Category Archives: Ray Lewington

7th February 2004- New Division One, Watford 2 Sunderland 2

Darren Byfield’s goal on his debut just four minutes from time saw Sunderland claw their way back from a two-goal deficit to steal a share of the spoils.

Really, much of this was very good indeed. Not in a tidy, graceful, stylish way, for we can hardly expect to see much that’s glorious and elegant at the moment. Nor in an organised, solid, nerveless way either, for we courted disaster on a few occasions, even before the late Sunderland fightback. But in a battling, struggling, fighting way, it was pretty much beyond criticism. As we know only too well, there are barely three or four players in the entire squad who can reasonably be considered to be in good form at the moment, yet there were many more here who were giving it absolutely everything in an attempt to get through the sticky patch. That’s more than half the battle, right there. And it’s a battle that we seem ready to fight, at long last.

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17th January 2004- New Division One, Watford 1 Crystal Palace 5

The Hornets were looking for some cheer following their FA Cup exit at the hands of Chelsea in midweek but Palace were in no mood to oblige.

Where to start, really. This was an absolute horror, make no mistake. The repercussions could be catastrophic. That there are positives to be drawn from the performance, that we have played worse, significantly worse, this season perhaps makes it all the more horrific.

As I put it to my dad on the way back from the ground: a team of Keith Dublins could not have done any worse.

14th January 2004- FA Cup Third Round Replay, Chelsea 4 Watford 0

Chelsea brushed aside Watford to book a fourth round tie with Scarborough.

The Watford manager Ray Lewington wished Scarborough good luck in a tone of comic pity, yet his own side took credit for the vim shown despite the unavailability of their injured forward Heidar Helguson. The Icelander was rumbustious in the 2-2 draw at Vicarage Road that had slotted into a sequence of troubled games for Chelsea.

This should be no surprise. After all, it’s what everyone expected to happen, what was tacitly being written into the history books before the game kicked off. The surprise was the draw in the first game, a game we might even have won… and the enormity of that achievement was only underlined by the degree to which we were ultimately outclassed in this replay.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2004-01-14

3rd January 2004- FA Cup Third Round, Watford 2 Chelsea 2

Watford produced an outstanding display to secure a lucrative FA Cup third round replay at Chelsea.

Rich pickings for Watford

Desailly left chasing shadows as Hornets provide the sting

Sunday Telegraph, 4 Jan 2004

Independent, 5 Jan 2004

Evening Standard, 5 Jan 2004

This was astonishing. I mean, it was many things, and you can find a convenient list under “magnificent” in your thesaurus. But it was astonishing, first and foremost. There will be some comments about how the performance throws the rest of our under-achieving season into sharp relief, but they’ll miss the point. The point being that we could not possibly have expected eleven players to over-achieve in such an extraordinary manner. Not to that extent. Not for that long. Way beyond “spirited”, this was a brief and tenuous, but very real, bridging of that impossible gulf. It happened. Even more remarkably, it happened for ninety minutes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003%E2%80%9304_FA_Cup

28th December 2003- New Division One, Watford 2 Cardiff City 1

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

Evening Standard, 29 Dec 2003

BSAD: A last-ditch winner wasn’t quite enough, evidently. A last-ditch winner via the woodwork, the keeper, and the linesman’s flag is so much more satisfying, even if it does mean that the celebrations are tempered by repeated nervous checks that it has been allowed to stand, that we haven’t found a way to further complicate matters. “Drama” is generally held to be a good thing in football circles. There are bloody limits, though.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2003-12-28

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/28-december-2003/

20th December 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Stoke City 3

Ade Akinbiyi scored twice to help Stoke complete a superb comeback at Watford. Heidar Helguson had put the Hornets ahead as early as the fourth minute, but on-loan defender Gerry Taggart levelled just 11 minutes later with a firm header.

Good taste precludes me from attempting to compare it with the worst of this and other managers’ reigns, but we can’t have seen much worse for a while, especially given the importance of the fixture and, no offence, the quality of the opponents. As we’ve discovered in recent weeks, victories can turn into draws and draws can turn into defeats by the merest playful twist of fate. Results are fragile things, easily changed by accident as well as design. None of that applies here, though. Stoke didn’t need a late goal. We were beaten, and by a margin that ought to embarrass us into a considerable and immediate improvement.

With five minutes to go, we decided we’d seen enough. “When did you last leave the game before the final whistle?” I asked a twenty-year season ticket holder as we walked back to the car. “Can’t remember – a long time ago,” came the sullen reply.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2003-12-20

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/20-december-2003/