Tag Archives: Chris Day

29th December 2013- Championship, Watford 0 Queens Park Rangers 0

QPR lost further ground on Championship leaders Leicester after being held to a goalless draw at Watford.

Watford were similarly shot shy, with their best moment coming eight minutes after the interval when Troy Deeney and Diego Fabbrini combined neatly but the latter’s tame shot was dropped on by Robert Green in the Rangers goal. Three minutes earlier the visitors had also gone as close as they would all afternoon, with Matt Phillips drawing a fine save from Manuel Almunia.

Watford are unbeaten in three matches under recently-appointed head coach Giuseppe Sannino and have only conceded one goal since the Italian’s arrival.

Nil-nil draws come in a variety of flavours. There are the ones where a draw suits at least one of the two sides down to the ground, often the away side, such that if it hasn’t quite been the aim at the outset it’s deemed a more than acceptable eventuality. There are those where a lack of quality is the dominant characteristic, a nil-nil by default. There are those much more open games which are nil-nil in name only, by virtue of neither side quite getting around to scoring. And there are, as my co-editor would wish me to recognise in his continuing absence, occasional total aberrations where even a goalless scoreline flatters an encounter so devoid of anything as to sap the collective will to live of those present – Scarborough (A, 1995) the example most frequently cited in textbooks.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2013-12-29

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/29-december-2013/

20th April 2010- Championship, Queens Park Rangers 1 Watford 0

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4914

Watford remain in relegation trouble at the bottom of the Championship after losing out to Akos Buzsaky’s first-half penalty at Loftus Road against QPR.

“We threw everything we had at them in the second half,” was the manager Malky MacKay’s verdict afterwards, but on this evidence that doesn’t amount to a great deal. Watford are now two points above the relegation places and without an away win in 16 matches.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2010-04-20

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/20-april-2010/

19th March 2005- Championship, Watford 0 Preston North End 2

This was the final game in Ray Lewington’s reign as Watford Manager.

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David Nugent and Paul McKenna were on target as Preston stayed on course for a place in the Championship play-offs.

Football is a game with ever-altering ambitions, where the only goals that never change are those at each end of the pitch. When the season started these sides will have shared the same aim but by the time this match ended their immediate desires will have been entirely opposite. One side are dreaming that their form will carry them out of this division while for the other precisely the same possibility forms a nightmare.

BSAD image There’s a point, at about quarter to five on an otherwise sunny and bright and cheerful Saturday afternoon, when this becomes almost physically unbearable. While the rest of the country celebrates the arrival of spring, the effort required to maintain the connection between backside and plastic is virtually impossible, and the commitment to doing so utterly inexplicable. Only sheer paralysis causes eyes to remain focused on the pitch, rather than returning to concrete and feet, or being closed in torment or buried behind palms of hands.

An important home match in front of a sell-out crowd before two tricky, long distance away games, Watford had to win this. It was made even more vital by stupidly throwing away a two-nil lead against Leicester on Tuesday night. However, the ninety minutes which we witnessed were very bleak, and gave us little confidence in the now forthcoming relegation fight. A team lacking our star performer of recent weeks in Jay Demerit saw an unconvincing defence line up of Smith, Cox, Doyley and Chambers. Lewington played an unadventurous midfield line-up of Ardley, Mahon, Gunnarsson and Jackson. Webber partnered Helguson up front.

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Taken from the programme on 6th August 2005- Championship, Watford 1 Preston North End 2

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26th February 1999- New Division One, Watford 0 Swindon Town 1

Painfully, we’re actually battling against ourselves as much as our opponents. The lack of confidence shown by certain key players – and that really is all that’s wrong with them – directly results from some disgraceful behaviour by sections of the Watford support. We’re sixth and there’s a witch hunt going on.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=1999-02-26

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/26-february-1999/

7th September 1997- New Division Two, Watford 2 Wycombe Wanderers 1

The game was played 24 hours after the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales where Elton John had performed a reworked version of ‘Candle in the Wind’. He came to the game and was given a standing ovation before kick-off.

BSAD report: There’s been a lot of talk about “putting football in perspective” during recent days, most of it well-intentioned but misguided. I doubt if any of us have so many moments of unbridled joy in our lives that we can afford to pick and choose – those occasional flash-gun instants of ecstasy that football can produce amid the monotony are not devalued by context.

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Taken from the programme on 16th September 1997- League Cup Second Round First Leg, Watford 1 Sheffield United 1

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4259

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16th September 1997- League Cup Second Round First Leg, Watford 1 Sheffield United 1