Tag Archives: Pierre Issa

4th December 2004- Championship, Watford 0 Stoke City 1

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Perhaps the true measure of the strength of any club’s youth set-up is how many players progress to professional status, whether at their own club or elsewhere. Just as Ray Lewington’s fledglings have been getting attention for helping Watford reach the semi-finals of the Carling Cup, it was old boy Gifton Noel-Williams who undid them with the only goal of this game.

Given that we had to play a fixture on the Saturday after the cup heroics, I don’t know who I’d have rather we faced. A weak, but attacking side, short on confidence, short on aerial ability, yet suicidally adventurous when in the lead. There’s not many of them about. Those are not, er, typical characteristics of sides in this division; more to the point, they are completely the reverse of how Stoke play. And they have Gifton Noel-Williams, a former player and thus guaranteed to play well against us. So it was easy to be negative about this game, with the likelihood of a Lord Mayor’s After Party very slim, and the home support mainly concerned with singing about future trips to Anfield or even farther away. It’s rarely a chore, though, watching this Watford team, and it took a long time to rule out the possibility of another great result in this most gratifying of seasons to be supporting them.

http://watford.fcdb.info?s=41418&id=4634

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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9th October 2001-League Cup Third Round, Watford 4 Bradford City 1

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The week before this game was played Watford player Paolo Vernazza was stabbed at his home by a burglar as reported here by The Guardian.

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 BSAD report:The word “ravishing” was suggested to describe our fourth goal, and that’ll do nicely.

Evening Standard, 10 Oct 2001
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26th September 2001- New Division One, Watford 3 Birmingham City 3

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Two memorable events happened at this game. Pierre Issa was stretchered off but one of those carrying him slipped resulting in him falling off the stretcher. This was featured a few weeks later in the ‘What happens next’ round on ‘A Question of Sport’.

More significantly Issa’s replacement was Lloyd Colin Doyley making his debut for the Hornets. He would make over 400 appearances during the next 15 years under 11 different managers, scoring twice and being sent off only once, which was a case of mistaken identity and was rescinded on appeal.

http://watford.fcdb.info?id=4464

Pierre Issa was carried off with a shoulder injury only to suffer further discomfort when the stretcher-bearers dropped him.

To say we’re going through a building period at the moment would be something of an understatement. Not just a new team but an entirely new ethos, as GT might put it. During this period, results might not always go the way we want, and the support bites its tongue instinctively. These things take time, after all, and it’s not as if Luca’s been hanging around stuffing up play-off semi-finals for years, is it ? But given that things will take time to gel, given that we’re not yet the all-conquering Vialli Army that many clearly anticipate, why do we feel the need to make life so bloody hard for ourselves?

Evening Standard, 27 Sep 2001