Category: Glenn Roeder

14th September 1999- League Cup Second Round First Leg, Watford 2 Wigan Athletic 0

Scan 49
Scan 50
Scan 51
Scan 52
Scan 53
Scan 54
Scan 55
Scan 56
Scan 57
Scan 58
Scan 59
Scan 60
Scan 61
Scan 62
Scan 63
Scan 64
Scan 65
Scan 66
Scan 67
Scan 68
Scan 69
Scan 70
Scan 71
Scan 72
Scan 72.jpeg

BSAD imageBSAD report: For all the occasional moments of utter glory, documented elsewhere, this was what the last ten years of lower division football were usually like. Abysmal football in front of less than seven thousand fidgety fans in the sweeping rain. Dreadful League Cup and Auto Windscreen ties with the likes of Southend and Torquay in an empty stadium foolishly built for bigger things. Roger Willis, Derek Payne, Geoff bloody Pitcher. Awful.

It was an awful night, let’s get to the point. It was drizzling, it was empty, it was ten pounds to get in. (And twenty to get out, we reckoned at half time.) Could tell from the off no-one wanted to be out there on the pitch, and that feeling spread to the stands within minutes. So what if we hadn’t scored since the Premiership title race was still in the balance? We attempted passes of the sodden, slippery ball with the aplomb of those old farts who kick it back to you in the park to look good in front of their ladies and it winds up sliced into someone’s picnic miles from where you’re standing. Except that there were Wigan players in the way tonight, to make us look even stupider. Thank goodness they fell over nearly as frequently as we did, but they had better ideas while they were upright, which gave the lie to blaming it all on the rain. And they knew that if you’re splitting two legs over a week (ah, that’s where the crappy pun was going…) you have to make the away one count. So we gave them as much help as we could, and for 45 minutes we were unspeakable. I don’t remember when we last booed the boys off the pitch at half-time. But for future reference, it was tonight.

Screen Shot 2018-09-13 at 18.46.38
http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4367
18th September 1999-Premier League, Watford 1 Chelsea 0

6th January 1996- FA Cup Third Round, Watford 1 Wimbledon 1

God knows I would have settled for a draw at the start. That doesn’t signify a lack of ambition – I think we can win the replay – just a realistic assessment of our depleted squad’s chances. It’s way too easy to take Wimbledon lightly, to dismiss them like we dismiss Palace. Even with old duffers like Mick Harford, Wimbledon are a far better side than their media image suggests – you don’t stay in the Premiership for ten years by playing dumb kick-and-rush football (ask Leicester!).