Category: Glenn Roeder

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

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BSAD image BSAD 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.

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10th February 1996-New Division One, Watford 1 Charlton Athletic 2

This programme included an 8 page supplement of ‘highlights’ from the programme which should have been for the Derby County game but was postponed.

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13th January 1996-New Division One, Watford 0 Huddersfield Town 1

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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!).

4th November 1995- New Division One, Watford 2 Southend United 2

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BSAD report: This was a critical game. At last able to field a side that bears some relation to the one we’d like to see, we needed to get back on the right track. Shame, then, that the good people of Watford couldn’t be bothered to turn up and support their team. Seven thousand seems a bit optimistic to me – there were huge gaps in the North and South stands and for periods of the match we were actually outsung by Southend. It’s difficult to see how we can persuade the players to make an effort when the town obviously doesn’t give a toss anymore.

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