I’m sure there’s a thread for this game buried somewhere but I’ll be damned if I go looking for it. Anyway....21 years ago today. Happy anniversary guys and gals!!
Seems fitting that, on a week when we play Bournemouth and people obsess about trying to force a rivalry between us for no real reason, this comes up as a brilliant memory vs our true rivals. Wish people would stop trying to shoehorn a false rivalry between us and teams like Bournemouth, Palace etc.
Brilliant day. Just think, the season before they had actually finished above us in the league for the very last time ever (and hilariously ****ed up their play-off semi against the mighty Crewe from a winning position).
To be fair, it would get pretty boring each week just watching a generic game though so I don’t blame people so much for trying to create a false rivalry in the PL. I’ve never really understood the Bournemouth thing though. But we have it. Everton. It’s been brewing for these past few months. They are our temporary rivals (for me at least) until we fall back through the leagues or those scumbags down the road sort themselves out. I only hope before that day dawns that we have won a cup.
Graham Taylor's greatest failure occurred that glorious day: telling the lads to ease off in the second half.
Possibly something of a myth, that. Mooney said it wasn't the case. https://goldandblack.me/no-9/ Having said that, the atmosphere that day was very, very ugly and threatened to get really nasty at one point so it may well have been there was no desire to pour oil on the flames.
Having said that, GT was absolutely livid at Dai Thomas for overdoing the celebrations after scoring and decided more or less there and then he wasn't going to last the distance. I can't remember whether that was before or after he got in trouble for kicking a load of flower pots during a night out in south Wales!
From a Q&A with GT in 2013, link http://wfc.net/files/GT.pdf about half way down is the question I asked: Q. How on earth did you manage to motivate the team before the Southampton game in 1980 after going into it 4-0 down from the first leg and at the opposite end of the scale, what did you do/say to remotivate the team at half time when we beat Sunderland, having already been 4-0 up? At Kenilworth Road in 1997 did you do the opposite and ask the players to calm it down at half-time as it is rumoured? A. For the Southampton match I had a meeting in the morning of the game at our training ground in Stanmore. The players were told who was playing and I then told them that they had to believe that this was like a league match. They must treat it that way. So as Southampton had beaten us in the first leg 4- 0 we must see that as 2 points (as it was then) to them, but as long as we beat them in the second leg, by whatever score it would level things up as that would be 2 points to us, and anyhow, it would be good practice and experience for us, as we would one day be in the First Division! At half time when it was 2-0 to us, I told the players that that was a perfect score line because Southampton would still not believe that they would be knocked out as they were still leading 4-2. Now we really had to believe that we could get to the next round. And we did!! At half time when we were 4-0 up against Sunderland, I first of all explained to the players that if we were to win 4-1 or 4-2, how disappointing that would be for everybody. If we played in the second half as we had done in the first, who knows how many we would win by. So why not let's start at the beginning again. In those days warm ups for the game took place in the dressing room, so at half time we did our pre match warm up again, with yours truly insisting on telling the players, we were playing 2 games of 45 minutes each. The first game we had won 4-0, but the second game was still to be played and we were starting off at 0-0! It worked!! At Luton, I did tell the players, that any team who threw away a 4-0 half-time lead, was likely to go down in the clubs history as a real bunch of w-----s, but that any Watford team that won by double figures was likely to cause a crowd reaction that would force the referee to call the game off. My mistake!! We should have tested the referee!
Yes, it really was. I had 2 young daughters with me, one of them was in tears at the behaviour of Watford fans near to her, never mind Lut*n fans. I seem to remember mounted police at the edge of the pitch to keep them back in their shoddy little stands. I also think the ref bottled an obvious decision (penalty/sendng-off?) as the game wore on. Mind you, watching that clip again is particularly rewarding if you watch the reactions of the crowd behind the goal.
The man The myth. Even if apocryphal it will be something he is probably remembered for. Even against those mouth breathers who, let’s be honest, represent pure evil, he took pity. He reminded us it was a game at the end of the day, that no one deserved to be utterly humiliated. Humanity and humility and good win out
I'd have quite happily been beaten to death by the barbaric mutant hordes after that match if it meant I'd seen us win 10-0.
Yeah I kinda get the need for a grudge match every so often. Just one that isn't forced. I've nothing against Bournemouth at all. They've not really done a lot. Beat us to the title when we actually really threw it away ourselves. Got a couple of dodgy pens against us but then so have a few other teams. They are insignificant as a rival and play some decent entertaining football. Everton has become a decent short term grudge match but that can only last as long as Silva is there. Then that needs to end. In the absence of the scum ever getting near us again, if any team at all should be a decent longer term premier league based grudge rival, I always feel it should be palace. A good short term (10 -20 year) history of incidents, from AJ's dive back in the early noughties to Zaha's current antics, plus the play off game and, from a personal perspective, one of my mates is an avid fan so there's always a bit of top bantz!
Fantastic post and great memories. As.fir the rival thing, did it begin because they piped us to the Championship title? If so that’s a bit off... even if we were the best footballing side that year they got sone scrappy wins. If anything, Sheff Wed should be both our rivals based on that particular season. They beat them to put the title in our hands but then they got us too with that VERY late equaliser. Granted the marking was poor and we should of scored a second to be safe but they really did sour that day. Over the course of that season to be fair they did lead the table, but we always won the leauge on Merrit because of the team Joka changed us into. Makes you wonder had we kept him that season, would he still be here now?
