Monthly Archives: December 2011

31st December 2011- Championship, Watford 4 Doncaster Rovers 1

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More games from 31st December at https://oldwatford.com/tag/dec31

26th December 2011- Championship, Watford 1 Cardiff City 1

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4990

Adrian Mariappa’s late own goal gave Cardiff City a point as former Watford boss Malky Mackay returned to his former club.

And for most of the first half, there was an awful lot that was familiar about the visiting side.  It’s never a good idea to successively read two novels by the same author I find;  however impressive the first I begin to get irritated by an author’s habits and style when they begin to emerge in the second.  And lo… here was a visiting team paying expansive football across the full width of the pitch, rendered get-attable at the back by their refusal to sit back but leaving us chasing shadows for the most part.  And Don Cowie at the centre of everything, scurrying this way and that, on the end of crosses as well as providing them and coming close more than once, most memorably a diving header to a right-wing cross that brought a fine save from Loach. The riposte to the fist-chewingly tedious chorus of boos that greeted the Scot’s every touch seemed inevitable.  It didn’t come, but to say that we were rather fortunate to be on level terms at the break would be something of an understatement.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2011-12-26
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/26-december-2011/

10th December 2011- Championship, Watford 1 Leeds United 1

Robert Snodgrass scored an injury-time penalty as Leeds salvaged a draw against Watford in the Championship. It was cruel for the hosts as they had missed a penalty of their own with just two minutes of normal time remaining.

Wolves loanee Michael Kightly scored the opening goal after 28 minutes and the hosts should have put the result beyond doubt but Marvin Sordell saw his spot-kick saved by Alex McCarthy before Snodgrass showed him how it was done deep into stoppage time, netting his fourth goal in three games.

Let’s put the final exchanges of the game to one side for a minute.  They constitute an incontrovertibly key detail, of course, and we’ll get to them but they shouldn’t be at the front of our minds when looking back on today, not once the seething frustration has died down.  For this was a monstrous Watford performance;  not always pretty, and self-evidently not perfect, but vigorous, confident, bullish and single-minded.  Quite comfortably the best display of those witnessed by your BHaPPY correspondents this season, irrespective of the result.