Tag Archives: Graham Simpson

25th March 2006- Championship, Watford 0 Millwall 2

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4706

The city of Sheffield rendered this result potentially disastrous for Watford and less than satisfactory for Millwall. While the Hornets lost vital promotion ground on a victorious Sheffield United, Millwall failed to make up any on Sheffield Wednesday, comfortable winners over Wolves, in their struggle for survival.

“It makes my back itch.” This is a favourite saying of my mother’s. It describes the feeling you get when something inevitable, and usually unpleasant or unfortunate, is about to happen. It is most often used when watching formulaic sit-coms featuring the likes of Frank Spencer or Mr Bean. It also applies to disaster movies such as “Titanic” or “Towering Inferno”. Quite why her back should itch, I don’t know but I know what she means. In these situations I would rather not watch. When your back itches, you can be sure that inevitable disaster will just be round the corner. The solution? Avoid watching things that have a script featuring inevitable disaster. I suppose that this disaster was inevitable from the moment I was asked to write the match report. I seem to get a lot of such games either for this website or the Free Observer. A home banker on paper, I just got that back-itching feeling (in my legs).

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2006-03-25

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/25-march-2006/

25th February 2006- Championship, Watford 2 Cardiff City 1

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

Ricardo Scimeca’s late blunder gifted Watford the win against visiting promotion rivals Cardiff City.

We started smartly and very positively, no punting to the touchline this week, just some neat simple passes which reaped almost instant rewards – though not from Eagles’ first touch forty-five yards out, despite this being greeted with cries of “Shoot!” Our first attack won a corner and led to the Hammer’s best effort of the whole match, which whistled past the far post after less than a minute’s play. But almost for the next eighty-nine, it seemed, the ball avoided the muddy pitch as much as possible, and was thus at the wind’s mercy. Despite spending most of the first half in the Cardiff penalty area, it also avoided the net, despite us forcing corner after corner, and some great crosses coming in from Eagles on the right. Cardiff’s defending was frantic early on, the ball even winding up near my old seat in the Upper Rous, which is more than it ever managed when I sat there week after week a few years ago. Where Darius would normally be alongside Marlon, up stepped Malky Mackay, and his was the eleventh minute header that first looked like breaking the deadlock. It beat Cardiff keeper Alexander, unlike many later efforts, but rebounded off the bar and Demerit couldn’t get his own header past Alexander’s impressive reach.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2006-02-25

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/25-february-2006/

28th January 2006- Championship, Watford 4 Crewe Alexandra 1

Watford claimed third place in the Championship after thumping Crewe. Matthew Spring’s first-half double set up Watford’s win, the midfielder powering in a shot on 18 minutes and then applying a close-range finish.

Watford’s season may be defined in the next 15 days. Sheffield United loom a week today, and eight days later comes a daunting trip to Elland Road. The Leeds manager Kevin Blackwell was in attendance here and Spring’s display made it easy to understand why United insisted on a clause preventing the midfielder from lining up for his new team in what will be a vital fixture.

Now we shouldn’t become blasé about this great form, we can be fairly sure that Boothroyd will not allow any of the players to get complacent and the build up to this game against Crewe was given the full “our most important game” treatment, which sometimes comes over as a manager trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. Not our Aidy.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2006-01-28

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/28-january-2006/

7th January 2006- FA Cup Third Round, Watford 0 Bolton Wanderers 3

Bolton cruised past Championship side Watford despite the absence of several key players to seal a place in the FA Cup fourth round.

The sides looked miles apart, such was the superiority of Bolton’s intelligence and movement. Watford fought back stirringly early in the second half without looking likely to disturb Bolton’s easy authority.

Bolton were missing most of their first team. Only three of the side which started against Liverpool on Monday were on show, with the increasingly relevant African Nations Cup taking several products of the Bolton youth scheme (sic!) away for a month, while suspensions and apparent injuries forced several other changes. Their substitutes did not have one first team performance between them!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%E2%80%9306_FA_Cup

26th December 2005- Championship, Watford 3 Southampton 0

George Burley’s reign as Southampton manager got off to the worst possible start with a 3-0 defeat at Watford.

It’s quite exciting. The day after Christmas. What fantastic bargains will we get in the sales? What will the new year bring? Why did I get nervous when ig requested a proper match report, instead of my usual Boxing Day ramblings?

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2005-12-26

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/26-december-2005/

3rd December 2005- Championship, Watford 1 Brighton & Hove Albion 1

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Marlon King’s 10th goal of the season helped to extend Watford’s unbeaten league run to nine games.

BSAD report: It will be interesting to see whether Adrian Boothroyd’s evident displeasure at the performance has an effect when we take on Plymouth next week; it’s rare that consecutive fixtures are so similar in nature and therefore so easy to compare. He’s right to be annoyed – to summarise, this was largely woeful, and horrible to watch too – but it’s impossible to ignore the impact of injuries on a paper-thin squad, especially those to Ashley Young and Matthew Spring. It’s all very well to say that these situations merely provide opportunities for others…but that doesn’t ring quite true when you’re bringing on Jay Demerit to play as a forward for the last twenty minutes because you don’t have anyone else.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=41405&id=4687

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