I've just got off the 'phone chatting with my Dad about this seasons lows and lows, he started telling me about how long he's been a Watford fan and reckons it must be 70 years or so. I kinda knew that, but stopped to ponder a little longer on it.. I wonder how many of us will be able/fortunate enough to say the same in X years time. I asked him if he knew the first game he went to.. he recalls is could have been v Preston when he was about 10 (and I have found we played them in cup at VR in 1950 so it's plausible that was the game). He said his dad worked on the turnstile and his mum in the cafe, and he was stood right next to where the players came out. He went on to tell me other stories too which were lovely to hear and really reminded me of the bigger picture about what supporting a team is about. Something i'd started to lose in recent months, but something i'll try to remain mindful of again moving forward. This year I took my own son to his first game: Dad, Me and my lad. Picture of us with GT's statue = priceless. Onwards! There's always another game (we go again (ha!))
My first WFC memory is around the First FA cup final. Woolworths in Watford, where McDonalds is now, had shirts and scarves in the window. The Hornet shop was basically a counter like a chip shop I think in the pedestrian bit just off of Vicarage Road some way from the stadium. I was annoyed that my kiddie replica shirt had stick on badges and no sponsor on it. Wish I still had it though. Didn't go to my first match proper until I was old enough to go on my own though. I have no idea how long ago that was I was most likely inebriated.
My first memories were not so much the games but meeting Dennis Bond who battered tickets for steak with my Dad. Having Elton John rub me on the top of my head and asking if I was enjoying the game. I've been going since 73/74 if not earlier. The first really memorable season was the Division 4 championship season. Was absolutely hooked after that.
My brother took me to my first Watford game in the 1973/74 season. I can’t remember who it was against but I do remember we stood in the old Shrodells and it was raining. Some of my main memories from the Mike Keen years include the night we got relegated to Division 4 against Walsall. Awful night. Also remember beating Cambridge 2-0 couple years later(?) in Div 4 when they were top. Like Carpster above I remember every bit of the GT 1977-87 years in glorious detail!
My late Uncle went to Watford games in the 1950s when they played in blue. I only ever went to a handful of games with him before he died in 1983 but even then he still called Watford “The Blues”!
Of course you mean the terrace in front of the Shrodells. If you’d stood in it you would quickly have been told to SIDDOWN! 73/74 was quite a good year to start, with Billy Jennings scoring 29 goals that season. The win over Big Ron Atkinson’s Cambridge came during a run when we went unbeaten at home for virtually a year I believe.
My first game was Stoke City in the FA cup however it wasn't until 1976 when I first attended regularly. Gillingham away that season was my first away and Hillingdon and Northwich. I was also at the home game on the Tuesday against Newport just after the Northwich debacle. I remember the Cambridge game that season , 2-0 if I remember correctly. I was at Bournemouth when we lost 1-2 which was the beginning of the end for Mike Keen . Doncaster 5-1 on a Friday night and losing 0-1 to Brentford and Dennis Bond missing two penalties.!. But I remember the above fondly
Around 50 years ago both my parents families lived in the Watford area, Mums in Bushey, Dads off Whippendale road. We use to go over to see my mothers grandparents in the morning and I would go off to football with an uncle, he was on Watford books just after the war. He handed over to my grandfather ( dads side ) during the game and go home with him to meet up with the family. I've no idea what my first game was but i do remember us playing Liverpool in the 1970 FA cup, it was packed. As I grew up I had to listen out for the midweek results, pre teletext, when the sports news came on the radio at 10:02 each evening that now seems so so long ago
2-1 home win vs Darlington in 1977 just a few games into GT's first reign. We were 8th in Div 4 at start of play. Was convinced Coffill and Geidmintis were brilliant and would make it in the first division. Both barely played another game.
I think Tony Geidmintis was the first player I had seen play for Watford who I heard had died. Ron Wigg was another soon after who also passed away in his 40s.
Giddy Giddy mintis ! Anyone else at Bournemouth when he got sent off pre GT ? He came on a free from Workington if my memory serves me correctly
Born in Stepney, Geidmintis made his Football League debut for Workington on 3 April 1965, aged just 15 years 247 days.[1][2] Geidmintis also played in the Football League for Watford, Northampton Town and Halifax Town, before returning in 1980 to a Workington side which had dropped into non-league football.[3] He retired in the 1980–81 season, aged 31, due to a heart condition that contributed to his death 12 years later.[4
It's strange how your memory plays tricks on you as you get older. I thought TG was in his early 30s when he signed for us . Clearly not !
Here's one for the teenagers ....no googling anybody but does anyone remember very briefly and sadly Bobby Svarc ?
Me too. It was actually my first game, post #10 higher up. Either that or the following game vs Bournemouth possibly....knew of his scoring record at Blackburn so told my mates he was going to be superb for us. Injury in that game ended his career.
I used to go a few times when I was little, with my Dad, I do remember we played in blue shirt and white shorts. We played a few evening games to celebrate our new floodlights, we played a few well known European sides if I remember rightly. I then went several years without attending at all, the n I went to Swindon at home 1966/67 won 2-0 if I remember rightly, went to that match to procure tickets for the FA Cup 3rd round tie against Liverpool, drew 0-0, seem to remember we hit the bar (no not the pub) late on, think it might have been Terry Melling. Never looked back since. Coincidentally my first away match was Oxford United the next season, and they had Ron Atkinson playing for them.
85 Vicarage Road, the occupants of the flat above it varied from Molly the Laundry lady, Kenny and Sandra Jacket, Marice Johnston and George Reilly, and Johnny Barnes when he was moving into his place in Stanmore, or having it done up. Mo's (official) girlfriend narrowly missed serious injury up their when the ceiling collapsed in on her whilst she was watching TV. George Reilly complained to Tony Marks once for removing all the boxes from out the back. Apparently it meant he had nowhere comfortable to sleep when he couldn't make it up the stairs after a bender in Paradise Lost.