Tag Archives: Apr24

24th April 2016- FA Cup Semi Final, Crystal Palace 2 Watford 1 (at Wembley Stadium)

Leave a Reply
Referee:
Craig Pawson
Attendance:
79,110

1-1

LIVE FROM WEMBLEY: Watford beaten by Crystal Palace in FA Cup semi-final

Watford suffer FA Cup semi-final agony after Crystal Palace defeat at Wembley

IN PICTURES: Watford V Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace will play Manchester United in a repeat of the 1990 FA Cup final after beating Watford 2-1 in Sunday’s semi-final at Wembley. Yannick Bolasie headed Palace into an early lead but Troy Deeney levelled the match on 55 minutes. But with the game on a knife edge, Connor Wickham popped up with the winning goal on 61 minutes to send Palace to their first FA Cup showpiece since losing out to United in a replay following a memorable 3-3 draw.

Watford had knocked out holders Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in the quarter-finals yet this was one hurdle too many for Quique Sanchez Flores’ side.

Watford scored from one of only two shots on target during the game and, after a sequence of just three wins from 17 league matches, this was a display that will do little for manager Quique Sanchez Flores’s chances of keeping his job.

Yet, for all that Adlène Guedioura smeared a stoppage-time volley just wide and Joel Ward almost inadvertently converted Allan Nyom’s dangerous centre, Flores’s team were rather disjointed throughout and handicapped further by a knee injury sustained by Étienne Capoue which could yet prove serious.

Sometimes these reports are enjoyable to write. Winning helps, of course, but it’s not a perfect correlation… there are interesting defeats too, defeats that don’t quite feel like being slapped in the face. This isn’t one of those times. This is the sort of occasion when you kinda suspect that everyone wants to forget it as much as you do.

One of the most important football matches of your entire life is about to end. You spend its last ten minutes trying to work out how best to get back to civilisation. You wish it away and it meekly obeys.

Generally I try to take positives from games, but it is hard on an afternoon like this.  I can take a defeat if we have given our all and were beaten by a better team, but I came away from Wembley thinking that, given the talent in our squad, we should have done better.  If you had told me in August that we would retain our status in the Premier League and reach the FA Cup semi-final, I would have been thrilled.  But that defeat will hurt for some time.

I’m not angry, I’m not sad. I’ve spent the last 24 hours following our defeat feeling morose, listening to Einaudi in the hope the tears will eventually come and I’ll feel alright. What I do feel however is let down. Which is not something I ever want to say. If we gave our all, if we left everything out on that pitch and still lost, then fine, we can leave with our heads held high. But we didn’t, we were slow and unadventurous.

24th April 2010- Championship, Watford 3 Reading 0

Leave a Reply
http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4915

Watford secured Championship survival with an impressive win over Reading.

Well thank heavens for that.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2010-04-24
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/24-april-2010/

24th April 2004- New Division One, Watford 1 Norwich City 2

Leave a Reply
http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4605

Newly-promoted Norwich moved another step closer to clinching the Division One title with goals from Damien Francis and Leon McKenzie. Debutant Dominic Blizzard set up a tense finale with a late header that ended Norwich’s 401-minute shut-out.

They didn’t know whether to celebrate or to worry. There were nearly 5,000 Norwich fans here, another 6,000 watching a beam-back at Carrow Road and more than 3,000 had turned up to watch a midweek reserve game and listen to the closing minutes of Crystal Palace’s victory over Sunderland that had confirmed City’s promotion to the Premiership.

So, this was someone else’s day. Appropriately, it was largely someone else’s game too…which isn’t to say that we were massively outclassed, merely that only the last ten or fifteen minutes suggested that the result wasn’t an inevitability. A bit of a disappointment, then, for it would’ve been lovely to have kept this little run going, building up some proper momentum at last. In the end, we’ll just have to be content with the knowledge that this could really have mattered, and hurt.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2004-04-24
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/24-april-2004/
24th April 2010- Championship, Watford 3 Reading 0

24th April 1999- New Division One, Watford 2 Crystal Palace 1

Leave a Reply
Scan 1
Scan 2
Scan 3
Scan 4
Scan 5
Scan 6
Scan 7
Scan 8
Scan 9
Scan 10
Scan 11
Scan 12
Scan 13
Scan 14
Screen Shot 2018-04-24 at 18.05.22
Scan 15
Scan 16
Scan 17
Scan 18
Scan 19
Scan 20
Scan 21
Scan 22
Scan 23
Scan 24
Scan 25

BSAD imageBSAD report: Five straight wins, and we’re exploring the chance of ultimate possibility for all it’s worth. Everything stems from belief – once we started believing it was possible, it became so. To the extent where the weekend’s other results mean that we just have to win three more games to reach the playoffs.

It’s a lot to ask. Thrillingly, though, we’re rising to the challenge. Whether we go out or not, this is still a blaze of glory.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4353
Screen Shot 2018-04-24 at 18.10.33
Screen Shot 2018-04-24 at 18.10.05

24th April 1997- New Division Two, Watford 0 Chesterfield 2

Leave a Reply

Everyone knows that this was a game we had to win. We still cling on to hopes, of course, but the reality of the situation is that we face two very difficult final matches at a time when our form is woeful. This wasn’t an unlucky defeat – it was a comprehensive defeat, one that involved naive tactics and several clueless performances.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4249
https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=1997-04-24
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-2/24-april-1997/