i'll be in the Rookery, bleating on about my birthday! See you there! (down the front near the left corner flag, joined by Dan in the second half, who you really can't miss coz he's so incredibly noisy! lol )
Happy Birthday Hornette, as i have a guest from the West with me I'll keep my location secret just in case Dan has a plan for his flag! I will look out for you both though and given the opportunity will say hello.
We have to change with the times, it is not the same Watford as 100 years ago. Good or we'd be left standing behind. This is a big change, I was born in Watford General and had the kit before I could walk. We are Watford, this is now our Watford. We have to give Zola time to get on with things.
Some fans have said they've lost a "connection" with the side because of the new players coming in from overseas but in realiy apart from Doyley and maybe Eustace who did fans really love last season? Deeney I suppose when he scored a few goals and Mariappa... Zola must be given time and the players have to be able to gel and unite. Some also question how motivated will they be but Vydra certainly puts himself about and you couldn't fault the performance of mini Messi on Tuesday.
I agree it all feels different to what we are used to, but i also agree this could be a very good thing and propel the club forward. Time will tell and i think by christmas we will have a lot more idea of where we are at. Need three points on Saturday against BC, nothing else will be satisfactory.
Why do we hate Luton? Because they our are local rivals. Do you hate Stevenage? they're close to us as well. In the end , the Luton team are a bunch of players, and aren't impure or diseased because they are from Luton. But it is fun to laugh at them because they are in the conference.#Lutonstillenemies
I write as someone who has only seen one game since a really awful 0-0 draw with them up the road in 1993. The one game was against Sunderland and it was then that I realised that the Watford of my past had gone forever. The whole match day organisation had changed - it was slicker and less personal; the ground was all seated, the Premier League was all style, money and arrogance. This wasn't the reasonable third division team I had grown up watching; it wasn't the exciting bunch of over-achievers I watched in my early adulthood; it wasn't the wishful-thinking triers of the early 90s that I had left behind. Despite all that it was still 'my' Watford - right down to Ngonge's poor ball control which enabled him to beat his marker and score in the Sunderland game. If I turned up Saturday it would still be my Watford, even though everything has changed again - just as reports about games at Cassio Road are still about my Watford. Change happens and we have to get used to it. Sometimes we won't like it (Petchey or Bassett come to mind), sometimes we will miss the way things were in the past, and possibly forget that the past of the club is tangled up in our own pasts when we look back. (I couldn't imagine hitching to York or Lincoln now, even if SEJ still owned the club). What I am trying to say is that from my distant perspective I have no expectation that things will be as they were, or even as I imagine them to be, but it is still my Watford, and they will continue to be so until someone takes them to Dorset of Naples or somewhere. Then my team will be AFC Watford.
Still, my point is even if we bough a bunch of players from a different club, whichever club, even luton, you wouldn't or shouldn't quote that your Watford is gone. the Watford before you're Watford would have been gone for the previous supporters, but they couldn't have just changed clubs, so i wouldn't care if we bought the whole luton squad, it's still watford.
Just the mention of "Them" is too much L - I understand the point, but please do not labour the point using "Them" as an example.
Lloyd Don't know what era you're from but be assured I'm not lecturing or trying to patronise in any way. Club rivalries have usually been founded within Cities that have created two clubs i.e Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool to name just 3 and these rivalries develop based locations of housing estates and such like. It gets a little more vague when you drill this down to Towns that normally have only one Club, in these cases the nearest Town that has a Club is usually considered the local rival. There are no rules to this just proximity but it's also usual for rivals to be in the same county. As a kid I had heard of Luton but never really gave the place a thought as a rival but you have to remember that, back in the day, we had limited travel and even less communication therefore if someone said another team were a 'local rival' then it was. In our case, at the time, there were two Football programmes on the TV. Match of the Day and the big match, both were preceded at the weekend by Football focus and On the ball. It was 'On the ball' where I heard it first and came out of the mouth of Brian Moore who described the game between ourselves and Luton as a local derby. Because he said it it became fact. Now, I could argue that Luton is no more a local rival than Stevenage or Barnet based on County or distance but it wasn't about that, it was about teams in the same division and the fact that a respected TV pundit had said so. Now when we used to play these local derbys it always got a bit heated and I can remember a sea of Orange at the Vic Road end opposed to a sea of yellow and black, they were great specatcles although the 'aggro' post match was always a damning feature of the times. It was this era when the Rookery was reserved for away supporters and we filled the Vic end. Not nice when it rained and gave the away supporters a better opportunity to create noise. So there you have it, Luton is our 'local rival' whether you like it or not, I'm prejudiced as I don't like the place anyway and even had difficulty booking a removal van because it was a L****. Here's a thought, kenilworth Road is 17 miles from the Vic yet White Hart lane is 15, ? Regards and coyh against the bumpkins.....
Are there any non-dodgy owners these days? Were there ever very many? To me it feels like we've traded up from dodgy local business men to dodgy Euro-tycoons. Precisely- well put. A really good thread this, but ever so depressing. I need us to give BCFC a good 5-0 thrashing tomorrow to cheer me up.
Nicely put. It is the way it is no matter how it all started and now there is history. Personally i feel the longer they stay non-league the better, because as much as i like at atmosphere of a derby game (the 4-0 away win in 1997 will remain forever in my memory), i don't like the violence they bring everytime they play us. Songs and banter are one thing, but coins, bottle throwing and pitch invasions are another. I'm sure the people who got coined that day at Kennilworth Road won't have as fond memories as i do!!! I'm sure in the main the 'real' fans are normal (apart from their taste in football club), but they seem to have a core of fans who are just scum (no other word for them). And i say am this having never seen a Watford fan throw a coin, bottle or anything else for that matter. I can't say it's never happened but we are just not that sort of club. Mind you, maybe now we are owned by an Italian club, David Pleat may find a horses head in his bed! Sorry to take the thread off topic.
