Tag Archives: May4

4th May 2013- Championship, Watford 1 Leeds United 2

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=5064

Watford missed out on automatic promotion after losing to Leeds in a game delayed by serious injury to keeper Jonathan Bond. Dominic Poleon put Leeds in front, but Almen Abdi levelled shortly after. Watford’s Troy Deeney then saw red for two bookable offences before news of a late Cardiff equaliser at Hull left the Hornets needing a goal to go up. But Ross McCormack scored Leeds’ winner with the help of a blunder by replacement keeper Jack Bonham.

Bond, who was taken to hospital in the first half after Poleon’s shove to Anya, was only on the pitch after regular keeper Manuel Almunia injured himself during the warm-up.

The blood on the pitch told its own story, as did 16 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the first half, and it was a dereliction of duty on the part of the referee, Graham Salisbury, that he did not send Poleon off. Overall Salisbury did not cover himself in glory, having earlier missed Michael Brown denying Jonathan Hogg a clear goalscoring opportunity when he tripped the Watford midfielder in the area.

“I thought at the end that we were going to make it,” admitted Zola, now compelled to lift his men ahead of the first leg of their play-off semi-final against Leicester on Thursday night. “There were 10 minutes to go and, although we had one player fewer, I believed we had the quality. I was taking a big gamble but we had to try.”

This ought to hurt. When you turn away and distract yourself with other things, it ought to be staring you straight in the face whenever you look back. It ought to make you want to punch the wall and throw things and find some really destructive gardening to do. If I take solace in anything – and I’m struggling – then it’s in the reaction of Jonathan Hogg, whose post-match lap of honour was so reluctant and desultory that it barely took him beyond the centre circle and never, not for a moment, involved looking at anything other than his own feet. Lap of honour? Bollocks to that.

4th May 2008- Championship, Blackpool 1 Watford 1

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4811

Watford secured a play-off place by the skin of their teeth while Blackpool preserved their Championship status.

If anyone’s in any doubt about whether getting promoted would be a Good Thing, the alternative would include welcoming back the Nottingham Forest “we won the European Cup you know” brigade next season…

4th May 2003- New Division One, Watford 2 Sheffield United 0

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http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4557

BSAD imageBSAD report: Really, the most enjoyable aspect of yesterday’s victory was that it summarised our successes so well. For the final action of 2003/03 had much in common with its best action, albeit that several of the personnel were less familiar. Some of it was ragged, some of it was a real struggle, much of it wasn’t especially pretty. But the attitude – determined, focused, assertive – overcame all of that in the end, enabling the team to build foundations for a deserved victory. Although we can play better, and we have played better, much of this term’s progress has been based upon performances like this.

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4th May 1991- Division Two, Oxford United 0 Watford 1

This victory ensured we avoided relegation, something which had looked unlikely from the beginning of September when we slipped into the bottom three. Other than for a brief period over Christmas we remained there until 27th April.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=3929
Sunday Telegraph, 5 May 1991
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BSAD imageSo onto Oxford and three thousand five hundred fans piled down the M40 for a date with destiny.

Wearing the white away shirts, the Horns scrapped for everything and, with James in goal, one always felt we had a reasonable chance if he didn’t drop a clanger. I remember little of the game until about the sixtieth minute. The Horns won a corner, the cross came in and Paul Wilkinson (surely one of the better strikers to play for the Horns, even if he didn’t know the offside rule) smashed the ball home.

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“It was a great day,” said Wilkinson, now 55. “It was such a relief to get that result as we didn’t have the best of seasons and we were on a slippery slope. But we’d been on a little bit of a run and had a bit of confidence that we could get a result.”