Whilst delving through my old programmes (and cuttings) tonight, partly to forget about the BMuff result today out i came across this and recalled it was kept because it had my dad and an 11 year old me-well half of my face-in the queue. Playing Man U in the cup-fantastic -now we play them and its no big deal. Appreciate this is in the "old geezers" thread and a bit self indulgent but because any hint of -look how far we have come- or we should be grateful to be in the top half of the first division-would be roundly booed in the match day thread however when i look back i can take losing a match like today because for a lot of my supporting years that happened a lot more than the highs.
Hughie Green diagonally behind Don Revie, third from the left Johnny Williams both Against the wall! Right hand side behind the girl ? with the long hair Bobby Downes! Malky Mackay front row behind the chap with the glasses (collar up) two in front of the long haired girl!
Delayed response, but, I think this is the picture used by the Echo to illustrate the story, or at least very similar. My memory of it is almost exactly this, only for some reason I thought he was leaning on a piano.
Tom Jones back row left, where dark part of wall turns light. Also Wayne Hennessy to the left of Don Revie.
There’s been some chat on another thread about the famous cup quarter final at Birmingham in 1984, but who remembers the bomb scare game less than two years later? The story was that all the First Division games that day received a bomb threat from the IRA but only at ours away to Birmingham was it taken seriously enough to evacuate the stadium during the match for it to be searched. Birmingham were in relegation trouble as ever and only 7,000 (!) were there. However it took some time and we all stood outside the away end for perhaps 40 minutes or so before filing back in for the match to resume once the all clear had been declared. The atmosphere was even weirder afterwards in what was quite a big stadium back then, but we went on to win 2-1 and I remember Luther scored one of our goals. It was certainly one of the stranger Watford games I’ve ever been to.
Not been through all the pages to check, but found this picture of Vicarage Road before the Rookery was built.
I’ve never seen that (high quality) picture before. Would anyone have any idea roughly what year it would have been taken in?
It’s a colourised photograph originally taken in 1958. Created for the Watford Treasury magazine: https://twitter.com/treasurywatford/status/1244224922035130368?s=20
Just found there’s a Big Match revisited on sky search featuring an old away game at Upton Park. A 1-1 draw in GTs first season back up in the second tier c1980. Team Features Steele, Henderson, Harrison, Bolton, Sims, Booth, Train, Patching, Rostron, Blissett, & Ward and Poskett as sub. I found it by searching “Watford”. Great goal by Rostron. Not seen a video of that season for ages.
Article about Tony Collins, first black football manager who took Rochdale to the league cup final as a 4th division club and played for Watford alongside one of the first black players in England, Roy Brown, at Watford https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59031148
