I was 16 years old and this is how the football leagues finished. The point to this thread is that in 30 years since - it has never been as bad again. However the away games were fantastic fun. Maybe this is why I feel there is so little to moan about. So to those who i constantly annoy [with my positiveness and upbeat ramblings), maybe you'll understand by scrolling down and down and down and down... Our last 30 years have been highly successful for a small suburbian town - we should not forget that - we should hope for more of the same and even better but not expect it. League tables First Division P W D L F A GA Pts 1 Liverpool 42 23 14 5 66 31 2.129 60 2 Queen's Park Rangers 42 24 11 7 67 33 2.030 59 3 Manchester United 42 23 10 9 68 42 1.619 56 4 Derby County 42 21 11 10 75 58 1.293 53 5 Leeds United 42 21 9 12 65 46 1.413 51 6 Ipswich Town 42 16 14 12 54 48 1.125 46 7 Leicester City 42 13 19 10 48 51 0.941 45 8 Manchester City 42 16 11 15 64 46 1.391 43 9 Tottenham Hotspur 42 14 15 13 63 63 1.000 43 10 Norwich City 42 16 10 16 58 58 1.000 42 11 Everton 42 15 12 15 60 66 0.909 42 12 Stoke City 42 15 11 16 48 50 0.960 41 13 Middlesbrough 42 15 10 17 46 45 1.022 40 14 Coventry City 42 13 14 15 47 57 0.825 40 15 Newcastle United 42 15 9 18 71 62 1.145 39 16 Aston Villa 42 11 17 14 51 59 0.864 39 17 Arsenal 42 13 10 19 47 53 0.887 36 18 West Ham United 42 13 10 19 48 71 0.676 36 19 Birmingham City 42 13 7 22 57 75 0.760 33 20 Wolverhampton Wanderers 42 10 10 22 51 68 0.750 30 21 Burnley 42 9 10 23 43 66 0.652 28 22 Sheffield United 42 6 10 26 33 82 0.402 22 Second Division P W D L F A GA Pts 1 Sunderland 42 24 8 10 67 36 1.861 56 2 Bristol City 42 19 15 8 59 35 1.686 53 3 West Bromwich Albion 42 20 13 9 50 33 1.515 53 4 Bolton Wanderers 42 20 12 10 64 38 1.684 52 5 Notts County 42 19 11 12 60 41 1.463 49 6 Southampton 42 21 7 14 66 50 1.320 49 7 Luton Town 42 19 10 13 61 51 1.196 48 8 Nottingham Forest 42 17 12 13 55 40 1.375 46 9 Charlton Athletic 42 15 12 15 61 72 0.847 42 10 Blackpool 42 14 14 14 40 49 0.816 42 11 Chelsea 42 12 16 14 53 54 0.981 40 12 Fulham 42 13 14 15 45 47 0.957 40 13 Leyton Orient 42 13 14 15 37 39 0.949 40 14 Hull City 42 14 11 17 45 49 0.918 39 15 Blackburn Rovers 42 12 14 16 45 50 0.900 38 16 Plymouth Argyle 42 13 12 17 48 54 0.889 38 17 Oldham Athletic 42 13 12 17 57 68 0.838 38 18 Bristol Rovers 42 11 16 15 38 50 0.760 38 19 Carlisle United 42 12 13 17 45 59 0.763 37 20 Oxford United 42 11 11 20 39 59 0.661 33 21 York City 42 10 8 24 39 71 0.549 28 22 Portsmouth 42 9 7 26 32 61 0.525 25 Third Division P W D L F A GA Pts 1 Hereford United 46 26 11 9 86 55 1.564 63 2 Cardiff City 46 22 13 11 69 48 1.438 57 3 Millwall 46 20 16 10 54 43 1.256 56 4 Brighton & Hove Albion 46 22 9 15 78 53 1.472 53 5 Crystal Palace 46 18 17 11 61 46 1.326 53 6 Wrexham 46 20 12 14 66 55 1.200 52 7 Walsall 46 18 14 14 74 61 1.213 50 8 Preston North End 46 19 10 17 62 57 1.088 48 9 Shrewsbury Town 46 19 10 17 61 59 1.034 48 10 Peterborough United 46 15 18 13 63 63 1.000 48 11 Mansfield Town 46 16 15 15 58 52 1.115 47 12 Port Vale 46 15 16 15 55 54 1.019 46 13 Bury 46 14 16 16 51 46 1.109 44 14 Chesterfield 46 17 9 20 69 69 1.000 43 15 Gillingham 46 12 19 15 58 68 0.853 43 16 Rotherham United 46 15 12 19 54 65 0.831 42 17 Chester City 46 15 12 19 43 62 0.694 42 18 Grimsby Town 46 15 10 21 62 74 0.838 40 19 Swindon Town 46 16 8 22 62 75 0.827 40 20 Sheffield Wednesday 46 12 16 18 48 59 0.814 40 21 Aldershot 46 13 13 20 59 75 0.787 39 22 Colchester United 46 12 14 20 41 65 0.631 38 23 Southend United 46 12 13 21 65 75 0.867 37 24 Halifax Town 46 11 13 22 41 61 0.672 35 Fourth Division P W D L F A GA Pts 1 Lincoln City 46 32 10 4 111 39 2.846 74 2 Northampton Town 46 29 10 7 87 40 2.175 68 3 Reading 46 24 12 10 70 51 1.373 60 4 Tranmere Rovers 46 24 10 12 89 55 1.618 58 5 Huddersfield Town 46 21 14 11 56 41 1.366 56 6 Bournemouth 46 20 12 14 57 48 1.188 52 7 Exeter City 46 18 14 14 56 47 1.191 50 8 Watford 46 22 6 18 62 62 1.000 50 9 Torquay United 46 18 14 14 55 63 0.873 50 10 Doncaster Rovers 46 19 11 16 75 69 1.087 49 11 Swansea City 46 16 15 15 66 57 1.158 47 12 Barnsley 46 14 16 16 52 48 1.083 44 13 Cambridge United 46 14 15 17 58 62 0.935 43 14 Hartlepool United 46 16 10 20 62 78 0.795 42 15 Rochdale 46 12 18 16 40 54 0.741 42 16 Crewe Alexandra 46 13 15 18 58 57 1.018 41 17 Bradford City 46 12 17 17 63 65 0.969 41 18 Brentford 46 14 13 19 56 60 0.933 41 19 Scunthorpe United 46 14 10 22 50 59 0.847 38 20 Darlington 46 14 10 22 48 57 0.842 38 21 Stockport County 46 13 12 21 43 76 0.566 38 22 Newport County 46 13 9 24 57 90 0.633 35 23 Southport 46 8 10 28 41 77 0.532 26 24 Workington 46 7 7 32 30 87 0.345 21 P = Matches played; W = Matches won; D = Matches drawn; L = Matches lost; F = Goals for; A = Goals against; GA = Goal average; Pts = Points
Maybe be the season I first watched Watford play, I am sure we beat Northampton 6-0, Anyone confirm ?
Those were the days .... my friend (good old Mary Hopkin). 'Proper' away days, working class kids (who could make up a song), hopping the trains to every game, terraces, Bovril, Kerry Miller, sneaking in through the holes in the fence behind the Rookery, Hermit, pelting the away fans with pennies, pitch invasions, Bournemouth/Southend/Blackpool/Brighton 'sea-side away days', Sooty, PC 48, no Stewards/Green Team, drinking Party Sevens without a worry, the barrow boys in the Market tripping up the away fans as you chased them back to the Junction, PC McBride, The Coachmakers/Joe Ben/Green Man/Rose + Crown 'welcome' for any 'visitors', the third round of the FA Cup meaning something, all ticket games rarer than a Watford International ... no silent carrier-bag/vegetable clutching middle class ponces be-decked in AA yellow, glued firmly to their seats screeching for the stewards to, "make them all sit down". God Paddy, football used to be fun .......
was always in the saw dust of the Hit and Miss in those days or the social club playing darts. Football will never be the same again - we were lucky to have been there, seen it and done it. Kerry Miller the football song legend. He done a re write of the beatles 'Yesterday', an absolute gem. Made it up while getting merrily pished on a train to some distant away game. However bleak the 4th division was it certainly gave the fan a good time. Torquay away was always a favourite of mine. think it was Kerry who on arrival one winters afternoon, stripped off and legged it into the see totally uninhibited. The copper and wpc were just laughing - when asked if they would arrest him, they replied " no way, if he's got the balls to do that, good luck to him".
Swords, rickets, petrol shortages, rationing, hansom carriages, oil lamps, TB, child labour, the dissolution of the monastries, harpsichords, the plague, serfdom, steam engines, archaeoptryx. Old stuff is great, nay?
Nowadays the OB would be asking Mr Miller for a Risk Assessment and Method Statement for such an act - and most the fruits on here would be tutting, and demanding the Club banned him for life for letting down the good name of Watford FC ....... How the hell did we go from a club with tough, charismatic, support to a bunch of Daily Mail reading, drummer led nancies, who can't even make up an original song, in less than a generation?
Good old Kerry Miller...I remember the season before 76/77 when we got relegated from Div3 helping Kerry in his attempt to drink the Hereford Supporters Club bar dry of cider one Tuesday evening...we drew 1-1, from what I can remember. An away goal was a rare event that season.
I first went in 1969. Its true it was more colourful and the songs were complicated and funny, [or sometimes just threatening] versions of the latest pop songs, or even hymns like 'Fight fight wherever you may be, I am the lord of the ROOKERY' or 'I was born under a ROOKERY Roof'. I used to go on my sisters fella's shoulders in the Rookery. It was great, a big heaving surging mass. Anarchic and party like. I remember it as fantastic. There was often fighting and I remember walking around corners into groups of Stoke, or West Ham fans and wishing I hadn't, but mostly it was ok. Instinctively you wouldn't walk around alone with a scarf showing when you went outside of Watford and you'd no more wear your kit to the ground than you'd imagine you might get a game one day. I remember going to the Clock End one year and being flanked by gooners with spider web tattooed faces - not a common sight at the Emirates these days. I remember the fantastic excitement of being in div two for the first time! So it does make you realistic about success. Top of this league was a dream then. By the late eighties / early nineties that 60's 70's vibrancy was over. Watching football was a labour of love for 8000 odd at the Vic most weeks. Quite alot of the traditional support had drifted off post heysel, post hillsborough, post relegation, post every flippin' thing. Post its disasters Football wasn't going to carry on as some herberts paradise with people allowed to urinate up and down the terraces and charge each other. It wasn't going to be allowed to carry on as an environment actively hostile to minorities, or where criminal damage went hand in hand with travelling. Your history is quite a partial view, it suited some, but the culture around football didn't suit many and the public were voting with their feet. The fanzine writers and the first lot of shirt wearers breathed a bit of life into the corpse and found a bit of common ground with opposing fans. Football became popular enough again for the corporates to get a whiff that there were still money in them hills. It would be weird if it hadn't changed which is not to say it couldn't be improved vastly if half the whoring was removed. The most embarrassing thing about the Club is that it is so obsessed with money - they can't even give you simple information without flogging it or trying to flog a burger, or encouraging you to gamble. And the fans have gone a bit mental with all this mewling to radio phone-ins and demanding clubs pay millions to keep mediocre talents The relationship with the players has changed, they get paid more, fans are scathingly critical. There is distance. I can't imagine swapping pints and stories with pros these days, or getting invited to a barbecue at say Marlon King's house.. There have been some real glory days and nights since, been some real fun. I rarely go away, but when I do the support mostly seems noisy and pugnacious and people are having a good time. Not like the guy from Walsall, but then that's pretty special. Its not become merely effete. Though I have to remark that the old boys who sit behind me and tell me to sit down look like they might have been a right bunch of pests when they were younger. But old ladies with veg? who cares? - god bless em. Even in the old days it wasn't as if there weren't a few eccentrics to be found. Worrying about that is like still being embarrassed to be seen out with your mum. And you can't seriously be suggesting that its ok to throw coins at anyone? No wonder, with greatest respect, you find yourself a bit a odds with the spirit of the age.
That seems fair enough to me. I think the biggest change in football was the removal of terraces to be honest. I have never stood in a terrace that hasn't been a local non league ground. It would be brilliant to have twice as many people in half the space. Atmousphere would be electric methinks.
Yes well said Moose, a well balanced view that shows you can clearly accept the fact that times change in football and makes a change to hear a different view from that era rather than the same old stuff from the usual suspects.
Spewitt - it wouldn't matter if you were around in 1986, 1976, or even 1066 ....... you'd still be a boring dullard, that nobody would be seen dead with!
Sadly, your education precludes you from having a view ..... An argument with you is like teasing a three year old.
Indicative of your lack of intellect .... thinking that teasing a child equates to paedophilia! Did your low IQ - and vomitory qualities - mean your were educated in a 'special' school Spewy?
