Tag Archives: Malcolm Allen

16th April 2013- Championship, Millwall 1 Watford 0

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=5061

Shaun Batt’s late effort earned a win for Millwall as Watford missed a chance to narrow the gap to second place. Batt tapped in from a Martyn Woolford header to leave Watford six points behind promotion rivals Hull – beaten at Wolves – with three games to go.

This was the calm after the storm. Following Saturday’s shameful scenes at Wembley, Millwall enjoyed a subdued and peaceful night back on home soil. The vicious fighting among their fans that marred the FA Cup semi-final against Wigan was mercifully not repeated, with the club’s supporters on their best behaviour.

We spent the evening pressing our noses against the toy shop window and staring at the lights inside until our eyes started to water. We had Millwall on the ropes and wilting under pressure, in front of a sparse home crowd comprised of the few thousand people who hadn’t spent all of their money on semi-final tickets and beer. Then news came through that Wolves had taken the lead over Hull…and it was suddenly all laid out before us, opening up in a great surge of hope and optimism and excitement.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2013-04-16
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/16-april-2013/

2nd February 2010- Championship, Watford 3 Sheffield United 0

http://watford.fcdb.info/index.php?page=matches
Daily Telegraph, 3 Feb 2010

Poor defending contributed to the Blades’ defeat as Tom Cleverley took advantage of sloppy play to open the scoring before half-time. Heidar Helguson capitalised on more slack defending from the visitors to score the second before Don Cowie completed the scoring from a free-kick.

How very badly did we need to play against a side as accommodating as the Blades. For twenty minutes we looked quite tentative, and then… it wasn’t merely a matter of noting that our opponents weren’t as good as their position suggested. More that a United side comprised of a pick-and-mix of second tier journeymen (many of them ours…) scrawled this in large, difficult to miss paint-spray all over their penalty area every time a ball went anywhere near it. Nonetheless, it took an unchallenged flap from Mark Bunn and a couple of unexploited free headers before we realised that this was there for the taking, and took it increasingly confidently.

5th February 2005- Championship, Watford 2 Gillingham 0

We will rarely play worse and still win, which is merely proof that it’s impossible to guarantee that your plans will succeed and, therefore, that you might as well at least try to enjoy the process as well as the product. Gillingham made their own luck, as the saying goes, and it turned out all burnt from too long in the oven. Shame. We owe them, naturally, and I’m sure that the club is preparing a DVD of past encounters for anyone who felt even a slight twinge of embarrassment as Chris Eagles flicked the second into the bottom corner in the last minute. They’d have done it to us, so it qualifies as self-defence.

Once upon a time, there was a match that showed everything that was fabulous about Watford Football Club in 2005. The game flowed, the crowd roared, the result was a smile-inducing triumph and the entire squad and fanbase could hold their heads high with pride at what the team had achieved. The end. This, however, was not that match.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2005-02-05
https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/05-february-2005/

More games from 5th February at https://oldwatford.com/tag/feb5