Category Archives: December

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.

Bangura 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.

Watford player to be deported, asylum tribunal rules

Norris strikes and Argyle add to Boothroyd’s blues

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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1st December 2007- Championship, Watford 1 Bristol City 2

Substitute Darren Byfield’s injury-time goal saw Bristol City condemn leaders Watford to a third defeat in a week.

A whole lot better than Tuesday, for starters, but all the more frustrating that the result was the same – we didn’t half look brittle defensively throughout, however tidy some of our attacking play.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=40867&id=4782

30th December 2006- Premier League, Watford 1 Wigan Athletic 1- Match abandoned after 55 minutes due to a waterlogged pitch

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26th December 2006- Premier League, Watford 1 Arsenal 2

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4737

Arsenal moved third in the Premiership thanks to a late Robin van Persie winner at a heartbroken Watford

BBC-SPORT-_-Football-_-Premiership-_-Watford-1-2-Arsenal Download

Should you have room after all those mince pies, the one word match report is: Gusto.

And amid it all, one of the most resourceful and committed team performances that Vicarage Road has seen in recent years, reducing Arsenal’s vastly over-hyped ice-skating-on-grass football to scraps and bits and hilarity. Still lost, I know, but the fight was truly something to behold. When the team needed and deserved our fullest support, a few hundred were crassly bellowing about a country whose history apparently ended in 1945 and distant deeds that they have absolutely no claim over, while the rest of us were shaking our heads in silent disbelief and wishing that the ground would open up. Never has an atmosphere been deflated so quickly without a goal being scored.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2006-12-26

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/premier-league/26-december-2006/

23rd December 2006- Premier League, Liverpool 2 Watford 0

Ben Foster made a series of saves to deny Liverpool in the first-half, though Watford had the best chance when Al Bangura volleyed over the bar.

Young opened the second half with an early shot that presented Reina with no problems but, within minutes, Liverpool had the goal they had so desperately sought and which their first-half possession suggested would be along sooner rather than later.

Unless Matt had something better in mind, the one word match report is: Unrepeatable.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2006-12-23

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/premier-league/23-december-2006/

9th December 2006- Premier League, Watford 0 Reading 0

Watford squandered the chance to move off the foot of the Premiership and above Charlton, who were thrashed by Spurs, as they were held by Reading.

Boothroyd has been encouraged to hear that Ashley Young has no intention of leaving Watford next month, despite the interest being shown in the 21-year-old midfielder by Arsenal and Aston Villa. On Saturday the makeshift striker struggled to make any impact against the resolute Ibrahima Sonko and Ivar Ingimarsson, and even his fierce 25-yard shot, Watford’s first moment of menace, was saved confidently by Marcus Hahnemann.

Today’s one-word match report is: futile.