Memries of Watford

[Geordie Blade]

Forgot about the raffle tickets! I sold some as a sixth former in a North Yorkshire grammar school! Most of the buyers were mates who supported Boro, Sunderland and Newcastle but I remember selling some to a girl I fancied and promising her she’d win a special prize. She fell for it and a few days later, told her she’d won a £20 voucher for two to our local pizza place in Northallerton. Working with on the basis she’d take me I was made up. Needless to say she chose someone else, luck bugger got more than an espresso after the meal.

He might have got his end away, but you got to watch Glyn Hodges do that chip over Peter Schmeichel in 1993. Who’s the real winner? You don’t have to answer that.

 

[IOM Blade]

My earliest memory of Watford is beating them 3-0 in our first game back in Divison One after relegation in 94. Mitch Ward scored two screamers and Flo got the other.

Thought we'd walk the league after that, but changed my mind when Notts County put three past us at home a week later.

 

[Deleted member 1486]

1998-9 - United on one of those lengthy runs where we fail to win away for months on end

Wasn't it a year without an away win (split over two seasons), or is my memory failing me?

 

[Willie Carlin]

Tony Curry, Keith Eddy, Stuart Scullion!!!

 

[Alex Cheeseright]

Not sure what year, Basset promotion to div 1 I think, when we won 3-1. Francis scored twice.

 

[Silent Blade]

Not sure what year, Basset promotion to div 1 I think, when we won 3-1. Francis scored twice.

October 1989

 

[Hartley Hare]

On the way round the M25 on that ill-fated trip to Wembley for the L1 play-off final against Huddersfield the gear box in the old car broke.

I managed to coast to the hard shoulder, from the fast lane (a bit hairy) and after a few restarts limped in third gear to Watford.

I parked in Watford and made my way with my young son to the train station, teamed up with some fellow blades on route and we purchased a family train ticket to Wembley and together saved a couple of quid.

After the match we got back to the car and drove home all the way to Norfolk in third gear!

It sounds bad but the big V8 engine could easily do 60+ miles an hour in third. I used the car for another few months until I got a new car that summer. The old car is still in my mates barn all those years later.

Every time we drive round the M25 we always look for the place where we broke down.

HH

 

[Radders]

I just remember the long walk around the allotment whilst dying for a slash. Hertfordshires finest keeping you under close observation. It was like being in a Japanese game show.

I remember one time I'd driven to a Utd match at Watford cos I only lived 20 miles up the road. As you say, after the game all the fans in the away end were "accompanied" to the railway station by the boys in blue. They insisted that I went too even though I kept telling them I hadn't gone by train. Managed to escape eventually

 

[Berlin Blade]

I swear I’ve been to Watford and we won with a last minute Danny Webber goal. I can’t be imagining it.

 

[Sportbilly /Detroit Blade]

I remember the FA Cup game at the Lane in 1990 when I seem to recally Gary Penrice got a late equaliser...might have dreamt this but didn't Glyn Hodges play him in for that goal?

 

[Sportbilly /Detroit Blade]

And we subsequently bought Hodges and did the club not have the fans contributing to his transfer fee by selling some form of lottery or raffle tickets?

 

[Silent Blade]

And we subsequently bought Hodges and did the club not have the fans contributing to his transfer fee by selling some form of lottery or raffle tickets?

Blades Revival

 

[metalblade]

My first trip to Vicarage road was Jan 73 FAcup 3rd round was met in the ground by a copper with a mega phone laying down the ground rules with the threat of making everyone take the laces out of their dokker's. Last rule was no knees up mother Brown which was immediately met by a ................................ rendition of knees up mother Brown. If I remember right it snowed that day but unusual for United in the 70's we won a 3rd round cup game 1-0

 

[Revolution]

Wasn't it a year without an away win (split over two seasons), or is my memory failing me?

Yes, we won 1-0 at Reading on 4 November 1997, and next won away at Oxford on 24 October 1998.

 

[Revolution]

Blades Revival

That may have been part of it, but the club did indeed run a lottery (based around the Grand National) to raise money for the fee.

 

[SW12 to S12 to S18]

Guessing that was the 5-0 thrashing in the FA Cup third round down at Vicarage Road about mid 80’s. ? I went down for that one and can honestly say one of the worst away performances of my 40+ years watching the Blades.

That was the coldest I’ve ever been at a football match, it was freezing cold with a biting wind and no reason to jump around and cheer which might have helped.

 

[BushBlade]

I swear I’ve been to Watford and we won with a last minute Danny Webber goal. I can’t be imagining it.

I’m not sure if it was last minute but it was late and just offside but we got away with it.

 

[Sportbilly /Detroit Blade]

That may have been part of it, but the club did indeed run a lottery (based around the Grand National) to raise money for the fee.
[/QUOTE
Good memory!

 

[TimofeeVee]

I saw a 0-0 there....must have been 2005, quid a kid, and free supporters coach travel if I remember rightly .....shame about the match!

 

[spongebobblade]

Guessing that was the 5-0 thrashing in the FA Cup third round down at Vicarage Road about mid 80’s. ? I went down for that one and can honestly say one of the worst away performances of my 40+ years watching the Blades.

Awful performance but remembered for Blades fans singing foe virtually the entire 90 minutes with Graham Taylor saying he’d never seen anything like it. I may have the wrong game but this was the one I realised Phil Thompson was actually worse than dogshit

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

View attachment 62121

Guessing that was the 5-0 thrashing in the FA Cup third round down at Vicarage Road about mid 80’s. ? I went down for that one and can honestly say one of the worst away performances of my 40+ years watching the Blades.

Luther Blissett scored 4. Has anyone scored 4 against us since? Can't think of anyone off the top of my head.

That was the coldest I’ve ever been at a football match, it was freezing cold with a biting wind and no reason to jump around and cheer which might have helped.

Awful performance but remembered for Blades fans singing foe virtually the entire 90 minutes with Graham Taylor saying he’d never seen anything like it. I may have the wrong game but this was the one I realised Phil Thompson was actually worse than dogshit

Froze my bollocks off. Dad's Army were in a panic, getting a right run around. We were singing and jumping about to try to get warm. Budgie was brilliant until afterwards when interviewed on the radio. He would get a 20 game ban now

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

No doubt quite a few of us were at the first ever Utd v Watford match. Feb 20th, 1960, Cup Round 5, crowd of over 40,000. Watford were in League 4. They scored first (Cliff Holton, of Arsenal fame), Pace equalised, then Holton scored again. Fortunately Pace was in goal-scoring mode, and scored twice more in the second half; he had already scored 5 in Rounds 3 and 4, and the following week he got another hat-trick, at his old club league-leaders Villa. So for the second year running we were in round 6, and as Heap's cartoon almost predicts, we ended up playing Wednesday in Round 6. No idea what the score was. We made it to the semi-final the following year.
Bits of trivia. Barry Hartle, soon to sign for us, played at inside-left. And in the programme, it refers to 2 other signings from Watford: Jack English, who played in the 1915 Cup Final, and Harold Pantling, who played in the 1925 Final.
The grainy pics are from my old scrapbooks.

 

[SB_90]

i do have a memory from i think 2008 maybe 2004 it was 1 of them 2. we played atrocious 4-0 down & Morgan scored a consolation header at kop end. i was so grumpy it was 1 few times i never celebrated

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I’ve been a couple of times. Firstly in 2006, where Nade probably missed three or four excellent opportunities, and we looked as though a dire game was going to be 0-0 till Webber’s late goal to win it in front of the away end.

I’m not sure if I went again in between these two games, but the one in March 2011 stand out simply because it was the angriest I’d been all season. We’d just had a win against Forest and you suddenly thought maybe we might be turning a corner. We’d seemingly had the added boost of Darius Henderson coming back from injury to make his first start, meaning the combined inadequacies of the likes of Cresswell, Evans, Bogdanovic, could all be moved out of the line up. Henderson barely lasts half an hour after following a stupid booking with an even more stupid red card. We had a few games left after that, but it was this game where I suddenly realised we were definitely getting relegated.

 

[Silent Blade]

17th April 1971. We werent playing Watford that day but they did play a very important role in our promotion run in. That morning , the Blades had 4 games left to play and Cardiff had 5 left, both teams were on 49 points and Cardiff had the better goal average. The below photo was the first half of Blades v Birmingham that day. You can see that the scoreboard man was busy that afternoon in updating the latest scores for Wendy and other matches involving promotion contenders. Red indicator A was Luton v Wendy, N (out of picture) was Cardiff v Watford. White indicator B was Carlisle v Norwich, D Hull v Orient, F Portsmouth v Boro and H Sunderland v Leicester. Late in the 2nd half, there was a lull in play as an injured player was receiving treatment from the trainer (they werent called physio then), we were winning 2-0 at the time, there were whoops of joy from some parts of the ground causing some confusion and all eyes turned to the scoreboard man updating the Cardiff v Watford match and it showed that Watford were winning 1-0. The players on the pitch looked confused at the cheering and I remember Birmingham's Bob Latchford pointing out the Cardiff score for Eddie Colquhoun to understand why we were cheering. It stayed 1-0 to Watford at full time and we stayed in 2nd place for the rest of the season.

 

[ForgeBlade]

I've only got 1 "memry" of Watford away. Sometime in the Warnock era we won 3-2 there, having been 0-2 down. My abiding memory is of my mate, who was a very sweary bloke, trying very hard to moderate his language in deference to the 2 little kids sat in front of us. At some point some decision went against us, at which point, all 6 foot 2 and 16 stone of said mate jumped up, and shouted, "referee you Fffffffffff.....fffffff......lipping melon!!" The dad of the 2 kids pissed himself laughing.

 

[BushBlade]

I've only got 1 "memry" of Watford away. Sometime in the Warnock era we won 3-2 there, having been 0-2 down. My abiding memory is of my mate, who was a very sweary bloke, trying very hard to moderate his language in deference to the 2 little kids sat in front of us. At some point some decision went against us, at which point, all 6 foot 2 and 16 stone of said mate jumped up, and shouted, "referee you Fffffffffff.....fffffff......lipping melon!!" The dad of the 2 kids pissed himself laughing.

Then the dad whispered to his kids ‘has tha ‘eard that fucker?’

 

[Pinchy]

Watford are one of a handful of minor, inconsequential clubs who happen to find themselves in the Premier League at this point in their history. They are currently working hard to rectify the anomaly...

 

[TaxiBlade]

I've only been Watford once.

Probably early 90s. Don't rem the result. Someone else may remember as was we were sat into front of a new stand that was raised up (with a roof like the weird one at Maine Road) and there was about 4 or 5 rows of scaffolding seats in front of it, and we were on that.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

Yes, we won 1-0 at Reading on 4 November 1997, and next won away at Oxford on 24 October 1998.

Mark Paterson goal v Reading.