Category Archives: Ray Lewington

5th March 2005- Championship, Watford 2 Coventry City 3

Nobody is without imagination. We all have dreams, carried with us wherever we go in hope more than expectation…but with a little expectation nevertheless. And that, perhaps, explains the thoroughly half-hearted nature of yesterday’s proceedings, for nobody can have been unaware that these were wasted hours, dribbled tediously away while others went in search of fulfilled dreams. Somewhere, someone spent the afternoon of Saturday 5th March 2005 doing something that they’ll remember forever, that they’ll take to the grave as a personal, irreplaceable treasure. And it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t you either.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2005-03-05

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/05-march-2005/

5th February 2005- Championship, Watford 2 Gillingham 0

We will rarely play worse and still win, which is merely proof that it’s impossible to guarantee that your plans will succeed and, therefore, that you might as well at least try to enjoy the process as well as the product. Gillingham made their own luck, as the saying goes, and it turned out all burnt from too long in the oven. Shame. We owe them, naturally, and I’m sure that the club is preparing a DVD of past encounters for anyone who felt even a slight twinge of embarrassment as Chris Eagles flicked the second into the bottom corner in the last minute. They’d have done it to us, so it qualifies as self-defence.

Once upon a time, there was a match that showed everything that was fabulous about Watford Football Club in 2005. The game flowed, the crowd roared, the result was a smile-inducing triumph and the entire squad and fanbase could hold their heads high with pride at what the team had achieved. The end. This, however, was not that match.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2005-02-05

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/05-february-2005/

More games from 5th February at https://oldwatford.com/tag/feb5

25th January 2005-League Cup Semi Final Second Leg, Watford 0 Liverpool 1 (Liverpool won 2-0 on aggregate)

http://watford.fcdb.info/index.php?page=matches

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Gerrard fires Liverpool into final

Independent, 26 Jan 2005

Daily Mirror, 27 Jan 2005

Evening Standard, 26 Jan 2005

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15th January 2005- Championship, Watford 3 Crewe Alexandra 1

How often have we heard that same old story? Team goes on cup run, team matches Premiership (not Premier, not a ship) side, team comes down to earth with a painful bump the following weekend. Okay, maybe not that often, but you get the point. Crewe at home, despite our visitors losing Dean Ashton to Norwich, had “potential banana skin” written all over it. Much as everybody’s attention is rightly focused on a certain game against a certain team, the need to build on the last home match (a 1-0 win over Millwall, in case you can’t remember in a post-Anfield blur) with another three points was paramount. The Carling Cup Final would be nice, but a few home league wins in a row will keep the relegation battle wolf well and truly clear of our door.

8th January 2005- FA Cup Third Round, Watford 1 Fulham 1

http://watford.fcdb.info/index.php?page=matches

Neither side wanted a draw but both teams deserved something from what was an excellent Cup tie. For Watford the replay will be sandwiched between the two legs of the Carling Cup semi-final against Liverpool while Fulham’s priorities lie in Premiership survival.

Of course, Fulham left us with the suggestion, before Russian billionaires raised the stakes, that Al Fayed’s money would buy more than a superior type of mediocrity; nevertheless, it’s hard to remember to be smart when we’re asked what we’ve been doing since we were neck-and-neck with them at the top of the Second Division back in 2000. In short, not as planned.

1st January 2005- Championship, Watford 1 Millwall 0

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