Monthly Archives: March 2015

21st March 2015- Championship, Watford 0 Ipswich Town 1

Referee: Andy D’Urso
Attendance: 19,038

Substitute Richard Chaplow scored in injury time to earn Ipswich three points against high-flying Watford.

It was a tight contest throughout with clear-cut chances at a premium, but the Hornets appeared to have come the closest to winning it when Odion Ighalo stabbed a Troy Deeney cross narrowly over the bar.

If there was a turning point – of the match, hopefully not of the season – it was the five minute break in play for a horrible injury to Joel Ekstrand. His replacement, Gabriele Angella, was almost immediately booked for an, um, assertive aerial challenge on Murphy…and suddenly it all got very tetchy and irritable, a series of inconsequential decisions going against us to disproportionate outrage in the stands. We lost our concentration amid the hullabaloo, we lost the initiative and the momentum. We didn’t get any of them back.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2015-03-21

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/20-march-2015/

14th March 2015- Championship, Watford 4 Reading 1

Referee: Darren Bond
Attendance: 16,660

Watford moved into the second automatic promotion place in the Championship with a comfortable win over Reading.

Goals from Almen Abdi, Matej Vydra, Troy Deeney and Fernando Forestieri ensured the Hornets remained level on points with Middlesbrough and Bournemouth at the top of the table, but Slavisa Jokanovic’s men moved into the automatic promotion places having scored more than Boro.

Watford would have been looking to make a strong start against a weakened Reading – Steve Clarke having made nine changes with Monday’s FA Cup quarter-final replay against Bradford very much in mind – and they took the lead with 53 seconds on the clock.

7th March 2015- Championship, Wolverhampton Wanderers 2 Watford 2

Watford captain Troy Deeney saved his side as he rescued a point against promotion rivals Wolves in a pulsating 2-2 Sky Bet Championship draw at Molineux.

Tommie Hoban was shown a second yellow for Watford before Wolves’ Bakary Sako was given a straight red after raising his hand to Fernando Forestieri.

After the game a Watford fan, Nic Cruwys, was the victim of an unprovoked attack by six teenagers. He was left in a critical condition, spent three weeks in a medically induced coma and had life changing injuries as a result of the assault.

Watford FC dedicated all subsequent games that season to Nic, using the phrase ‘For Nic, For Promotion’.

‘Every win for the rest of this season is dedicated to Nic Cruwys’

In autumn 2016 the teenagers were found guilty of various offences relating to the attack and four of them were jailed.

Watford’s official website gave an update about Nic in 2018.

In Good Nic: Hornets’ Fan Cruwys “Doing Okay” But Will Miss Molineux

3rd March 2015- Championship, Watford 1 Fulham 0

WFC.Net goal commentary: 1

BBC: Watford moved to within a point of the Championship leaders after a narrow victory over Fulham at Vicarage Road.

Guardian: A Troy Deeney goal after nine minutes proved to be enough to move level on points with second-placed Derby County, but only after Kit Symons’ side pushed them all the way.

Sky: Watford headed into the match as the top scoring team in England’s four senior divisions with 69 goals and it took just nine minutes for number 70 to arrive.

BHappy: One of the more remarkable aspects of our recent form has been the degree to which our performances and results have held up despite a degree of squad rotation and tactical flexibility that popular wisdom agrees is unconducive to success. You don’t tinker, you don’t change a winning team, a “settled side” is the gold standard. And yet here we are with 11 wins in 15 (now 12 in 16) in the League making not just selection changes every week but formation, tactical changes too, often during games themselves. Some formations and changes are effective, a few aren’t, but the process of changing, of rotating, hasn’t in itself appeared to be overly disruptive – at least not since Slav disposed of the services of the five miscreants, a few of whom might not have been as tolerant of the general approach. This isn’t supposed to work, it’s certainly been credited with upsetting more illustrious teams than ourselves.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31597525