Tag: Ed Coan

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.

22nd November 2003- New Division One, Watford 0 West Ham United 0

So, West Ham are in the First Division again. Judging by the sell-out crowd, this is the cause of some excitement, a bit of a novelty. A nail bar in an old-fashioned part of town, rapidly becoming part of the scenery. Nottingham Forest. Derby County. Sheffield Wednesday. Sunderland. Queens Park Rangers. Norwich City. And so on. It happens very quickly indeed, and you suspect that this fixture will probably be taking place in front of, say, seventeen thousand people next season. Fourteen thousand in two years. Still, ‘Ammers fans, it’s not all doom and gloom…the weather might’ve perked up by then, eh?

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2003-11-22
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/22-november-2003/

30th September 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Burnley 1

Football. Marvellous, isn’t it? Transporting you from the ordinary day-to-day to some higher plane. Hard to imagine that Watford fans would be experiencing such feelings and such an absorbing ninety minutes given the season to date. Hard to imagine a standing ovation for a team that comes off the pitch with only a draw, firmly rooted next-to-bottom (or bottom if you only count real clubs), down to ten men, four players booked, and with their opponents spurning a penalty and having a shot come back off the post, defying Newtonian mechanics (or is it Euclidean geometry?). But that’s what they had, a standing ovation – and thoroughly deserved.

19th January 2003- New Division One, Watford 2 Norwich City 1

There was something almost Betjeman-esque about the first 45 minutes here yesterday, so effectively did 22 well-paid professionals evoke the spirit of the thousands of park games that kicked off around the country an hour or so earlier.

This was a wearisome game. A dreary, generally uneventful, rarely attractive football match between two largely uninspired sides. And played at a ludicrous time, just for effect. The equivalent of being dragged from your bed at five o’clock in the morning and forced to watch back-to-back episodes of “Heartbeat”, while being kept awake by periodic prodding with a blunt stick. Probably the most forgettable game since…erm, I can’t remember. But with a reward for anyone who managed to stick with it until the end.

The match itself couldn’t have made much of an impression on the TV viewers, though the three points have brought Watford back in touch with the teams chasing for a play-off place. Whilst a top half finish would have been beyond most Watford fans’ expectations at the start of the season, it is great to see that there is some hope of some end of season games. Keep up the good work Ray, Terry and the lads.

More games from 19th January at https://oldwatford.com/tag/jan19