15th December 2007- Championship, Watford 0 Plymouth Argyle 1

This was the first game played after Watford’s Sierra Leonean midfielder Al Bangura had his application for leave of stay in the UK turned down.  He was initially cleared to stay in early 2007 but the Home Office appealed the decision on a legal technicality and won meaning Bangura would have to return to his homeland which he’d fled when he was just 15.

The club organised a protest against the decision at half time during the game against Plymouth.  Al himself addressed the crowd alongside the then Watford chairman Graham Simpson, and Watford MP Claire Ward.  Four days later the Home Office announced Bangura would be allowed to stay whilst he appealed against the decision and applied for a work permit.

On 14th January 2008 he was awarded the work permit and allowed to remain in the UK.

BBC imageBangura loses deportation hearing

Watford lost their place at the top of the Championship after David Norris’s 89th-minute winner earned Plymouth three vital points at Vicarage Road.

guardian Watford player to be deported, asylum tribunal rules

Norris strikes and Argyle add to Boothroyd’s blues

BHappy image Matt Rowson’s thoughts on the home office decision not to allow Al Bangura leave of stay in the UK.

5 thunks from the Plymouth game.

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