the far side of the net with like real wild celebrations ensuing. Crowd sort of spilling out over the hoarding. The hoarding nearly takes— it looks like it's going to do someone an injury because the crowd will spill over, the hoarding comes down and looks like it's going to rake several of the Watford players' calf muscles off. It's kind of too clever, but thankfully I don't think anyone was hurt in the celebrations that ensued. But the relief, I think, from that goal is a real moment of the season, I think, for— well, actually, two of our listeners, Paul Goldsmith and Pete Hodgins, both mentioned that on Twitter as being one of their sort of seminal moments of the season.

I'd absolutely agree with that. I think not just because of it's an important victory, but because it was Mooney and it was You know, we hadn't seen him in his typical style, I suppose, as much this season because he'd been playing at the back, but it was wonderful for him to have a real standout moment this season like that and get the points for Watford. The rest of this spell, just sort of taking us up towards the end of March, still struggling form. They actually lost the following game after that dramatic victory at home to Walsall and then had a couple of draws with Southend and Blackpool. And they finally get back to winning ways against Carlisle at home. The thing to note in this game is Nick Wright setting up Alan Smart for Carlisle's consolation goal in a 2-1 victory for Watford. A partnership that obviously didn't go unnoticed by the Watford management team on the night.

So interesting to see those two catching the eye of Graham Taylor and co. on the night. That's one way to do your scouting, I guess, is let them come to you. Yeah, just sort of like, you know, they look good, let's write those down in our notepad and we'll buy them in the summer.

They did look good, actually. It's funny, I remember it. I wouldn't have remembered it if Watford hadn't signed Nick Wright and Alan Smart, but when they did sign them and then I went back and watched this video, it kind of reminded me that they had played really well. Alan Smart looked an intelligent striker and Nicky Wright was a bundle of energy kind of on the right-hand side, so they did stand out and their summer moves.

It's not been— there was an opportunity in this period to really capitalise on where they were in a table and to probably, you know, try to extend that lead over Bristol City. They've not quite been able to do that. They finish this period going up to Oldham Athletic with a 2-2 draw. Nigel Gibbs scores an absolute rasper and makes fun of himself with a self-deprecating nosebleed celebration. But the reality is that, yeah, it is very tight now with the race for the championship. And whilst there's not any real sort of jitters about promotion as such, whether or not they can, they can nail down one of the automatic spots sooner rather than later, I suppose the draws aren't helping, are they, Matt?

They're not helping. I mean, we get another one, home to Northampton. Peter Kennedy comes back, he'd missed a couple of months with an injury. Our goal is a typical blockbuster from Richard Johnson. He completely launches it into the opposite corner. He's on the right-hand side of the penalty area and he goes across the goalkeeper.

Minimal backlift as well, I think, that one.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah, just really puts his foot through it, you're right. The thing to, I think, to bear in mind is that Bristol City are having inconsistent form as well as us, so we're both being pegged back a little bit by the pack. But as you say, there's, there's no danger that Grimsby are going to catch up with us. We're still 12 points clear going into the last sort of 6 or 7 games. It's just not going to happen. But yeah, so, but we, I think we're lucky that Bristol City haven't. Had any momentum either, because otherwise, you know, we could potentially be sort of 10 points behind them by this stage.

We lose the next match. Dominic Foley has joined the club on loan from Wolves. Presumably Taylor would have known of him from his period in charge of Wolves a couple of years ago. Yeah, we lose up at Wigan 3-0 3-2 in fact, but we did go 3-0 down and played extremely poorly. Halftime it could have easily been 4 or 5. Foley pulls one back, so does Micah Hyde, and we denied a Gifton Noel-Williams equaliser from an offside flag. So we've won just 2 out of our last 12 games, and Bristol City do take over at the top again.

Yeah, we're very close to them in terms of points and form, but the next match is home against Wrexham, and it, you know, it does put promotion It basically, it basically seals it. We need one more point after that win. Paul Goldsmith points out that, you know, the nightmare is over. It's— fans know that the club is going to get promoted. It's all well and good knowing it for sort of 6 months going through a season, but you do want it to be confirmed. And that is confirmed by us playing against and drawing Bristol City, so first v second.

Their pitch is covered with American football markings, which are kind of really poorly, really poorly painted over. The London Monarchs have played an NFL Europe match at Bristol. Kind of weird an American Football League would play a match in Bristol, ostensibly hosted by a London team, but that's just the way American football works. Graham Taylor at the end of the season says like that, you know, that's the point where. The weight is off his shoulders. He'd been carrying the weight, and the weight of expectation since he'd come back, kind of the better part of 2 seasons ago now. And he says that he gets on the coach to go home and promptly falls asleep.

You know, it's the first time that he can rest throughout the season, knowing that promotion has been secured. So we kind of round out the season with another draw and then two wins. So we draw against Grimsby sporting our new kits, which we were wearing the following season. The Bournemouth match at home is fun, and we've mentioned it before. This is the match where Steve Palmer is listed as playing number 1 so that he can wear all 14 shirt numbers throughout the course of the season, which is a Football League first. So at this stage, he's not played in number 1 and he's not played number 9, and he would be given those in the last 2 seasons.

He hasn't played exactly in every position, but you kind of get the sense that he's almost like the last name on the team sheet. I mean that in its most positive sense. It's like that you fill the team up with your best players, and then wherever there's a gap or something, you just know that Steve Palmer is going to do a job. So he was almost always deployed in central midfield, defensive central midfield, or centre-back, but did jobs where needed in spells throughout the season. And it was nice for him to get the 1 to 14, the 1 to 14 shirt, something which will obviously never happen again.

I think, I think so, yeah. Graham Taylor talks about that, doesn't he, at the end of the season, where he talks about having a player like Steve Palmer, and sometimes they can be, I suppose, overlooked a bit because they're sort of— you know, having someone who you can say, oh, can you do a job here, can you do a job there you sort of take them for granted a little bit. But his views, it was like, you actually have to be, you have to be a really good footballer to be able to do that because it's not that common. It's not that common to be able to be as versatile as that. And obviously, yeah, that's right, you're right, he didn't, he wasn't playing centre forward, he didn't actually play in goal, but he did play. I think he could, you know, being able to play across the back and in midfield does mean that you've got someone you can throw into sort of 3 or 4 positions and know that they're not going to let you down.

Yeah, and he's obviously an intelligent man, an intelligent player, and a good pro as well. So kind of as well as being versatile, he has all those other kind of mental skills that you want. Yeah, you know, in your, in your team that's either battling relegation or in this case going for a the division title.

Yeah, totally.

That brings us to the last match of the season. So we're level with Bristol City, so we need to better their result and we go to moneybags Fulham and we do the job. Gifton Noel-Williams scores, so he ends the season with a couple of goals in a couple of matches. And Jason Lee had gone through a real barren spell. Generally, I think he played quite well this season, but he went 20 games without a goal and then scored, scored in sort Scored 4 goals in the last 5 matches. Bristol, as it turns out, Bristol City lost at Preston, so even a draw would have delivered us the title, but even nicer to win it away, sunny day at Fulham, and we win that 2-1. There's a pitch invasion, lovely scenes of Paul Robinson being carried around on fans' shoulders.

He was, you know, I've said it before and it's a bit of a trite thing to say, but he really gets it, doesn't he, Robbo? He seemed to be particularly proud of being part of this team and what they'd achieved. But yeah, I think better than most, Paul Goldsmith sums it up, giving us his moments for the season. Away v Fulham, sun on our heads, good Fulham team, which it was, but we weren't giving up. Jason Lee goal, bedlam, limbs, Paul Robinson in the air, glorious. We mention Paul a lot because he's got a lot of great a lot of great memories and things to offer, but yeah, he puts that well, I think. And I didn't go to the match, I wish I had, but I certainly read all about it and revisited it a number of times over the years, and would have been a great experience for anyone who was there, I'm sure.

Yeah, same, I wasn't, I was sadly still up in Birmingham, so I wasn't at that one, but just the fact that we actually. Won it. I think actually winning that league title, we're not a club that's won, you know, we're not a very storied club in terms of like league honours and domestic titles, are we? We've had some great moments, great memories, great achievements, but we don't actually have that many sort of championship medals to wave around and championship trophies. So it really mattered to me, and I think it matters to a lot of The fans, and I think it definitely mattered to the players when you've been at it, you know, for a 46-game season. You want to go up as champions if you can. Yeah, it's, you know, all of that effort you want, you want to be able to say you were champions, you want to say you were the best team in that league, which they were.

They were the best team, and it would have been really, really frustrating if they'd if they'd not been able to get it over the line. So I think it was also pleasing that Jason Lee was on the scoresheet because I think he did contribute a lot that season despite the fact that he didn't score loads of goals. It's one of those ones that would be quite interesting, wouldn't it, in terms of now, if you put him into context now and. How, you know, critical people are of, you know the return that you get from certain players and stuff. Having a centre forward going on a 20-match run without scoring— I'm not saying there weren't grumbles because I— there were grumbles at the time about him and Gifton, I think. Not entirely the same because obviously Gifton was a lot younger, but they weren't— they weren't, you know, they probably should have scored more goals, our strikers, over the season given that they were playing for the best team, and, you know, we were creating chances. But yeah, they had good service, they had, they had decent enough service, and, you know, but I think, but I think it probably, you know, the fact is that they all stuck together as a team, didn't they?

And so they did keep, they kept getting the results over the line because they never, no one ever stopped working, and Taylor wouldn't let them stop working because if that's when he would have pulled someone out of the team, I guess, is if he felt that they weren't really contributing anything anymore, then they wouldn't have been in the team anymore.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, those scenes, great images, like just, you know, still a terrace at Craven Cottage then. I don't think it had a roof either. So everyone was in the sunshine. Lovely for Gifton as well. And Paul Robinson being carried aloft is just a fairly iconic moment, I think, for Watford in the '90s and an iconic image for one of our absolute, you know, a player who had become not really just a cult hero, just a hero of Watford during that era because of, you know, again, just someone who really represented the club and played absolutely full throttle with his absolute heart every time he stepped on the pitch. Yeah, it was, it was, you know,. A fitting end to a season.

I guess we kind of ended up where we all hoped we would be at the start. Is that fair to say? I mean, we kind of— you don't want to sound presumptuous, but there was an expectation. And for once it was fulfilled.

Yeah, I think so. I think that's fair. We didn't run away with the league, did we? As you say, I mean, I think we got 88 points, so, you know, we weren't that dominant. It's just that I think most of the division was distinctly average. I think the gap between relegation and playoff, you know, wasn't that big. Certainly wasn't as sort of the usual 30-odd point gap you know, us and Bristol City were by far the two best teams.

And like I say, neither of us reached 90 points. So we were good, we were very good, but we weren't like outrageously good. No. And like I say, there wasn't like— so Fulham have just won the championship as we record, you know, a couple of weeks ago. And you know, they've got a player who scored like 40-odd goals and they will hammer— they were hammering teams 5-0, 6-0, 7-0 routinely. That's a team that smashes a division. I think in the following season from the one we're talking about now, Sunderland absolutely smashed the second tier, scored like, you know, 105 points or something like that on the way to the title.

We didn't do that, but we were, and I think we broadly sort of met expectations and perhaps slightly exceeded them, but it wasn't like that we were unbelievable. But like you say, we aren't a storied club with, as Luton fans will remind us, we don't have a cabinet full of trophies. So, you know, to win the league is something we should be justifiably proud of. And I, you know, I'm proud of the team this season. I enjoyed the matches that I went to. Like, you were at university, I was finishing up sixth form and working on Saturdays and Sundays and things like that. Working at Dixon's in Milton Keynes wasn't a very fun experience, and it also kept me from going to Watford as much as I would've liked.

But it was, you know, I'm kind of blathering on a bit because I think I've been a bit, I think I'm a bit harsh on the season in terms of what I said and also in my own head, but it is something to absolutely be proud of. And I think Graham Taylor did really sculpt that team into something that was really good. And they were all the right sort of character, weren't they? Like you say, they were all pulling for the team. They're a good unit, you know, good set of lads.

I agree, I agree completely. I think. So I think looking back on the season in terms of like the reflections on that, the— well, let's say the positives first, because I think the team ethic that you just mentioned, like, you know, great bunch of lads, that was— to be able to sort of get that chemistry from a bunch of players who, you know, you had several new faces brought in the summer, trying to mould them with the ones that you sort of kept on from previous eras who had a bit of experience, such, you know, Tommy Mooney, Robert Page, Steve Palmers, etc., blending them with the new blood of Micah Hyde, Peter Kennedy, and youth players of players like Gifton, I think, and Paul Robinson. The fact that Taylor was able to, you know, turn that into a unit, a unit that really, like, believed in each other and would fight for each other and scrap for each other, that was the overriding, you know, positive, I think, from this season. That and the fact that they just, they got the job done. It was, it was imperative that Watford did not spend a third season at this level.

I think they had to get out of there for the sort of long-term health of the club. They needed to get back up into the Championship. So it was sort of a bit by hook or by crook, they needed to fight their way out there, and they did. They didn't always play, you know, breathtaking football, but they played some good stuff at times, and there were some players that you could really enjoy. And I think as fans even if you weren't watching, you know, Brazil '82, you could still enjoy the performances of players who were really like putting a shift in for the club and who had some, like, had some nails, had some ability. I think I really enjoyed watching the emergence of the Richard Johnson, Micah Hyde midfield axis. Like, those two as a pair and their ability to play off each other and where one stayed, the other one could go.

You know, they could both put a tackle in. Johnson had that, you know, had really developed his sort of forte of not just his long-range shooting but his long-range passing as well. Yeah. And Hyde had that ability to. He had quite a sort of languid style on the ball, didn't he? But he could just sort of drive forwards with the ball and just—.

It could be quite deceptive because suddenly he's, you know, he's progressed sort of 30 yards or something.

Yeah, he could carry it, that is, realizing, carry it right up to the, to the edge of the box. And also had, you know, an ability to— he had an eye for goal himself. So that was wonderful to see. Peter Kennedy as a sort of bargain buy of the season in terms of just, you know, I don't think anyone expected him to be our sort of main goal threat when we signed him. So he surpassed expectations but was a sort of a classic Graham Taylor player in a way, I suppose. He just had a tremendous work ethic but also had the ability to get forward quickly, put great balls into the box, or slam them into the corner himself.

He's always loved those players, and he was a classic Graham Taylor player. Obviously the Luton result we've talked about Tommy Mooney's, you know, continued ability to just contribute. I think I don't think anyone saw him long term playing on the, on the left-hand side of a back three, but I think there were— we probably haven't mentioned what we haven't mentioned about Tommy Mooney and playing that role is the sort of slightly heart-in-mouth moments where he would just sort of charge, charge out from the back with the ball and sometimes run straight into a tackle in midfield.

Yeah, he kind of— he wasn't so much the last line of defence as first line of attack. He had an unconventional style which, yeah, did bring challenges.

What challenges? I mean, it was tremendous fun. They were just. Get his head down and start running with the ball. But it's like, it's not 5-a-side, Tom where are you going? Like but, you know, he did it. He was like, well, if that's where I've been asked to play, I'm going to play there and I'm going to, you know, do the best I can.

And he, and he contributed some really important moments over the season. Yeah. And then Ronnie Rosenthal. Yeah, Ronnie Rosenthal's if just having that extra bit of class, I guess in the attack. I mean, obviously he had some injuries. Otherwise, it'd be interesting if he had played the full season, maybe he would have been getting close to 20 goals because he certainly, you know, looked like he knew what he was doing at that level and he could score the kind of goals that other players in the team couldn't. But yeah, very useful at that level.

And then you still had, yeah, you still had players like Robert Page, like I said, who were being really solid and reliable at the back and turning into just, you know, a very authoritative presence at the back alongside players like Keith Millen and Steve Palmer. There's a lot of, there's a lot of positives there. There's a lot of positives. A player we haven't actually mentioned very much we probably should shout out, is Alec Chamberlain, who won Player of the Season, didn't he? Because yeah, he did. He'd, he'd not been— this is his first real season as the number one wasn't it?

Because it was the departure of Kevin Miller. So this was Chamberlain's a chance to get hold of the gloves and show what he can do. And he certainly did, and he kept the gloves, I see, for several seasons afterwards.

Yeah, I mean, it's unusual for a keeper to be your Player of the Season in a title-winning campaign, but he's just so reliable. Like, you know, he didn't have that, you know, 9 games without conceding or whatever it was Kevin Miller had a few seasons before, but. He rarely made mistakes, no, rarely, rarely at all. He was a safe pair of hands, you know, literally. Yeah. And was, you know, was a worthy winner. But then I guess that also is reflected by the fact that we just didn't have any other standout performers, you know.

Kennedy, with a full season of Peter Kennedy on form, probably would have won it. And if we'd had a 20-goal season striker, that probably would have won it as well. But You know, no shame in Chamberlain winning, and he deserved to.

And I think that's— yeah, if you look at the sort of the— you don't really say there's negatives when you've won the title and got promoted, but I think the reality was we didn't— the reason we didn't run away with it is probably because we didn't have that extra goal threat that would have turned some of those other tight games into victories, which probably would have given us an extra sort of 10-point, 10 points over the season, which would have made it a much more comfortable season and would have put us much further ahead of Bristol City. That's just like you said with Fulham and some of those other teams that run away with it, like Sunderland. They had those players who just score almost every game, so you had guaranteed goals on the pitch. We didn't have that and it was evident quite early on that wasn't going to be the way that this team went about it. So they had to adapt to that. I think there was a general feeling— actually, Richard Johnson talked about this in his comments at the end of the season— that they were a bit disappointed with the second half of the season, that they felt they could have kicked on from there and run away with it, and they didn't.

But, you know, that's being probably a bit harsh on themselves and harsh on this team, because I think they never really stopped working hard. I think they just didn't have the fine margins went against them a bit in the second half, that everything was going for them in the first half. And when you're— yeah, when you're not hammering in loads of goals, and that is always going to happen. I think there was a bit of grumbling, wasn't there, about the performance of some of the forwards because of that. And you don't want to see someone like Gifton, who still was, you know, 17 at the start of the season still a very young man learning his trade. You don't want to see people getting on his back. The fact is he still scored.

Did he get 9 or 10 in the end, Gifton?

Yeah, it's around that. Yeah, I forget exactly, but I mean, he did weigh in. I mean, that's a great return for a 17-year-old.

Yeah, which he, you know, he talks about in his own very enthusiastic style. And he talks about the fact that he scored a few more sort of scrappy poacher's goals this season, and the fact that Luther had been working him really hard on the training ground to try and help him to make sure he's in the right positions to score those goals. So that it's not just about his, you know, his hold-up play, or his, you know, what he can do on the ball. It's also making sure you're in the right places so that if the ball does fall, you're there to score. And that's it was nice to hear that. It was nice to hear, you know, that Luther had been working with him on the training pitch and trying to help him with that, to try and improve him as a forward.

And they obviously saw him as a player of real potential to do that, and that he was really appreciative of that as well. So, but, you know, overall, I think, yeah, there was— there wasn't really a— there was no massive negative from this season. Jason Lee probably would have, you know, would have been— if he'd have got more like sort of 15, 16 goals, that probably, you know, I think I want to feel a bit better about, and he probably would have felt a bit better. But he still played his part. So overall, I don't think we could have too many grumbles. The pitch, the deterioration of the pitch and Saracens playing there probably didn't help, but I don't think we can entirely blame that for— certainly not this season, maybe in future seasons when it really does start to get churned up, that becomes more of a factor. And then I suppose just yeah, just to round up this season, we've mentioned Bristol City, they're obviously promoted as runners-up, and Grimsby came up through the playoffs, with Brentford, Plymouth, Carlisle, and Southend all relegated down to the third tier.

Different times for Brentford now. Graham Taylor, I think, you know, he talks about it at the end of the season, he talks about. What he wanted from this season and the challenge that he set his players and the expectations. I don't know about you, I loved hearing him talk like that. And just—.

Yeah, I was just about to say, I really loved that interview. He's very—. He's much more candid than you would necessarily expect him to be. I think Taylor could often be quite candid with Watford media. Yeah, and that's a good thing, I think. But he just seemed so relieved and so proud and, you know, really pleased about it. You know, we finally got up, you know, we had expectations, they matched or exceeded them, we were up and he just looked really, yeah, really pleased and really proud and yeah, made me miss him even more.

Yeah, same. I think just having someone who could like communicate that well and talk like so openly about the challenges that they'd had and you know, so honestly, it was— it made you really miss having someone like that. Someone, because he'd been through all of that they'd had such a sort of a crap time, I think, just being— he probably must have felt quite relieved in himself that it's like he can still do it, you know. It's like, I still got it, I still got something to offer. And then immediately setting the tone for the following season by saying, you know, we're not— I don't just want to avoid relegation, I want to go, I want to do better than that. He says, I'm not going to put that— I'm not going to tell my players. That, you know, I expect them to get promoted, but, you know, into the Premier League in the first season.

But I don't want them to think we're there just to make up the numbers. Like, I mean, yeah, I'm expecting them to kick on from here. So immediately setting the sort of expectations, which is what you want as a player and a fan. You want to have that belief. Yeah. And he injected that back into the club, and it was really, really. Exciting as a fan, I think.

And obviously the players are responding to it as well. It's funny listening to Ronnie Rosenthal as well, because he in his interview says, well, we've got to be honest and say like 90% of the time I think the, you know, Graham Taylor has really got his decisions were the right ones. And you're like, what does that mean? You think 10% he got them wrong? It's like, yeah, it's a bold thing to say with someone like Taylor around who I don't think particularly likes to admit that he gets anything wrong.

So it's not like he made very many like off-the-wall—. I think, no, it was just a funny phrase. It is a funny phrase. Yeah, I was trying to see what he—. Perhaps what he might have meant by it. But yeah, I think, I think he's in his own unique— in his own strange way, he's just trying to say that the manager's the manager's done well this year.

Yeah, 90% of the time it works all the time. So I think what he was trying to say, yeah Elsewhere, we sort of wrap up this season. It was a big one for Arsenal with Arsène Wenger's first full season in charge. They won the title, won the double actually that season. Nicolas Anelka, teenage striker, doing the business. And that was when Tony Adams slammed one in that game against, I think it was Everton, where they won it at Highbury at the end of the season. And yeah, Adams suddenly wandered forward from the back and slammed one in.

Absolutely amazing, absolutely amazing scenes. Kevin Phillips, you mentioned earlier, he scored 29 goals to be top scorer in Division 1. They didn't get promoted though, did they? Because that was the— was it the 4-4 playoff final that Sunderland had against Charlton?

I think it was. That's it. They definitely didn't get promoted. And yes, I think that was, that was it. Then they go on and smash the, smash the league next.

They go up next season. That's right. We won't talk about who else goes up next season because we've still got to cover that. But yeah spoilers. Don't want to do any spoilers. But yeah, he— Phillips first, you know, full season without injury, playing alongside a decent target man, and he's scoring for fun. He would just—.

And then the season ends with the World Cup in France, World Cup '98, which was a brilliant World Cup, one of, one of the best World Cups, I think, just in terms of the actual football that was on show. It was really exciting, lots of entertaining games, attacking football. I think it was very different to Italia '90, 8 years earlier. And some brilliance here, like the France team, obviously inspired by Zinedine Zidane, but with a lot of the Arsenal contingent as well. They beat Brazil 3-0 in the final with that Brazil team with Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Cafu. Like, they were just phenomenal side.

Yeah, phenomenal side, that Brazil side. And there was all the controversy, wasn't there, about the final and what happened to Ronaldo. And but they were completely, completely blown away on the day the final by Zidane and France. And for England, it was another disappointing one, wasn't it? They went out in the second round to Argentina on penalties. David Beckham got sent off and was, you know, a hate figure when he came back, subjected to a lot of—.

Absolutely vilified. Yeah, vilified. Yeah, it was pretty vicious, very unpleasant, as is the way with England, as we saw with the young lads who missed penalties in the final of the Euros. We don't look after our footballers very well when they are unfortunate in a crunch game and it doesn't go to plan. There we are, that's England for you. The only other thing to mention here I think is Michael Owen's emergence, wasn't it, as an international star having scored a wonder goal against Argentina.

But that was, that was a summer, that was where it ended up. It's disappointing for England, but from a Watford point of view, it wasn't too bad, was it, Matt?

No, it's great. Yeah, lots of happy memories from the season, and the club just feels upwardly mobile, doesn't it? At this point, it feels there is a buzz around it, and you know, with Taylor in charge, well, they could aim to do whatever they wanted next year, couldn't they? We'll find out about that soon.

It wasn't crap, we can't say it's crap because it wasn't. It's absolutely— things have improved.

So I think that kind of wraps up our championship-winning season, and feels good to say that. Thank you very much for listening, everybody. Thanks, Michael. We'll be back with another podcast soon. In the meantime, if you've got any great memories of what's to come or indeed what's passed, then get in touch with us over on Twitter at @OhMyWordPod. Once again, thanks very much and see you again soon.

Oh my word! No wonder the smiles are there.