Monthly Archives: November 1996

30th November 1996- New Division Two, Watford 2 Blackpool 2

I’ll admit, I really enjoyed the game. We should have won. We would have won if Page had been in the defence, and Palmer was allowed to play his normal role in the midfield instead of the inept Johnson. We started lively, passed the ball about well. Stuart Slater, making his debut, particularly impressed early on. He faded a little bit in the second half, but that is to be expected as he’s not match fit yet.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=40850&id=4219

Obviously The Sunday Mirror weren’t that familiar with Gifton.

Sunday Mirror, 1 Dec 1996

19th November 1996-New Division Two, Watford 1 Wycombe Wanderers 0

BSAD report: You can look at it one of two ways – “despite playing poorly, we’re still picking up points” or “sooner or later, our luck’s going to run out”. I’ll leave you to make your own minds up…

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http://watford.fcdb.info?s=37950&id=4218

17th November 1996- FA Cup First Round, Northampton Town 0 Watford 1

http://watford.fcdb.info/index.php?page=matches

Daily Telegraph, 18 Nov 1996

Evening Standard, 18 Nov 1996

BSAD: In essence, we got away with it. It would be easy to say that this was a below par performance – it wasn’t, it was about what we’ve come to expect. Confidence has an obvious part to play – as soon as we scored (in fact, as soon as Wayne Andrews, livewire that he is, came on) we looked a vastly superior side and put all our earlier discomfort behind us. What remains worrying, however, is the lack of quality in our service to the forwards – we have yet to learn how to rise above the hustle and bustle of a lower division game, something which won’t be helped by a short-term injury to Robert Page since Steve Palmer will presumably have to move back into defence to be replaced by the less-than-visionary Richard Johnson. And we really must sort out some decent free kick and corner routines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397_FA_Cup

2nd November 1996- New Division Two, Watford 2 Brentford 0

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43b6wPDar84&t=18m14s
BSAD report: All in all, Saturday went well. The day started badly – I missed my bus to Watford, and so the first ten minutes of the match – but after that things looked up. A lot. By the time I arrived, as I say, things were already underway, and this meant that I didnšt know who was actually playing; this proved rather amusing when I praised a Devon White layoff aloud only to be told by the person next to me that it was actually a Gifton Noel-Williams layoff. He was very nice about it.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=35179&id=4215

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