Tag Archives: May8

8th May 2023- Championship, Watford 2 Stoke City 0

Attendance: 20,100

BBC Sport: A quickfire second-half double from Imran Louza and Keinan Davis saw Watford earn a final day win over Stoke. The Hornets went in front with 20 minutes to go through Louza’s quality curled finish after Potters goalkeeper Matija Sarkic had denied Ismaila Sarr. Ken Sema was the architect of the second, with his run and pass finding Davis whose deflected shot spun out of Sarkic’s reach.

Sky Sports: The question remains as to whether Hornets boss Wilder will still be in charge at Vicarage Road next season but, if this was his last game, then at least he signed off with a win.

Official site: End Of Season Awards: 2022/23 Winners Revealed

BHappy: The match is preceded by a low-key awards ceremony.  Difficult to get the tone right of course, but hard not  to feel that apologetically slipping the voting form out less than a week before the game (and inconsistently so, I wasn’t the only one not to receive one) contributes to the gloomy narrative.  In an unsurprising turn of events the team’s stand-out player, Brighton-bound João Pedro, walks away with the Player of the Season award.  He’s only two months older than Young Player of the Season James Morris, but the rules governing such things have always been pretty fluid and nobody seems to object.  JP’s acceptance speech is polite and perfunctory, with the rather detached efficiency of a Christmas card from an accountant (I don’t have an accountant, or know many accountants to receive cards from but I’m guessing). 

Fran’s Watford Blog: The previous day, Watford Women had a convincing win at Billericay and Ipswich did them a favour by beating Oxford, so the Women ended the season as champions of the National League Southern Premier Division.  Sadly, there is still one more game in their season as they have a promotion play-off against Nottingham Forest who won the Northern Division.  The game will be played in Milton Keynes on 20th May and will be a great chance for revenge after the narrow Cup defeat.  The Women’s championship was celebrated on the pitch before the game and Megan Chandler was given the women’s player of the season award.

8th May 2021- Championship, Watford 2 Swansea City 0

BBC Sport: Andre Gray instinctively turned in Ken Sema’s cross to put Watford ahead before Isaac Success added a second late on with a fabulous strike.

Sky Sports: Troy Deeney entered proceedings for goalscorer Gray with 18 minutes left in what could be both players’ last appearances for Watford, with their respective futures uncertain.

BHappy: It doesn’t feel much like the last day of the season.  It doesn’t feel much like anything really, enjoyed as it is from this season’s detached vantage point in the study, window slightly ajar, snacks and drinks in place, match on the big screen, other stuff on the smaller screen. WhatsApp is accessible but carefully hidden and muted to guard against unwanted telegraphs of what’s about to happen from folk with faster streams than mine, we’ve all gotten better at this with experience.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56953433
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%9321_EFL_Championship

From the Rookery End: Watford signed off the 2020/21 campaign with another clean sheet and another home win, beating Play-Off bound Swansea 2-0.

8th May 2005- Championship, Watford 1 West Ham United 2

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4662

Helguson scored his 20th goal of the season but it was not enough to prevent Watford slipping to an eighth home defeat of the season and sending West Ham into the play-offs.

On the last day of the season, the result itself is more often than not largely irrelevant. The last time that the last game of the regular season might have been remotely important was during the game against Grimsby in 1999. We won and made the play-offs… as it turned out, had we lost we’d have made them anyway. In 1998, famously, Jason Lee’s scuffed shot won us the title, but we were already promoted some time earlier. The last time that the final game of the regular season had a direct bearing upon which division we operated in during the following campaign was 1994, when we’d have needed to have lost by two goals to Palace at Selhurst Park to have been relegated.

8th May 1993- New Division One, Watford 0 Oxford United 1

Steve Perryman’s last programme notes.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4035
English Division OneTable »
Barnsley1-0Swindon Town
Birmingham City1-0Charlton Athletic
Bristol City4-1Brentford
Derby County2-0Wolverhampton Wndrs
Millwall0-3Bristol Rovers
Notts County3-1Sunderland
Peterborough United1-1Tranmere Rovers
Portsmouth2-1Grimsby Town
Southend United2-1Luton Town
Watford0-1Oxford United
West Ham United2-0Cambridge United
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