Who is your favorite player and why? I'll kick off with Thomas John Mooney. The reasons being: 1. He's from the era i started supporting the 'orns and have great memories through my teenage years. 2. The commitment and effort he put in on the pitch whether playing up front or at left back. 3. The goals he scored in the run leading up to getting in to the playoffs in 1999. 4. The goal he scored against Liverpool in that first season back in top flight, one of the few highlights and against the club he supported as a boy. Scrappy goal but special none the less. 5. Prepared to drop down the leagues to prolong his career and carry on playing the game (take note pretentious Premiership players).
For me there is no contest - Luther Blissett. Great player, great goals, great servant to the club and great person. I am assuming that you are restricting the definition of Golden Boy to players, GT would, of course, be my Golden Man.
please log in to view this image Ross Jenkins. The gawky ex-Palace striker had us wondering "why?" when he was signed by George Kirby in 1972, and not really flourishing under Mike Keen he finally hit his stride with Graham Taylor, with Keith Mercer, Alan Mayes and onward until Luther Blissett and John Barnes (all four of this group could possibly qualify as a favourite Golden Boy too) could aid him and in some cases he them. Nearly 120 in 339 games is a goalscoring record few could equal, especially with his slow start at the club. From my youth I can remeber the Watford attacks breaking down as the ball got caught up between Ross' legs and he didn't seem to know what to do with it, then in 1977 the ugly duckling became a swan and when the ball came to him there was only one place you expected it to go; either into the goal or to Luther and into the goal. The replacement George Reilly never matched Ross in his ability, he tried hard enough but not quite.
For me there are two, and not sure who to pick out of John McClelland and Craig Ramage I started going along in the mid-80s, with a Watford-supporting father, and Rangers-supporting Grandfather, both tryng to get me to support their respective teams, but living in Watford (well, Abbots Langley, and then Oxhey), Watford was the obvious choice To be able to sign JM from Rangers was a fantastic signing for us... and was my favourite player of the time, even ahead of the likes of Barnes, Blissett, Callaghan! Just a rock at the back and made it look so easy! Then Ramage - he was the player I tried to be when playing. Just such a talent and loved watching him play! I was never one with much place, so would just try and slow things down, to be comfortable on the ball.
Oh so many from the GT era and if you had not beaten me to it I would have narrowly picked Ross ahead of the great Luther and John Barnes. However to add some years to it I will go back to Billy Jennings who I loved to see free scoring
I'll go with Wilf Rostron - he was converted from a right winger to a left back, and there was nothing obvious in the way he played to suggest that it wasn't his natural position. He managed to captain our youngsters into the third round of the UEFA Cup and there was GTs comment about his controversial sending-off at L*t*n which caused him to miss the cup final "I'm not saying that we would have definitely won with Wilf in the side, but our chances of winning were dramatically reduced by that decision" (that's not verbatim, just a rough approximation).
For me the young Stewart Scullion. As soon as he got the ball we knew where he was going and with deployed elbows and was mostly uncatchable.
Luther and Cally come a close joint second to Barnesy who was simply the most talented footballer I've seen play for Watford.
Slightly off-topic but I've always had more than a slight suspicion that Wilf's (and Elliot's) sending-off was orchestrated (if not by the Town management), by their players, jealous of our Cup Final appearance and their fourth round defeat by us. I never went with Oli's prevailing view of a "healthy" rivalry between the clubs. I watched in amazement and anger as John Sheridan (I think) who was a Town coach at the time, wind-up his players to go into tackles that would get an immediate red card now but seemingly were tolerated at the time. Wilf was repeatedly targeted and finally lost his cool (and us the Cup). It did take some of the gloss off our win that year at the Kennel..............
Great to hear your memories and that you can recollect watching some of the Watford legends playing so vividly and fondly. Wish i had been around in the times of Jenkins, Blissett, Barnes ,McClelland at al, as every Watford fan old enough to remember seems to go misty eyed at the thought. Though we have had many a good player since i've been a supporter, that was a golden time in our history (no pun intended).
John Barnes , some fantastic displays and lots of skill to admire week in week out , remember Arsenal away in the cup ? Barnes was magic
1. Heiðar Helguson 2. Jóhann Guðmundsson 3. Brynjar Björn Gunnarsson because... Barry Endean for this... [video=youtube;SSxN6-csiNA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSxN6-csiNA[/video] and Luther Blissett for these... [video=youtube;JqNDBCzK1CE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqNDBCzK1CE[/video] Albert Guðmundsson played for Arsenal and afterwards was minister of finance in Alþingi.
and for me 6. He is just a don. A don of strikers, he never shirked a challenge or went down easily. Mooney = god.
Thanks AK for posting these clips. Have just filed 4 tax returns and needed a break. The Endean goal still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was a boy in the rookery at the time.
Great thread and tough call. Kind of missed the 90s so Mooney i cant say. Toss up between Ross Jenkins I and Luther. Barnsey wasnt with us long enough really. So its onerossjenkins for me!!
Converted from a left winger actually Barry. My username says it all really. Whilst Luther, Barnsey, Ross and Cally struck terror into opposing defences, IB was the springboard for virtually everything that those four did. Add to that his blistering shot, his reliability in defence and the fact that that he performed outstandingly well in all four divisions - there's no beating him. Oh, and he only cost us the princely sum of £12500 - GT rated him as his best ever buy. For his sheer entetainment value though, Scully comes a close second. On windy nights, I swear I can still hear the echo of shouts from the Rookery of 'Piss 'im Sculls'.
Correct - it was the third round - confused it with the tie the following year when they beat us after a couple of replays then got the Kennel ripped up by Millwall.
