Can never find it available on amazon.. Did get this: Footballing Lives: As Seen by Chaplains in the Beautiful Game Some WFC history.. but not a riveting read. Also got the Jay de Merit DVD... not seen yet...
Checked mine too - and you beat me by 2 years -Saturday 18th April 1964 we beat Reading 1-0 I knew it was the 1963/4 season as we just got pipped for promotion by Coventry and Crystal Palace
According to Lionel Birnie's site it has now sold out completely except at Waterstones in Hemel Hempstead
Just looked for it to buy, and according to Lionel Birnie's website everyone (Hornets Shop, Amazon etc) has sold out except for Waterstones in Hemel. Don't think I can talk Mrs GG into taking me down there 'just for a book about Watford'. Waterstones won't sell it on line. I'll just have to wait for a reprint, I guess. Likewise, thoughts are with you both, Leonardo.
I'm next in line then- 10th October 1964. Some mates from primary school had been a few times and told me I should come. Train from South Oxhey to the High Street, and I seem to remember walking round the bottom of Benskins Brewery to Wiggenhall Road. Big adventure for a ten year old. No adults with us! Does that happen now? Could it? We paid 2s 6d I think, or was it 1s 3d for boys? Rookery days.
23rd December 1950 v Exeter City 3-3 A dreadful season in Division 3 (South) where only Crystal Palace were worse than us. Both clubs had to apply for re-election, which they received. It was dreadful for a small lad to think that something he had just found could be taken away and I was relieved when there was a team to go and see the next season.
Reminds me of this bit of Python: FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt. SECOND YORKSHIREMAN: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky! THIRD YORKSHIREMAN: Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife. FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah. FIRST YORKSHIREMAN: And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you
First match of the 62/63 season - 18/8/62, a 3-1 home victory over Sarfend. We had a fairly free-scoring forward line then - 30 goals in the first ten games, with Dai Ward doing the bulk of the scoring. I started off watching from the Shrodell's enclosure before joining the crowd who swapped ends at half time - then stayed in the Rookery when the snows came. Funny thing about that first match - I swear blind even today that we played in Yellow and Black stripes, but have never seen any reference to a strip like that & it was the only time I ever saw it.
Thank you, didn't look too shabby. Who would you like to see as your next manager? Ours is otherwise occupied I am afraid.
Sean O'Driscoll would be good, although if our "players" suddenly improve for the new manager, I'm going to be pissed off as they have been utter ****e, but we'll see
