Tag Archives: Marcus Gayle

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.

3rd January 2004- FA Cup Third Round, Watford 2 Chelsea 2

Watford produced an outstanding display to secure a lucrative FA Cup third round replay at Chelsea.

Rich pickings for Watford

Desailly left chasing shadows as Hornets provide the sting

Sunday Telegraph, 4 Jan 2004

Independent, 5 Jan 2004

Evening Standard, 5 Jan 2004

This was astonishing. I mean, it was many things, and you can find a convenient list under “magnificent” in your thesaurus. But it was astonishing, first and foremost. There will be some comments about how the performance throws the rest of our under-achieving season into sharp relief, but they’ll miss the point. The point being that we could not possibly have expected eleven players to over-achieve in such an extraordinary manner. Not to that extent. Not for that long. Way beyond “spirited”, this was a brief and tenuous, but very real, bridging of that impossible gulf. It happened. Even more remarkably, it happened for ninety minutes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003%E2%80%9304_FA_Cup

20th December 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Stoke City 3

Ade Akinbiyi scored twice to help Stoke complete a superb comeback at Watford. Heidar Helguson had put the Hornets ahead as early as the fourth minute, but on-loan defender Gerry Taggart levelled just 11 minutes later with a firm header.

Good taste precludes me from attempting to compare it with the worst of this and other managers’ reigns, but we can’t have seen much worse for a while, especially given the importance of the fixture and, no offence, the quality of the opponents. As we’ve discovered in recent weeks, victories can turn into draws and draws can turn into defeats by the merest playful twist of fate. Results are fragile things, easily changed by accident as well as design. None of that applies here, though. Stoke didn’t need a late goal. We were beaten, and by a margin that ought to embarrass us into a considerable and immediate improvement.

With five minutes to go, we decided we’d seen enough. “When did you last leave the game before the final whistle?” I asked a twenty-year season ticket holder as we walked back to the car. “Can’t remember – a long time ago,” came the sullen reply.

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2003-12-20

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/20-december-2003/

6th December 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Nottingham Forest 1

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BSAD report:As is regularly mentioned on these very pages, the First Division of the Nationwide Football League is a very strange place. There are games that delight you, the recent trip to Norwich being one. There are games of free-flowing football with goal scoring chances aplenty and excitement beyond compare. There are also wars of attrition, games high on honest toil and endeavour, but low on skill, thrills and entertainment. Frankly, they are best described as dull. The fact that this is a third (or fourth, I lost count) attempt at writing this report flings this game into the final, instantly forgettable category.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=42270&id=4581

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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?

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=39623&id=4579

https://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2003-11-22

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-division-1/22-november-2003/

1st November 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Rotherham United 0

Danny Webber claimed his fourth goal of the campaign as his solitary strike earned Watford the victory over Rotherham, despite the heroics of the visitors’ stand-in goalkeeper Gary Montgomery.

You’d rather hope that our ambitions might stretch a little further than that, of course. Being a bit better than Bradford isn’t exactly a towering achievement, after all. But it’ll do for now, I guess. For all that the season started with fairly high expectations, not being in the bottom three seems like a useful point from which to begin again. It could be worse. And it might get better.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=35051&id=4575

18th October 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Bradford City 0

Scott Fitzgerald’s fourth goal of the season gave Watford a deserved victory against their fellow Division One strugglers. The Hornets dominated but had to wait until the 61st minute for the breakthrough when Fitzgerald converted Micah Hyde’s cross.

It would be very easy indeed to get carried away by this most comprehensive of victories. We shouldn’t, for it is impossible to escape the fact that Bradford were utter drivel, barely bothering to turn up for a match that quickly became almost farcical. Before kickoff, you looked over to the Vic Road end to pick out a few meagre handfuls of away supporters, clustered like flea-bitten regulars around the bar of a particularly dingy, long-forgotten backstreet pub. After kickoff, you realised that travelling hundreds of miles to watch such a sorry bunch might not come top of your things-to-do list either. They were simply dreadful.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=32177&id=4571

14th October 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Walsall 1

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Watford had a Chris Baird own-goal to thank for a share of the spoils against Walsall at Vicarage Road.

BSAD report: As match reports go, this one seems about as pointless as the game itself. That is, it would’ve suited everyone if Ray Lewington had been able to make a phonecall to Colin Lee, negotiate a one-all draw, and save the trouble of a Tuesday night spent watching nonsense and listening to nonsense. And save me the trouble of a Wednesday morning spent writing (about) nonsense. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t entertaining…and, yes, we’ll take a point in the absence of anything better. Next, please….

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=31642&id=4570

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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.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4568

27th September 2003- New Division One, Watford 1 Ipswich Town 2

Ipswich came back from a goal down to secure their first away win of the season at the expense of struggling Watford.

Here we are, then. Up to our necks in a swamp and sinking rapidly. You don’t need me to tell you want this result means, a ghastly defeat in a must-win fixture. And you don’t need me to tell you how it felt either, how the last thirty minutes were like watching your home being destroyed by a wrecking ball. And you certainly don’t need me to attempt to lift spirits with some kind of faux-chirpy, it’s-only-a-game, chin-up-son philosophy. No, you don’t need that.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4567