Worst feeling in football.

5 - 0 was a downer but I could live with it. The sixth goal was the one that was a complete sickener: It turned a heavy, but not unexpected, defeat into humiliation. I knew what the record cup final score was and we were equalling it. And it was highly likely it was going to be more, Watford had stopped thinking and were throwing goals away. Supporting a team for decades will always give you dreadful moments (don't forget City have had theirs) but Saturday was one of the lowest for me.
The helplessness of the supporter...….. The flag waving for me was not a happy clappy thing, it was the only way I could show my defiance: We who are about to die do not salute you.

 

Thank god they didn't get the 7th - they very nearly did !

 

What was the 7th they missed? I couldn’t see very clearly because of the flags (was in block 136, row 20) and by that time I’d stopped caring and wanted to go home.

 

John Stones late shot. Either deflected or saved just going over the bar. Thought it was in at the time.

 

I hated that attitude to the Wednesday game at the time and I hate it now. Too many people in football these days are concerned about what they can qualify for NEXT season, rather than what they can win THIS season and it’s mostly about money. That day we let a trophy slip through our fingers; promotion was already secured so there was no consolation.

 

Let's be honest, if John Stones scored against us, we should probably just liquidate the club.

 

Personally I loved that feeling of getting promoted thanks to results later that day. It enhanced the feeling of tension (especially with us winning a nervy game that was far from settled until Vydra’s 95th minute strike) and then sheer release and euphoria knowing we were up and didn’t have another nervous week of waiting for us to secure a promotion that would have been far from guaranteed. There was also the sheer feeling of satisfaction capping a brilliant end-of-season run when it mattered, knowing that we were one of the best two teams, and our promotion rivals had bottled it in winnable games. To this day I only wish I’d been there in Brighton in the pubs and beach to celebrate. I agree the final day was a real anti-climax, everyone knew we were up and had done all the celebrating a week ago, and the trophy presentation for promotion to the Premier League seemed pretty redundant.

Only Watford can take you to the highs of elation to the depths of despair in a short space of time, that’s why we love ‘em

Deeney moment - play-off final vs Palace.
Winning promotion at Brighton - losing the title vs Sheff Wed and first ever major trophy
Arsenal quarters - Palace semis
Epic comeback vs Wolves in semi and first FA Cup final in 35 years and only second in our history - brutal annihilation in final
Being 7th with four games to go with a winnable set of fixtures, Chelsea apart - not even making top half
And even to a lesser extent from this season:
Beating Spurs from behind, then losing 4-0 at home to Bournemouth a few weeks later in miserably cold and wet weather when the first autumn chill set in

 

I can trump you on that. Beating Southampton 7-1 on a Tuesday night in that epic League Cup come back, then losing 2-1 at Shrewsbury on the following Saturday!! I was at both

 

Missing the 7 - 1 match because I was away. I think it was the only home match I missed all season.

 

Didn't Gomie make a point blank save around then?

 

Agreed.

Reform as South Oxhey Jets 2020 in level 17.

 

If we'd lost to Swansea in the Final, I would have been annoyed.

 

No! You see you’ve made the same mistake I referred to earlier. The Championship trophy is not a prize for getting promoted to the Premier League NEXT season. It’s for winning the league THIS season. The anticlimax was in not taking the chance of winning the league and that trophy.

 

But I thought there was some kind of trophy or medal given for winning promotion, or did they just have a banner with the PL logo with the players coming out after they’d cleared the pitch? Can anyone with a better memory than me refresh my memory of the events post-match that day?

 

Imagine how the travelling Southampton fans felt that night!!!

 

A made up losers trophy verses the historic Football League Championship trophy. Hmm. Hardly a decent comparison.

 

Yeah - I was gutted after that game. My chance of seeing us win something. Plus of course the two games vs Crystal Palace - they were seriously anooying.

Games when we got relegated were gutting but I'd often built up the inevitability of them.

 

It wasn’t intended as a comparison. I personally think there shouldn’t have been a presentation, and at the most they should have just allowed Troy to have a few words to the fans about what a great season it’d been and we mustn’t let the disappointment of letting slip the title cloud that, or words to that effect. The ceremony at the end as HB1 said just seemed somewhat forced.

 

Yeah, he did.

His best line was when he said to us “Thanks, you lot have been great....except you” (pointing to the part of the rookery from which some morons chucked flares).

I think more time should have been spent with him and less on the presentation.

 

Lost me £500 that. Worst pitch invasion ever, and my only one so far.

 

I don't remember them presenting the runners up trophy after the Sheff Weds game. I was there til the players went off and didn't see it. I certainly remember Troy's speech (he said he was p*ssed off) and a few "going up" banners with champagne. But no trophy. The thing at Cassio Park the next day they had the trophy, but it wasn't held aloft. The Football League only introduced it because the runners up used to complain that out of the 3 promoted teams they were the only ones not to get a trophy (especially as play off winners who finished 5th or 6th would get one but the team that finished 2nd got nothing).

 

Totally. To end any season as champions of your division is an achievement, regardless of what it means for the following season. I was pretty convinced we were going up that season - the tension was around whether we could clinch the title.

 

OK, trophy or not, I just thought the process other than Troy’s speech was overly dragged out and they should have ensured that no one invaded the pitch until after it.

 

I think you must be the only person I've heard that wasn't at that game. There are people born in 1993 that were at the Southampton game. Official attendance must have been around 300000

 

Ditto in the losing money part although was involved in the pitch invasion against Grimsby and the last minute goal against the scum from Bazeley

 

That's awful!
I cannot for the life of me remember the Bazeley goal!

 

Me neither.

 

A lot of the 99/00 Season -

Losing 3-1 at home to Middlesbrough. A Mark Williams own goal after 2 minutes set the standard. Two down at half time to one of the sides you thought we just have to win to have any chance, Tommy Smith pulls a goal back with 37 minutes of hope for an equaliser left. Paul Ince administers the coup-de-grace on 83 minutes. On TV as well.
My recollection is that most games seemed to go that way that season; either that or a 4-0 defeat.

 

Only lost 4-1, 4-0 or 5-0 five times that season.

It happened four times this season, including a 6-0 world record thrashing.

 

94th minute, Vicarage Road end.
I'm on that video

 

Wearing number 5?

 

Great goal that though, one of the few highlights of that season, the young Tommy Smith and a future Watford great breaking into the team.