Favourite Championship Season

Morning everyone

I’m new on here and whilst waiting to hear about who will be our new ‘head coach' (no doubt someone I’ve never heard of) I though I’d post a simple question:

Which Championship season was your favourite (as a one-off season, not what it eventually led to) 98/99; 05/06; 12/13 or 14/15?

Ultimately the Zola season ended in failure but I though I’d include it as it was such a special season.

My personal favourite was the 05/06 season under Aidy, it just felt like all the players and staff clicked and it came after years of austerity. Up to that point I didn’t think I was ever going to watch Watford play in the premier league again. The Palace play-off game at Selhurst is still one of the best away games I’ve ever been too and we also beat L***n at the Kennel too!

A close second was the first Zola season as it gave us Almen Abdi.

 

Wembley 99.

That team ran through walls together.

 

98/99 I think. The final run in and unexpected promotion. Don't think we will ever beat that feeling.

 

Agree entirely.

 

Of the choices in the OP, I agree with those who have gone with 98/99 which had the added attraction of GT’s renaissance. However, I would add a nomination for 02/03 under Ray Lewington when the players and fans came together to help save the club from ruin, comfortably finish clear of relegation trouble and the team had a great Cup run to the semi-final. All with Heidar doing his stuff up top.

 

98/99 without doubt. Mooney on fire in the run in. Resulting in probably one of my best days as a Hornet.

 

I was 14 back in 99 and full of youthful exuberance and just assumed that we’d have a good season, so I wasn’t surprised when we got promoted. Although, the ending to that season was great.

The Aidy season came after just staying up the season before and I thought it would be a hard slog with a cocky young manager and no H.

 

Was going to go for a tie between 2005/06 and 2014/15 but in the end 2005/06 edges it.

2014/15 was immensely satisfying in some ways - blistering form in the second half of the season, those amazing comebacks followed by a rock solid defence at the business end, going from 7th to top of the table, comfortably beating automatic promotion rivals Middlesbrough during the Easter break and winning at Brighton and then seeing all those unexpected results go our way, achieving automatic promotion for the first time in 33 years. But it was slightly tarnished by all those managerial changes, erratic form in the early stages with a few players not giving their all, and not winning the title on the final day.

2005/06 was wonderful largely because it was so unexpected and we kept it going right towards the end with that glorious day in Cardiff and it followed several mostly bleak seasons of financial uncertainty and dreary bottom half finishes mostly only redeemed by a couple of good cup runs. And although we finished with fewer points we were a bit more consistent, with just slight dips around Xmas and early spring.

Of the seasons where we weren’t in the promotion frame, 2002/03 and 2010/11 were my favourites, both of them actually much more enjoyable than 2007/08 when we scraped 6th. The former for the reasons given above, plus a great team spirit and togetherness following the hugely disappointing Vialli season, and some outstanding performances, more than in the previous season, of which the only really good game was Charlton in the League Cup - Coventry and Wolves at home in the league, and West Brom in the FA Cup spring to mind. 2010/11 for a lot of goals at both ends, convincing wins against QPR and Cardiff, a six game winning streak to put us in 6th, though a lack of consistency and a depth in the end put paid to our play-off hopes.

 

I took my then girlfriend to the FA cup game against WBA on our first date followed by a KFC in the harlequin centre...we’re married now with two kids. I wonder if I have Helguson to thank

 

Man I wish I were old enough to remember 98/99, everything about that season sounds utterly amazing! 05/06 was the first season I went to games, went to a few but I didn't become properly regular until a bit later. A wonderfully unexpected surprise, given where we'd been the season before.

12/13 for me is my favourite, although we didn't go up, I'd become a regular, it was the last season I was at home for before going off to uni, and it just came so out of the blue after years of being bang average on the pitch and struggling with Bassini off it (turns out I had seen some of the Udinese loanees on the telly in Europe
but I didn't recognise them then!). That team really got under my skin more than any other, not just because of their obvious quality, but because of their style of play too, we really played some outrageous stuff in the early Pozzo years, Abdi is my all-time favourite.

Not that I didn't enjoy 14/15, it was crazy fun, but I followed it largely from afar as I was in China that year, went to a few games during the times I was back home, caught ****** streams of us from time to time, but it was mostly a BBC Sport update job. That's one thing that's better about the Premier League!

 

The day we went up was the same day as the first time my missus came to my place, started off quite normally, but bless her, she must have thought I was mad towards the end of the Norwich and Boro games! Missed the final day of the season as I was taking her back to the airport, all in all that was a very flat day!

 

I loved the Aidy season I must admit. There was no luck about it and you could feel that we were going to do something special.

Marlon would get into position along the 18 yard line and you just knew what was coming. Young was absolutely brilliant, pulled some astonishing goals out the bag. Scummer Spring turned into a hero.

Just a really good team of misfits that... worked.

 

Very difficult to pick one season but as much as I loved the 14/15 season, we ultimately ****ed up winning the league which rules it out. Very little to choose between the other two play off years but the 98/99 one just edges it for me mostly because i think it meant so much to Graham Taylor as well as the fans. Hopefully we can add 20/21 to this list come end of May

 

I think the Zola season. After years of journeymen, managers leaving us at the first chance they got, Bassini etc. It was so refreshing to be involved in a promotion push. From the come back at Palace, to the Deeney goal and the attacking football we played, it was so much fun.

 

I imagine the 2012/13 season would be the most popular choice if we’d won promotion, especially if it was through the play-offs after the Deeney goal...

 

81/82 over all those listed in the OP. GT's third promotion, Blissett & Jenkins on fire throughout. In second place was the Zola season even though we messed up at Wembley to lose out on promotion.

 

Conversely, I wonder what people would pick for their least favourite Championship season? For me, it’s 2003/04, although 2001/02, 2004/05 (despite the League Cup run) and 2009/10 run it pretty close.

 

2020/21.

 

Liked for 'harlequin centre' - which is what it really is, of course.

 

Yes - you're probably right.

 

that’s a difficult one because even the terrible seasons like when Aidy was sacked had a decent ending with some nice wins under Rogers.

That said the Vialli season was a car crash as I think we all thought we’d be ‘up there’, how wrong we were.

 

Without even having to think, 2007/08 without question, despite reaching the play-offs. Horrible regime running the club, dinosaur tactics from a manager out of ideas, grotesque football topped off by a richly deserved thrashing by Hull. Tommy Smith must have been in despair playing in that team.

 

Maninblack is right, of course. I doubt if we will ever beat the quality, excitement, the scores and ultimate league positions in a succession of seasons of the late 70s and early 80s under GT.
But this was not in the given options.
The beating of Bolton at the old Wembley with a team that came out of nowhere. Taylor was one of the greatest managers ever, not just at Watford (yes): Churning out silk purses time and again.
I have a special liking for Boothroyd's promotion team: I saw them in about three early season matches and went out and put a ton on them to win promotion at 14 - 1. Why? Because all the pundits had tipped them for relegation, but I saw something I'd seen before - If you are too young to have seen the early Taylor years this was the closest we've since got to it; just blowing away teams with attacking football. It helped, of course, to have King, Henderson and Young and Foster.
I loved Zola's narrowly failed season - just one match too many and they couldn't raise themselves for it. The football was so exciting and matched the man - just go-for-it attacking. Maybe not so hot in defence. A gentleman coach, too.

 

Interesting. I’d have thought that even if you preferred the seasons I mentioned to 2007/08 you’d still pick 1995/96 or one of the early 90s seasons below it.

 

Despite 95/96 being awful and ending in relegation, it does have GT's return and some incredible high scoring games during the run in that stop it being the worst.

 

I think in the early 90s fans understood that we were trying to recover from the disaster that was Dave Bassett which would be a long slow process. If I had to pick one from that era it would have to be 1990/91, or at least the first 80% of it. The appointment of Colin Lee as a cheap option manager was so obviously flawed and the start to that season was so depressing, with 7 (SEVEN) consecutive home defeats and no win at home until December after Perryman had arrived. However the season was miraculously redeemed with the most astonishing sequence of results, given how bad we were, to escape the drop.

 

Wembley in the 98/99 season was an unbelievable day. I still remember every exhausting, exhilarating moment of it.

Over the course of the season, though, I don't think the football measured up to Zola's first season. We were playing some quite incredible stuff for most of that season, and scored a shed load of goals, many of them absolute pearlers. Top class entertainment (even if we did narrowly fall short in the end) and the Leicester semi-final is probably my second favourite ever game after Wembley 98/99 (I missed Cardiff, couldn't even watch it).

 

It's really difficult to tell.
The best I've ever felt after a match is a toss up between 98/99 playoff final and that game v Leicester in 12/13.

05/06 felt a bit like a miracle, particularly as we'd done it in 98/99.

The best football was Probably 14/15.

The most likeable team- can't decide, 98/99 probably edges it.

There was something fun about being disliked by the media and rival fans in 12/13.

Best team, by far, was 14/15.

Hope that clears it up.

 

12/13 is easily my favourite season as a Watford fan. I only started watching us in 2009, so missed the other promotion seasons.

In 12/13 we'd gone from worrying about going bust, and being relegation favourites every season that i'd followed Watford. We had very poor players playing very workmanlike football and then all of a sudden we get taken over, get an influx of players we've never heard of and a new manager, whilst boiling the piss of every pundit/opposing fan.

We played brilliant football and some of the memories from that season were so good:

- Palace away on the opening day, it was so hot and Vydra and Abdi scored two last minute goals to give us the win.
- Huddersfield at home, fans clearing the snow off the pitch and then throwing snowballs at their keeper who got so angry and smashed a ball into the Rookery before Fessi scored one of the best team goals i've seen us score.
- The Deeney goal.

 

How about the one when we went about 15 matches without scoring? The Championship is sh1te and apart from getting out of it (up or down, I don't care) there is nothing good to be said about it. Lots of washed up 'big clubs' desperately trying to get back to the promised land and bankrupting themselves in the process and a smattering of lower league scuffers punching above their weight. Journeyman players falling over their own feet and Mick McCarthy doing the TV punditry if you can find a channel showing any games. Thank god for Covid - at least I won't be able to waste time and money watching this cr ap

 

For seasons that actually had an enjoyable ending, 05/06 and 14/15 are streets ahead IMO. I was one year old in 99 so 2006 was my first experience of promotion.

12/13: gave us some of the best football I've ever seen. THAT Leicester goal has gone down in Championship history, but this season was overshadowed by how dreadfully it ended. One of the worst Championship play-off finals ever, from both sides, where our players, barring Almunia and Doyley, did not turn up. Was probably a blessing in disguise: had we gone up, I'm certain we'd have come straight back down. We weren't ready.

05/06: given the fact that the season before we'd only just stayed up, this season was immense. There was certainly no fluke about it: everything clicked. I went to those Tales From the Vic things at the Palace Theatre two years ago if I remember rightly, and one had Gavin Mahon (I think), and he was saying that when Aidy was appointed, one of the first things he did was get all the players lined up on the coach, and said: "this is the promotion bus, we're all on it and will be on it at the end of the season, who's with me?". Mahon said the players all looked so bewildered, but it worked. They really believed in themselves that they could do it, and they did. We played some amazing football- swatting teams away left right and centre. King /Young/ Henderson was an amazing front three. Cardiff was the culmination of all culminations- superb season

14/15: for me, this is the complete Watford season. A good start on the pitch, a rocky one off it. We didn't really have much consistency until Joka came in, and even then we lost four on the spin. Fulham away we really turned it on, and it was then that it became evident that we'd go up. Deeney/Ighalo/Vydra/Forestieri/Abdi was a frightening combination of five brilliant footballers in their own separate ways. With Tozser, Angella, Munari, Connolly, Gomes and many others all contributing, it was an amazing season and was topped off by that perfect day down the South Coast. Shame about the final day but I wasn't really that bothered.

For me, it's 14/15.

 

If you are old enough, there is no contest - 1971/72

 

I think I speak for everyone here.... **** off and go support Arsenal.

 

Someone on here described that season as basically 42 Yeovils.