11th July 2015- Friendly, AFC Wimbledon 2 Watford 2

Quique Sanchez Flores, for whom a briefer moniker must surely be arrived at pretty damn quickly, looks relaxed and thoroughly Mediterranean in a pale blue shirt. Actually he looks like a tanned Hugh Laurie, an image that I can’t shake and so will inflict upon you also. His approach to pre-season friendlies, of which there are an unprecedented-feeling-but-no-I-haven’t-checked eight, this the second, is interesting and doesn’t follow the template that we’re used to. For one thing, we’ve got competitive opposition four weeks before the start of the campaign; for another, whilst plenty of players get a run-out this afternoon there’s no mass turnaround at half time as anticipated.

It was a gorgeous day for a football match, even better that the Football Manager Cup between Wimbledon and Watford had been scheduled to coincide with the beer festival. It seemed appropriate to start the afternoon with a pint of Plough Lane Ale and rather lovely it was too. To add to the pre-match treats, there was a German würstl stand and, later, an oompah band appeared which started their repertoire with “Staying Alive.”

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Taken from the programme on 31st July 2015- Friendly, Watford 0 Sevilla 1

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