Best Watford game of last 20 years?

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by ITK platypus, Apr 8, 2019.

?

Best game?

  1. vs Wolves 2019

    35 vote(s)
    58.3%
  2. vs Leicester 2013

    16 vote(s)
    26.7%
  3. Other

    9 vote(s)
    15.0%
  1. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Gray-DIOFELO!!!
     
  2. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Deeney pens in added time?

    Much heralded on here.
     
  3. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Endean Liverpool.

    The first time we showed we could be more than Div 3 South fodder.

    The day we slid on our bellies & escaped the swamp.
     
    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin likes this.
  4. Maninblack

    Maninblack Reservist

    The play-off penalty shoot-out win at Birmingham on the way to the Bolton match deserves an honourable mention. 1-0 down after 1 minute of the 2nd leg in the menacing cauldron of a packed St.Andrews but we hung on for 119 more minutes and 14 penalties until Chamberlain saved the last to see us through. I remember the noise of the Birmingham fans was as intimidating as it was loud.

    Yes, Bolton at Wembley was better, as was Leicester and yesterday, but this one is up there for me.
     
  5. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    That's no. 15, too low given how you described it. And under Ken Furphy, the second greatest manager in WFC's history. No way should it be below the Leeds league cup game, who may have been defending champions but didn't win a league away game all season, or the 1982 Everton win (it's not that uncommon for newly promoted sides to win their first game, and Everton weren't that great then) instead of the 8-0 against Sunderland, a game that truly showed Watford meant business (that's #19).

    11-14 are as follows:

    11. 1982 Wrexham promotion game
    12. 1998 Fulham title-winning game
    13. 1992 Leeds league cup
    14. 1982 West Brom (top of the League)
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2019
  6. Knight GT

    Knight GT Predictor extraordinaire 2013/14

    Brighton as the win actually meant we achieved something. Wolves and Leicester will always be quite rightly remembered as great moments and if we beat City it will be different but Brighton was that bit extra special much like Wrexham and Fulham
     
  7. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    Possibly my favourite ever away game.
     
    Maninblack likes this.
  8. Aberystwyth_Hornet

    Aberystwyth_Hornet Squad Player

    My top 5 are (in order of year)
    Best Away game Fulham 1998
    Could have been Palace 2006 or Brighton 2015 both of which I had to watch on TV or even my first evening away game 4.3 vs Peterborough 1994? which effectively kept us up.
    Best game at Old Wembley 1999
    Best game at Millenium stadium 2006
    Best Home game Leicester 2013, though Doyley day deserves a mention
    Best game at New Wembley 2019

    Summary
    I find it difficult to separate the above.
    They all have personal reasons as to why they are special and I think where you sat and who you go with has a massive impact.

    The Leicester game is a bit tainted after us failing to win promotion but that Deeeeney moment was more dramatic than the game just gone. I was also near the front of the Rookery so caught up in the drama whereas at Wembley (and the Millenium stadium) I was up with the God's.

    Saying that I started going in the early 90s, and back then the idea of being in an FA cup final was reserved for computer game fantasies. To do it in the way we did was special.
     
  9. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

     
  10. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    Ballsed up replying, so reposting. Mods, feel free to sort out as we can't delete or amend posts anymore, I don't think!

    Part of the fun of putting the book together was trying to assign an order to something that is impossible to sort. There is no right answer but context is everything. The Leeds cup win, for example, was a great, great night in a decade-long morass. It came at a time when absolutely nothing good seemed to happen – and no one knew that night that Leeds would not win an away game that season.

    The victory over Everton was the first top flight game. It's not just about whether the opposition were a great side or not, or whether it was an amazing performance and so on, it has a historical context that cannot ever be repeated. Watford can never again win their first ever top flight game, it is an absolute. Emotion, history, subjectivity has to come into it.

    Anyway, the book, and the list, are there to spark memories, debate and disagreement.
     
    Davidmsawyer likes this.
  11. Relegation Certs

    Relegation Certs Squad Player

    Just reading the 4-0 thrashing of the ratbags up the road one and saw this: "Kennedy recalls the manager saying jokingly: ‘Don’t score again because it’s going to go bonkers.’ But Mooney’s memory is of Taylor telling his men to go out and score another four."

    I don't recall ever hearing that from Mooney before, only the Kennedy bit. What's the source of this?
     
  12. Hornpete

    Hornpete Squad Player

    I'm pretty sure GT said after the game we deliberately took our foot off the pedal. Could be wrong though.
     
  13. Happy bunny

    Happy bunny Cheered up a bit

    Actually Plymouth were on a good run and were playing good football. It was far from a walkover
     
  14. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    They also played really well and were unlucky not to get an equaliser on the day.
     
    RookeryDad and Happy bunny like this.
  15. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    ...and David "I'm too good for you now" Holdsworth getting sent off !
     
  16. Maninblack

    Maninblack Reservist

    Forgot about that!
     
  17. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    The reason the Plymouth game is so high on the list is similar to the explanation given for the Everton game being there: it was a huge first for the club. The Cup Final was so big in those days that the idea of Watford being in it was unthinkable. Remember the 'holy grail' for decades was reaching the Second Division. I don't think anything the club could do now would create an equal to the amazement we felt that day.
     
    Happy bunny likes this.
  18. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    We don't get penalty's m8
     
  19. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    Thanks for replying. When was this book published?
     
  20. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    It goes up to the end of the 2010/11 season, so I imagine it was ready for Christmas 2011.
     
  21. Happy bunny

    Happy bunny Cheered up a bit

    What about our first ever Champions League game?

    (That will be some time after the top 6 have seceded, along with Barca, Real Madrid, PSG, Bayern, Juventus, the Milans, Boca Juniors, Flamengo, Guangzhou Evergrande Old Team and a few others to form a closed-shop World League, live on TV every night of the week.)
     
  22. Maninblack

    Maninblack Reservist

    Only live on TV for pay-per-view @ £30 a game!

    Good luck to them, they can **** off and never come back when the financials collapse. No transfers except from between themselves either, and no signing up thousands of kids for £10m each when they are only 5 yrs old either.
     
    Happy bunny likes this.
  23. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    Is it on Kindle?
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  24. Hussar

    Hussar Academy Graduate

    If we go back 40 years, based on the smile on my face on match day +2, I'll add Hull City 4-0 to win promotion, and the Southampton 7-1.
    I celebrated the other games mentioned but those two were the closest to how I'm feeling today.
     
    I Blame Pozzo likes this.
  25. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    That period would include Doyley Day - and it's at #36!

    Were you there when Doyley scored?
     
  26. PhilippineOrn

    PhilippineOrn First Team

    Tbf, the Bristol City win was the important one, the Fulham was just the party.
     
    Knight GT likes this.
  27. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    The source for that is an interview with Mooney conducted specifically for that book.
     
  28. EnjoytheGame

    EnjoytheGame Reservist

    It was published in October 2011, so the season before the Pozzo takeover.
     
  29. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    If you’re talking about 1998, we didn’t beat Bristol City.
     
  30. Forzainglese

    Forzainglese Reservist

    Crikey,; now that's what I call research.
     
  31. Forzainglese

    Forzainglese Reservist

    And, of course, we were far from favourites.
     
  32. Forzainglese

    Forzainglese Reservist

    Two good choices.
     
  33. Forzainglese

    Forzainglese Reservist

    It was more than a little hairy that day - I'm pretty sure the ref bottled a penalty as it was already 4-0.
     
  34. Knight GT

    Knight GT Predictor extraordinaire 2013/14

    We won the league at Fulham
     
    PhilippineOrn likes this.
  35. Forzainglese

    Forzainglese Reservist

    Yes and yes - two fantastic days, just a long time ago.
     

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