40 Years is a long long time. Here, touching back, brings us round again to find when Forest took a big step towards returning to returning to Wembley to defend the League Cup that they had won the season before (when they were victorious over the mighty, mighty Liverpool in a replay at Old Trafford) by eliminating a swarm of ascendant hornets. (That's Watford, to those not acquainted with their nickname.)
In this post, I'll give a brief outline of Watford Football Club's bizarre chameleon-like (but, it has to be said, remarkably unsuccessful) history before doing a big catch up with what had happened in the world of football in the weeks between Forest beating Brighton in the quarter finals back at the start of December, and this game.
The most famous Watford fan, of course, is Reg Dwight. Y'know... Elton John - so I'll do a bit on him as well, interweaving his career into my life via my dear sister who, as far as I was aware, discovered him, and some of his famous songs into Watford's history up until the point he became chairman of the club in 1976 and from then on, his Captain Fantastic influence on the club ever since.
It was a bleak winter, 40 years ago. In fact it was cold as hell. In January so many games were called off it became a real challenge to even watch a match. If you went along to many scheduled games, there'd be no-one there to see them ... if you did. Luckily some of us at Nottingham University were up for the challenge. So, I'll also include accounts of one or two football crazy trips we did. I'll cover both the home and away legs of the Forest v Watford semi-final, but not the Southampton v Leeds semi, which I also did go to in this period. I plan to cover that in the Cup Final blog. There are a few personal football-nerd landmarks for me here, too, to log for reference purposes. I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind.
And, as usual, I'll peek into the future from this match and note how, under Graham Taylor - Elton John's most impressive appointment - Watford reached the pinnacle of 2nd place, behind Liverpool (of course) in the First Division in 1982-83. Ironically, that was the season when Forest beat Watford three times, scoring 12 goals and conceding 4.
Finally, as this is the first post since a new Martin O'Neill era began at Forest, I'll throw a few snippets about him in here too - much more to follow in subsequent blog posts, though.
Previously: Brighton & Hove Albion
So, 1898 is the year when the history of Watford Football Club really began. I can't help feeling a bit smug in commenting that, of course, this was 33 years after Nottingham Forest were founded.
33 years.
Watford and their ancestral clubs seemed to change their colours, quite dramatically, almost from year to year in the early days, and Watford F.C. started life playing in yellow, green and red stripes. Firstly vertically, then horizontally once they'd got promoted to the Southern League first division in 1902.
The Lithuanian patriotic nerd inside me makes me wonder if there could have been any influence from people from the southern-most Baltic state as these are the colours of the Lithuanian tricolor, but of course it must be coincidental as Lithuania was, at the time, still part of the Russian empire and I doubt the flag had even been conceived at this time.
From brilliantly colourful (for 11 years) Watford then changed to a more serious-looking black-and-white as the team started to challenge towards the top of the Southern League, which they finally won in 1914-15, the last season before the first World War. This would be Watford's only Southern League title.
A couple of seasons before that title win, Watford played away at Wolverhampton Wanderers in an F.A. Cup 1st Round replay. They had drawn the first match 0-0 at Cassio Road (their ground before they moved to Vicarage Road) but lost at Molineaux 10-0. This is still Watford's worst ever defeat.
After the war, Watford, like Brighton and 21 other southern teams, joined the football league, in Division Three South.
Watford's first league season was a good one, and they finished 6th. But, again like Brighton, their fate was to stagnate, year after year, in the same division through the entire length of their early league history.
In 1922 the club moved from Cassio Road into their still current home, Vicarage Road. At the time the land on which the ground was built was owned by Benskins Brewery (later, in 1957, to be one of several taken over by Ind Coope) and so the club became known as "the brewers".
In 1927 the club were facing serious financial difficulties and they attempted a "re-branding" changing their colours to blue shirts and white shorts, and their nickname, not very imaginatively, to "the blues". For ten years, the club, uniquely as far as I know, changed again to turquoise shirts and white shorts.
The result in mid-late 1930s was that Watford had a good spell and challenged for promotion to the second division for five consecutive seasons, only falling away in the final season just before the second world war, which of course caused the football league to be suspended once more.
The first season after the war, in 1945-46, the F.A. Cup was organised but not the league. Watford had a decent run, beating Southend United 4-1 (this was on aggregate - as all cup matches were played over two legs for this one season) in the first round, and then Bromley 4-2 (on agg.) in the 2nd. This earned them a 3rd round cup draw against ... Nottingham Forest. This was the first time the clubs had met in a competitive fixture. On 5th January, the City Ground tie was drawn 1-1 and four days later, so too was the second leg at Vicarage Road. So, the game needed a replay, which was played back in Nottingham a week later. Forest's second division status counted for nothing and this time Watford won 1-0 to go through to the fourth round. Waiting for them were Birmingham City who won through 6-1 on aggregate.
Forest's relegation from Division Two in 1949 put them in the same division as Watford for the first time in the 1949-50 season. Forest finished above the Hertforshire side but Watford did the double over us, winning both games 1-0.
Only three points and two places separated the sides that season but the gap was set to get much bigger the next, as Forest ran away with the division whilst Watford finished second from bottom. Forest finally managed to beat them (but only 2-1 at home) on our 5th attempt, on 17th March 1951. That was the last competitive match played between the clubs for almost 28 years before the semi-final I'm reporting on here.
Around this time, however, another important, but somewhat tenuous, link between the clubs was born. It's a link that definitely went by the name of Dwight but not much else is certain. There are contradictions in the details from couple of on-line accounts about this but what seems to be beyond doubt is that somewhere in the London area, in 1925, a man called Stanley Dwight was born, and eight years later, another called Roy Dwight. Stan's dad was called Edwin and so was Roy's, so it seems plausible that Stan and Roy were brothers. But, according to Roy's Wikipedia page, it was Roy's dad, Edwin and Stanley that were brothers. That just can't be right, though, as they are from different generations.
The point is that Stanley Dwight was destined to be the father to a boy they called Reg who, most will know, would become the star musician, Elton John, whilst Roy went on to be a footballer, first for Fulham and then, four years later, Forest. It was Roy Dwight who scored the opening goal at Wembley against Luton Town in Forest's 2-1 Cup winning season in 1959. Later in the match, with Forest 2-0 up, he was carried off the pitch with a broken leg. These were the days before substitutions were allowed, so Forest had to battle for almost an hour - a man down. Luton pulled one back but Forest clung on to win, the only team ever to do so with ten men.
Roy's mother and father died when he was young, so he lived with his grandfather, but I've not been able to find any confirmation that this particular Dwight was the same man as the grandfather of Stan's, who's name was William. It's all a bit confusing. I must admit. A few of these facts, well they've got me quite cross.
Something's not Dwight here!
Anyway, Watford's poor league form continued for a few years after the resumption of league football before it started to pick up again in the early 1950s. In the 1953-54 and 1954-55 seasons they looked like they could go up and among the more optimistic of Watford's throng in those days, it seems, was one of their youngest fans - a little boy called Reg Dwight.
In 1957-58 the league was re-structured, which ended Watford's 32 consecutive years in the same division. Unlike Brighton, who ironically won the division to get promotion, Watford ended in the bottom half and thus were assigned to play in the fourth division the next season.
In parallel to Brighton, who I reported upon in my last post, Watford also had one of the longest runs of stagnation in football league history. Their 32 successive seasons in Division Three South is the joint 19th longest of all the clubs' record in the league.
Here are the six teams that stayed the entire course of the history of Division Three South, from beginning to end, ranked in terms of the number of points won. Reading missed out on five of the seasons but still had a better record than Exeter.
And, for completion's sake, here's the same table for Division Three North, which started on year later. Eight clubs stayed the full 31 year course. Hands up who did not realise Wigan Borough and New Brighton were included in that list? (Me!)
Anyway, back to the new four division format and Watford's presence in the basement division...
Watford reached their nadir in 1959, finishing their lowest ever, 15th in Division Four.
It would seem that reaching this low point caused a crisis of confidence at the club and so, yet again, the club did a complete re-branding, changing their colours dramatically once more - this time to gold and black. I think the only two colours Watford have never used is going from purple into grey.
Thanks to a popular vote of fans, the club's nickname was also changed - to their now current one - "The Hornets".
It's funny how such things can affect a club but the change sparked an immediate upturn in fortunes and the very next season the club won promotion back to Division Three.
Ken Furphy became Watford manager in 1964 and almost brought them promotion to the second division immediately. They just missed promotion again (by just one point) again in 1966-67, being pipped by Middlesbrough.
But they finally did make it to the second tier in 1969, winning the title on goal average from Swindon Town.
They lost the replay, but the attendance of 34,099 remains the highest ever at Vicarage Road.
Here's Ken Furphy giving a very frank and detailed talk to the players before playing Manchester United.
Such confidence! I wonder if Nigel Clough prepared his Burton Albion team like that before their trip to the Etihad last night (Manchester City beat Burton Albion 9-0 in the League Cup semi-final 1st leg last night as I write this.)
It was around this time of rare glory for Watford that a young Elton John was launching his brilliant career in music. Bizarrely, I was kind of a fan of his from very early on. This was because my dear sister discovered Elton, it seemed to me, before anyone else had even heard of him. She went to see him in a concert (I think it was the one at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, in March 1973) when he was
really unknown and always kept an empty Perrier bottle as a souvenir from that gig for years.
I got most of my early musical tastes from my big sister and her boyfriend. I felt privileged and "cool" to know bands that played stuff that was more sophisticated than the usual crap of my age group. My musical preferences today are still largely shaped by those early, formative years.
One example is the progressive rock band, "Camel" which my sister got me into. "Never Let Go" from their first album is still one of my all-time goose bump-inducing favourite tracks. All these years later, my new favourite band, (although they disbanded years ago) Porcupine Tree, remind me of them even today. Thanks for the heads up there to my daughter's boyfriend, Elden Garrett (who is, himself, an excellent guitarist, by the way.).
My sister, of course, bought all of Elton John's records, including his first album "Empty Sky." Even my dad (not the most tolerant of 1970s "pop" bands - "blady woolly heads!") didn't mind him too much, although he always called him "Elton Johnson."
Here's an early classic, released in 1969 on the album, Empty Sky - one of my all time favourites, "Skyline Pigeon."
Meanwhile, Watford were now flying away in the second division for the first time in their history, towards the dreams they'd left so very far behind - but they still avoided Forest as we were still (only just) a First Division team.
In 1970 Elton released his second album, just called "Elton John."
Here he is performing the classic "Your Song" from the album on Top of the Pops...
In 1969-70 Watford had a great cup run which included wins at Bolton, home to Stoke City and a massive F.A. Cup quarter final victory against Liverpool. Barry Endean got the winner in that match.
Here's some great footage of that match...
Unfortunately for Watford, in the semi finals (at White Hart Lane), they faced eventual winners Chelsea and got hammered 5-1. Again, here's the action...
Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin were prolific in their early years and they launched their third album in 17 months in October 1970 with Tumbleweed Connection.
Here's one of my favourite tracks from the album, "Amoreena".
Watford didn't last long in the second division and were relegated back to Division Three in 1971-72, ironically the season Forest themselves were relegated to the second. Thus Forest and Watford continued to avoid playing each other for a few more years.
By then, Elton had released another two brilliant albums.
Madman Across the Water...
... which included perhaps his best ever song, "Tiny Dancer" made even more famous though the film "Almost Famous".
Here he is singing it on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1971.
The second album was "Honky Chateau", released in May 1972, which included another Elton John classic...
Rocket Man...
His incredible creativity continued in 1973 with two more albums.
"Don't Shoot me I'm only the Piano Player" included two of his best known songs...
Daniel...
and Crocodile Rock...
I also love "High Flying Bird" from that album...
His SEVENTH in FOUR years was another classic, and a double album - "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."
This included the title track .... played here on Top of the Pops...
Elton clearly had the "Midas touch" and his success just went on and on with another three albums in the next three years: Caribou, Captain Fantastic and "Rock of the Westies" (which I must admit I'd never even heard of when I wrote this). It has to be said that from around this point in time his music did start to lose some of its appeal for me. But it was also during this period that Elton started to take a much more serious interest in football and his home town club, Watford, who were definitely having a decidedly less successful time.
Maybe Elton could sprinkle some of his magic in their direction.
He first got involved in an official capacity (as "President") in 1973 but within three years, he'd be chairman of the club.
Just before we get into that critical part of Watford's history and their link with their most famous son, here's one more Elton classic from the 1970s. This song brings back strong memories for me as it was played to death at discos in the summer of 1976 as I spent my first holiday away from my parents, up at Filey Butlins. I could write a whole blog on what happened there, but rather than open up that hornet's nest, I leave it here, maybe to revisit the subject in a future post.
Watford were languishing back in the fourth division, when Elton became chairman and he obviously loved being heavily involved from day one.
He was obviously able to give some much needed financial support but he also made some really smart decisions, notably the appointment of a rising star of English football management, Graham Taylor in June 1977.
Taylor, was born in Worksop, Notts, grew up in Scunthorpe but made 189 league appearances as fullback for Grimsby Town before joining Lincoln City where he made another 150 appearances before becoming their player manager in 1972.
Under Taylor, Lincoln City won the fourth division by a canter in 1976 and so it was an inspired appointment by Elton John that took him down to Watford a year later to try to do the same thing there.
With Elton holding the purse strings and Graham Taylor in charge of the football, there was only one direction for Watford and that was up.
It's ironic how Forest's meteoric rise to glory under Clough & Taylor happened pretty much at the same time as Elton John and Graham Taylor brought success to Watford. Clearly, the hornets were starting from a much lower base and they never reached the heights that Forest did, but their rise was, in many ways, just as astonishing.
So that just about covers a quick snapshot of Watford's history. Again, similarities with Brighton abound, even to the point of Forest's 100% league domination over them by the start of 1978-79 season.
But in 81 years of Watford's history they'd only played Forest nine times...
... and they had the far better record: Played P Won 1 Drawn 3 Lost 3 For 5 Against 7.
That week, at Chelsea, Danny Blanchflower had become their new manager (staying with North Ireland at the same time) until the end of the season after previous manager Ken Shellito resigned.
Three days after beating Brighton 3-1 to reach this League Cup semi-final, Forest were back in league action and managed a 1-0 win at home to Birmingham City.
16th December 1978: 150th Match at the City Ground: (Match 293)
The big results of the day were Bristol City beating Liverpool and Middlesbrough's 7-2 thrashing of Chelsea. Not a great start for Danny Blanchflower, then!
Liverpool's defeat and Forest's win put us back on top of the 1977-79 cumulative table.
Watford were playing fellow third division Southend United in the second round of the F.A. Cup that day. They drew 1-1 but lost the replay.
In the midweek following, on 19th December, the Football Association imposed a ten year ban on Don Revie for 'bringing the game into disrepute" after signing a deal with the United Arab Emirates whilst still in the England job.
The week after, Forest played away at Manchester City in the league.
I didn't go but here are the highlights...
... and a match report...
Martin O'Neill returned to the team after missing the last two league games.
In other matches Everton lost their first game of the season, at Coventry City... so there were no more unbeaten clubs in the first division.
The result of the day was Arsenal's amazing 5-0 thrashing of Spurs at White Hart Lane.
As I said, I didn't go to Maine Road to see Forest, but I did nip along to Meadow Lane for the second time this season to watch Notts County in their second division match against Sunderland.
Notts County and Sunderland were both on the edge of the promotion race.
Watford won 1-0 at Colchester United to stay top of the Third Division.
Here is a list of all the Boxing Day matches I have ever seen. As you can see, on 26th December 1979, I attended two.
After the game, we jumped in the car and sped back down the M1 to watch the big Derby derby. See my blog of last season for more about the Forest-Derby rivalry and a comparison with other local derbies in the UK. I think it's one of the best I've done.
The current form table now looked like this with Bristol City up in 3rd place.
Watford drew 2-2 at Shrewsbury Town at Gay Meadow on Boxing Day, but they stayed top.
After Christmas, on 27th December, Kevin Keegan was voted European player of the Year. He had left Liverpool for the German club, Hamburger SV, at the end of the 1976-77 season. Hamburg were currently on their way to winning the Bundesliga and Keegan was winning rave reviews every week.
Forest's scheduled home match against Norwich City was one of the many casualties of the cold weather so I got a rare Saturday off.
As Liverpool's game was also called off, this allowed Everton to join them on 33 points and for Ron Atkinson's West Bromwich Albion to move to just two points behind the Merseyside pair.
Here is some great footage of West Brom's amazing 5-3 win at Old Trafford which was the big result of the day. Shocking to hear the racist abuse against Regis, Cunningham and Batson from the Old Trafford fans. The clip also includes coverage of Arsenal's win over Birmingham.
Here's Ipswich's 5-1 thrashing of Chelsea. John Motson the commentator.
Watford won 2-0 at home to Swindon Town in their last game of 1978 to stay top of Division Three.
So, ended 1978. It was a great year for Forest, of course, but if you compile a table of First Division matches played only in 1978, Forest only have the third best record.
So, into the new year and it was onto the F.A. Cup and what was always one of the best days in the football calendar, the 3rd Round where the big clubs could get drawn against the minors from the lower leagues or even from outside the Football League altogether.
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 David Needham, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: David Needham 1. Allan Evans o.g.
Aston Villa
1 Jimmy Rimmer, 2 John Gidman, 3 Gary Williams, 4 Allan Evans, 5 Kenneth McNaught, 6 Dennis Mortimer, 7 Tommy Craig, 8 Ken Swain, 9 John Deehan, 10 Gordan Cowans, 11 John Gregory.
Attendance: 29,550
Match Report...
This was Forest's 46th consecutive unbeaten home game (in all competitions).
Here's the full list of F.A. Cup 3rd Round ties that season. Note how from first tie to last, the round almost took a month to complete, such was the disruption by the weather that year.
44 games were needed before the 32 teams for the 4th round were finally decided. Notice also the epic battle between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday that took four replays to resolve - that's five matches altogether. I covered the topic of replays in my F.A. Cup 5th round replay blog v QPR last season if anyone is interested.
Here are some highlights from a few third round matches (alas not Forest's)...
Leicester 3 Norwich 0
Sheffield Wednesday 1 Arsenal 1
Stoke v Oldham was abandoned at half time
Southend v Liverpool. Record attendance
The Saturday after that, Forest were back in league action at in-form Arsenal and Forest lost 2-1.
And the match report...
Only three other first division games were played that day.
This was the match that put West Brom at the top of the table for first (and only) time in the season...
Here are the Baggies, top of the league...
Clearly, since the departure of Graham Taylor to Watford, things hadn't gone well for the Imps and they were set for a return back to the bottom tier.
So, from my dark and lonely room of Sherwood Hall I joined up with the lads and we set off. We caught the train from Nottingham, over green fields, trees, but not mountains... to Lincoln. But upon arriving to find out that the match was another victim of the weather we consoled ourselves by going on a pub crawl in beautiful Lincoln city center. We definitely wanted to get a belly full of beer. We arriving back in Nottingham late that evening completely sozzled.
When we got back I think we found a disco that was going on and, oiled as diesel trains, we set the dance alight (but not in a nice way.) I was drunker than a barrel full of monkeys and I was looking for a dolly to see me right (some chance!). Amazingly, this Saturday night was alright but I don't think there was any fighting.
It is embarrassing to think of the childish antics we got up to in those days (and on that night!) but one, most bizarrely, was "doing a hulk". Apparently I used to think it was really funny to pretend to be the hulk to random students passing by at Sherwood Hall. It's little wonder I never had a girl friend during those years! I feel heartily ashamed of myself.
The following Monday, recovered from a four-star hangover, and determined to see some football, my Boro-supporting mate (called, you'll never guess - "Boro") and I left Nottingham University early in the afternoon and caught the train to London to watch his team in another weather-affected F.A. Cup tie.
Selhurst Park was my 49th English ground visited...
Not many of those are songs I'd want to play again but here's a few...
Earth Wind and Fire's "September" plucks lots of nostalgic chords for me, none happy. It brings bag a tonne of reminders of so many dance floor humiliations and rejections
Chic's Le Freak sounds as fresh to me today as it did then.
This was Elton's entry in the chart at the time, the haunting "Song for Guy". Apparently Elton wrote it the day their 17-year old messenger boy, Guy Burchett was killed in a motorcycle accident in New York.
To end my selection, a bit of good old 70s sleaze...
As the Watford team followed us up the M1 to Nottingham two days later, they were already well on their way to a second successive promotion but, to be honest, I don't think many of us really appreciated the size of the Graham Taylor/Elton John revolution going on there yet.
So, finally, to the City Ground for the big match...
Looking through the Watford team today the one stand-out name on the sheet is Luther Blissett.
Blissett made 415 league appearances for Watford in three different spells, scoring 148 goals. He was also capped 14 times for England, scoring three goals.
Blissett was sold to A.C. Milan in 1982 for a million pounds but didn't enjoy his time there. He scored only 5 goals in thirty appearances and complained that "no matter how much money you have here you can't seem to get Rice Krispies." Of course he returned to play not one, but two more spells for Watford.
The programme...
Forest were unchanged with John Robertson playing in his 117th consecutive match.
I am embarrassed, again, to admit that I have no memory of this game but DO I know I definitely went.
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 David Needham, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Ian Bowyer, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 John O'Hare, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Gary Birtles 2, John Robertson 1.
Watford
1 Steve Sherwood, 2 John Stirk, 3 Keith Pritchett, 4 Dennis Booth, 5 Ian Bolton, 6 Alan Garner, 7 Brian Pollard, 8 Luther Blissett, 9 Ross Jenkins, 10 Roger Joslyn, 11 Keith Cassells.
Goals : Luther Blissett 1.
Substitutions: Alan Mayes(12) came on for Keith Cassells (11).
Attendance: 32,538
Watford shocked Forest by taking an early lead but Forest fought back to lead 2-1 with ten minutes to go. Then, Luther Blissett almost equalised by hitting the bar, before Forest stormed down the other end for Robbo to seal the victory and make it 3-1. (I only wrote that summary after reading the report below but I did know the score was 3-1, honest!)
So, Forest's amazing unbeaten home record (in all competitions) continued. This was their 47th game unbeaten at the City Ground.
So, I'd definitely been to at least 300 games by this day, but probably more.
It was a dull afternoon, with a dull match played between two dull, struggling second division sides. I had absolutely no memory of it whatsoever and was probably best that way. But, thanks (again) to Boro, who was there too, I was reminded of one highlight of the match: It was the outstanding performance of the Blackburn Rovers fullback, Kevin Hird. (Yes, that says it all, really!)
We were obviously not the only ones impressed with him because about a month later Leeds United paid £357,000 for him. This was not only Blackburn's and Leeds' record transfer at the time but also the highest ever in England for a full-back.
It could, though, have been very different, and an exceptionally memorable match indeed, albeit only with the benefit of hindsight. Of course we did not realise the significance of it at the time but Leicester's previous home game, against Oldham Athletic, which was one of the three league games played on New Year's Day (thanks to the hot air tent again) included the debut of a young lad, just turned 18 called... Gary Lineker.
Leicester won 2-0 but the young Lineker was not one of the scorers that day. His first goal for Leicester would come three months later in a 1-0 win at Notts County.
Again only four matches were played in the first division that day. The surprise being Chelsea's 3-2 win at Manchester City.
Because Liverpool's game was called off it meant that West Bromwich Albion stayed top for a little longer.
And Forest stayed top of the 1977-79 composite table too...
Forest's defeat at Arsenal had seen them sink to their lowest position (15th) in the current form (last 3 home/away) table since their promotion back to the top flight but spare a thought for Manchester City: They were now in relegation form! West Brom were on fire and with four other teams on better form than Liverpool, some fans (like me) were wondering if perhaps this could be Albion's year - their first title since 1920-21!
The First Division Top scorers were as follows... Notice, that man again - John Robertson, Forest's top scorer as he was about to play his 118th consecutive game for the club.
So, to Vicarage Road for the second leg...
The good team news for Forest was the Kenny Burns was finally back from injury and played for the first time in almost three months. David Needham made way. Frank Clark was also missing with Ian Bowyer stepping into the left back spot as he was often required to do.
Watford
1 Steve Sherwood, 2 John Stirk, 3 Steve Harrison, 4 Dennis Booth, 5 Ian Bolton, 6 Alan Garner, 7 Brian Pollard, 8 Luther Blissett, 9 Ross Jenkins, 10 Roger Joslyn, 11 Bobby Downes.
Substitutions: Keith Mercer (12) came on for Brian Pollard(7).
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Ian Bowyer, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Attendance: 27,656
The ground was packed on a very cold evening and there was plenty of passion showed from Watford fans but Forest "did a job" on them, professionally, to see us through to another League Cup final and the chance of more silverware.
It's terrible to admit it now, but the win was pretty much expected and the Forest fans were rather blase about it all. On the way back home we were all pretty quiet. How we'd love to go back in time and sit on that bus again now!
This was Forest's 15th successive unbeaten game (home or away) in the League Cup...
Their last defeat in the competition was a 0-3 drubbing at home to Coventry City in the 3rd Round on 21st September 1976, 861 days earlier, almost 2 and a half years.
Forest seemed to have the knack of beating Watford though, even in that brilliant season for them, and a few weeks later I watched Forest v Watford at the City Ground in one of the most remarkable games I'd ever see.
It was a League Cup tie and the measly crowd of 14,583 were treated to a feast of goals. Bizarrely, Forest had beaten West Brom in the 2nd round in the home leg 6-1, with goals from Steve Hodge, Gary Birtles, two from Ian Wallace and two penalties from... John Robertson. Forest lost the away leg 3-1 making the aggregate score 7-4!
The 3rd round tie with Watford remains, even today, the highest scoring game I've ever seen.
All I remember was a blitz of goals and the buzz of appreciation at the end as we all walked away back over Trent Bridge feeling that was money well spent.
Sequence of goals....
Forest 0 Watford 1 (Ross Jenkins)
Forest 1 Watford 1 (Willie Young)
Forest 2 Watford 1 (Mark Proctor)
Forest 3 Watford 1 (Garry Birtles)
Forest 3 Watford 2 (Ross Jenkins)
Forest 4 Watford 2 (Garry Birtles)
Half Time
Forest 5 Watford 2 (Ian Bowyer)
Forest 5 Watford 3 (Les Taylor)
Forest 6 Watford 3 (Mark Proctor)
Forest 7 Watford 3 (Ian Wallace)
It was a great side with seven players missing only two or fewer league games. Those players: Steve Sherwood, in goal, ex-Arsenal Pat Rice at right back, Wilf Rostron at left back, Kenny Jackett at the back, Nigel Callaghan in midfield, Luther Blissett as striker and John Barnes as the demon winger.
Watford never did (so far, anyway) win the League, or the League Cup... or the F.A. Cup. But they did come close just a year later when they made it to the final against Everton.
Here are the match highlights...
Poor old Watford. They must be one of the biggest clubs never to have won a major honour even today.
In fact... of course I can't just make a statement like that and not investigate it a bit more thoroughly.
Turns out my hunch was right. Watford are currently the highest ranked club in England to have never won a major piece of English silverware.
Here's the top five in the "Won Nowt" league...
But it's not all about winning silverware, is it? What about a nice friendly atmosphere at the club? That has to count for something, right?
Here's a match of the day feature from the mid-80s when Watford played Forest at home. They were keen to stress the family friendly atmosphere at Vicarage Road.
So, to finish this very long blog off, here's a chart showing Watford's relative league position compared to Forest's up until 1999.
It always seems strange to me how some teams just seem to jinx others. In the early days, when Forest dominated Watford in terms of league placement, we only won one out of five games against them.
There was no such jinxing in this period, though - or if there was so, it was by us over them. The one season Watford did finish above us in the league, we beat them three times. Watford only beat Forest once in 15 attempts from 1978 up to the end of the last century.
~ ~ ~
For clubs playing above themselves, the inevitable, dreaded question in the minds of their fans is "When are you gonna come down?" For Watford it was 1988, for Forest 1993.
Aye, them wo't' days. I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will. My high flying bird has flown from out my hands. The years went by and our run just died. The English league got bossed by some foreign guys.
I hope you don't mind that I put all this down in words. It's the best I can do. Anyway, my gift is my blog, and this one's for you.
(Sorry!)
I've been a bit harsh on Watford's ground, Vicarage Road here, so to try to make some amends and let Vicarage Road Stadium have the (almost) final (positive) words.
Here are a couple of current images which show how much the club's stadium has been transformed since 1979.
In this post, I'll give a brief outline of Watford Football Club's bizarre chameleon-like (but, it has to be said, remarkably unsuccessful) history before doing a big catch up with what had happened in the world of football in the weeks between Forest beating Brighton in the quarter finals back at the start of December, and this game.
The most famous Watford fan, of course, is Reg Dwight. Y'know... Elton John - so I'll do a bit on him as well, interweaving his career into my life via my dear sister who, as far as I was aware, discovered him, and some of his famous songs into Watford's history up until the point he became chairman of the club in 1976 and from then on, his Captain Fantastic influence on the club ever since.
It was a bleak winter, 40 years ago. In fact it was cold as hell. In January so many games were called off it became a real challenge to even watch a match. If you went along to many scheduled games, there'd be no-one there to see them ... if you did. Luckily some of us at Nottingham University were up for the challenge. So, I'll also include accounts of one or two football crazy trips we did. I'll cover both the home and away legs of the Forest v Watford semi-final, but not the Southampton v Leeds semi, which I also did go to in this period. I plan to cover that in the Cup Final blog. There are a few personal football-nerd landmarks for me here, too, to log for reference purposes. I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind.
And, as usual, I'll peek into the future from this match and note how, under Graham Taylor - Elton John's most impressive appointment - Watford reached the pinnacle of 2nd place, behind Liverpool (of course) in the First Division in 1982-83. Ironically, that was the season when Forest beat Watford three times, scoring 12 goals and conceding 4.
Finally, as this is the first post since a new Martin O'Neill era began at Forest, I'll throw a few snippets about him in here too - much more to follow in subsequent blog posts, though.
Previously: Brighton & Hove Albion
North of What?
It's a little bit funny... but the joke we in the midlands (and I suspect northern England and Scotland) sometimes say about cockneys, and other Londoners, is that they are supposed to be geographically quite ignorant about most of the United Kingdom. Ask them "Where is... <insert your own town here>?" and the answer that is most likely to come back is "Dunno. Somewhere north of Watford".
Watford is probably the nearest town to London that is definitely not in London. It's in Hertfordshire, one of the so-called "home counties" - that is one of those that generally surround London. It always used to be Hertfordshire's only league club until, of course (silly me for forgetting), Stevenage F.C. came into the league in 2010.
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| Watford is in Hertfordshire |
Watford's First 80 Years
Watford, like Brighton (the last club I looked at) had a rather uneventful time in the lower reaches of the league, usually southern ones, for most of their early history.
The first 'proper' football club in the town was called Watford Rovers, founded in 1881. Another club, called Watford St Mary's, started a few years later. Watford Rovers renamed themselves West Herts in 1891 and they were the No 1 local side, representing Watford in the Southern League for a couple of years before they merged with Watford St Mary's to start Watford Football Club in 1898.
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| West Herts (formerly Watford Rovers) first season in the Southern League Division Two in 1896 |
So, 1898 is the year when the history of Watford Football Club really began. I can't help feeling a bit smug in commenting that, of course, this was 33 years after Nottingham Forest were founded.
33 years.
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| Watford's first season known as such, in 1898 |
The Lithuanian patriotic nerd inside me makes me wonder if there could have been any influence from people from the southern-most Baltic state as these are the colours of the Lithuanian tricolor, but of course it must be coincidental as Lithuania was, at the time, still part of the Russian empire and I doubt the flag had even been conceived at this time.
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| Lietuviškos trispalvos |
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| Watford in yellow, green and red stripes in 1898 |
From brilliantly colourful (for 11 years) Watford then changed to a more serious-looking black-and-white as the team started to challenge towards the top of the Southern League, which they finally won in 1914-15, the last season before the first World War. This would be Watford's only Southern League title.
A couple of seasons before that title win, Watford played away at Wolverhampton Wanderers in an F.A. Cup 1st Round replay. They had drawn the first match 0-0 at Cassio Road (their ground before they moved to Vicarage Road) but lost at Molineaux 10-0. This is still Watford's worst ever defeat.
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| Watford's Rainbow of Colours (from HistoricKits.comhttp://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Watford/Watford.htm) |
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| Southern League Champions 1914-15 |
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| Watford win the Southern League just before the First World War |
After the war, Watford, like Brighton and 21 other southern teams, joined the football league, in Division Three South.
Watford's first league season was a good one, and they finished 6th. But, again like Brighton, their fate was to stagnate, year after year, in the same division through the entire length of their early league history.
In 1922 the club moved from Cassio Road into their still current home, Vicarage Road. At the time the land on which the ground was built was owned by Benskins Brewery (later, in 1957, to be one of several taken over by Ind Coope) and so the club became known as "the brewers".
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| Watford were "the Brewers" 1922 - 1959 |
In 1927 the club were facing serious financial difficulties and they attempted a "re-branding" changing their colours to blue shirts and white shorts, and their nickname, not very imaginatively, to "the blues". For ten years, the club, uniquely as far as I know, changed again to turquoise shirts and white shorts.
The result in mid-late 1930s was that Watford had a good spell and challenged for promotion to the second division for five consecutive seasons, only falling away in the final season just before the second world war, which of course caused the football league to be suspended once more.
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| Action at Vicarage Road in the 1930s. |
The first season after the war, in 1945-46, the F.A. Cup was organised but not the league. Watford had a decent run, beating Southend United 4-1 (this was on aggregate - as all cup matches were played over two legs for this one season) in the first round, and then Bromley 4-2 (on agg.) in the 2nd. This earned them a 3rd round cup draw against ... Nottingham Forest. This was the first time the clubs had met in a competitive fixture. On 5th January, the City Ground tie was drawn 1-1 and four days later, so too was the second leg at Vicarage Road. So, the game needed a replay, which was played back in Nottingham a week later. Forest's second division status counted for nothing and this time Watford won 1-0 to go through to the fourth round. Waiting for them were Birmingham City who won through 6-1 on aggregate.
Forest's relegation from Division Two in 1949 put them in the same division as Watford for the first time in the 1949-50 season. Forest finished above the Hertforshire side but Watford did the double over us, winning both games 1-0.
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| Forest and Watford in the same league for the first time |
Only three points and two places separated the sides that season but the gap was set to get much bigger the next, as Forest ran away with the division whilst Watford finished second from bottom. Forest finally managed to beat them (but only 2-1 at home) on our 5th attempt, on 17th March 1951. That was the last competitive match played between the clubs for almost 28 years before the semi-final I'm reporting on here.
Around this time, however, another important, but somewhat tenuous, link between the clubs was born. It's a link that definitely went by the name of Dwight but not much else is certain. There are contradictions in the details from couple of on-line accounts about this but what seems to be beyond doubt is that somewhere in the London area, in 1925, a man called Stanley Dwight was born, and eight years later, another called Roy Dwight. Stan's dad was called Edwin and so was Roy's, so it seems plausible that Stan and Roy were brothers. But, according to Roy's Wikipedia page, it was Roy's dad, Edwin and Stanley that were brothers. That just can't be right, though, as they are from different generations.
The point is that Stanley Dwight was destined to be the father to a boy they called Reg who, most will know, would become the star musician, Elton John, whilst Roy went on to be a footballer, first for Fulham and then, four years later, Forest. It was Roy Dwight who scored the opening goal at Wembley against Luton Town in Forest's 2-1 Cup winning season in 1959. Later in the match, with Forest 2-0 up, he was carried off the pitch with a broken leg. These were the days before substitutions were allowed, so Forest had to battle for almost an hour - a man down. Luton pulled one back but Forest clung on to win, the only team ever to do so with ten men.
Roy's mother and father died when he was young, so he lived with his grandfather, but I've not been able to find any confirmation that this particular Dwight was the same man as the grandfather of Stan's, who's name was William. It's all a bit confusing. I must admit. A few of these facts, well they've got me quite cross.
Something's not Dwight here!
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| Elton's Uncle Roy? |
Anyway, Watford's poor league form continued for a few years after the resumption of league football before it started to pick up again in the early 1950s. In the 1953-54 and 1954-55 seasons they looked like they could go up and among the more optimistic of Watford's throng in those days, it seems, was one of their youngest fans - a little boy called Reg Dwight.
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| A young Watford fan in the 1950s |
In 1957-58 the league was re-structured, which ended Watford's 32 consecutive years in the same division. Unlike Brighton, who ironically won the division to get promotion, Watford ended in the bottom half and thus were assigned to play in the fourth division the next season.
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| Watford doomed to play in the inaugural Division Four |
In parallel to Brighton, who I reported upon in my last post, Watford also had one of the longest runs of stagnation in football league history. Their 32 successive seasons in Division Three South is the joint 19th longest of all the clubs' record in the league.
Here are the six teams that stayed the entire course of the history of Division Three South, from beginning to end, ranked in terms of the number of points won. Reading missed out on five of the seasons but still had a better record than Exeter.
And, for completion's sake, here's the same table for Division Three North, which started on year later. Eight clubs stayed the full 31 year course. Hands up who did not realise Wigan Borough and New Brighton were included in that list? (Me!)
Anyway, back to the new four division format and Watford's presence in the basement division...
Watford reached their nadir in 1959, finishing their lowest ever, 15th in Division Four.
It would seem that reaching this low point caused a crisis of confidence at the club and so, yet again, the club did a complete re-branding, changing their colours dramatically once more - this time to gold and black. I think the only two colours Watford have never used is going from purple into grey.
Thanks to a popular vote of fans, the club's nickname was also changed - to their now current one - "The Hornets".
It's funny how such things can affect a club but the change sparked an immediate upturn in fortunes and the very next season the club won promotion back to Division Three.
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| The Watford team that won promotion in 1960 (from Blind Stupid & Desperate.) |
Ken Furphy became Watford manager in 1964 and almost brought them promotion to the second division immediately. They just missed promotion again (by just one point) again in 1966-67, being pipped by Middlesbrough.
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| Ken Furphy with the Third Division Title in 1969 |
But they finally did make it to the second tier in 1969, winning the title on goal average from Swindon Town.
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| Watford team 1969 |
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| Watford Celebrate promotion to the Second Division in 1969 (from Moving Up) |
Watford also had a great result in the F.A. Cup that season, drawing 1-1 at Old Trafford before losing the replay at Vicarage Road.
Here's some great footage from their impressive draw in front of over 63,000 at Old Trafford.
They lost the replay, but the attendance of 34,099 remains the highest ever at Vicarage Road.
Here's Ken Furphy giving a very frank and detailed talk to the players before playing Manchester United.
Such confidence! I wonder if Nigel Clough prepared his Burton Albion team like that before their trip to the Etihad last night (Manchester City beat Burton Albion 9-0 in the League Cup semi-final 1st leg last night as I write this.)
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| Watford - 3rd Division Champions 1968-69 |
It was around this time of rare glory for Watford that a young Elton John was launching his brilliant career in music. Bizarrely, I was kind of a fan of his from very early on. This was because my dear sister discovered Elton, it seemed to me, before anyone else had even heard of him. She went to see him in a concert (I think it was the one at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, in March 1973) when he was
I got most of my early musical tastes from my big sister and her boyfriend. I felt privileged and "cool" to know bands that played stuff that was more sophisticated than the usual crap of my age group. My musical preferences today are still largely shaped by those early, formative years.
One example is the progressive rock band, "Camel" which my sister got me into. "Never Let Go" from their first album is still one of my all-time goose bump-inducing favourite tracks. All these years later, my new favourite band, (although they disbanded years ago) Porcupine Tree, remind me of them even today. Thanks for the heads up there to my daughter's boyfriend, Elden Garrett (who is, himself, an excellent guitarist, by the way.).
My sister, of course, bought all of Elton John's records, including his first album "Empty Sky." Even my dad (not the most tolerant of 1970s "pop" bands - "blady woolly heads!") didn't mind him too much, although he always called him "Elton Johnson."
Here's an early classic, released in 1969 on the album, Empty Sky - one of my all time favourites, "Skyline Pigeon."
Meanwhile, Watford were now flying away in the second division for the first time in their history, towards the dreams they'd left so very far behind - but they still avoided Forest as we were still (only just) a First Division team.
In 1970 Elton released his second album, just called "Elton John."
Here he is performing the classic "Your Song" from the album on Top of the Pops...
In 1969-70 Watford had a great cup run which included wins at Bolton, home to Stoke City and a massive F.A. Cup quarter final victory against Liverpool. Barry Endean got the winner in that match.
Here's some great footage of that match...
Unfortunately for Watford, in the semi finals (at White Hart Lane), they faced eventual winners Chelsea and got hammered 5-1. Again, here's the action...
Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin were prolific in their early years and they launched their third album in 17 months in October 1970 with Tumbleweed Connection.
Here's one of my favourite tracks from the album, "Amoreena".
By then, Elton had released another two brilliant albums.
Madman Across the Water...
... which included perhaps his best ever song, "Tiny Dancer" made even more famous though the film "Almost Famous".
Here he is singing it on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1971.
The second album was "Honky Chateau", released in May 1972, which included another Elton John classic...
Rocket Man...
His incredible creativity continued in 1973 with two more albums.
"Don't Shoot me I'm only the Piano Player" included two of his best known songs...
Daniel...
and Crocodile Rock...
I also love "High Flying Bird" from that album...
His SEVENTH in FOUR years was another classic, and a double album - "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."
This included the title track .... played here on Top of the Pops...
Elton clearly had the "Midas touch" and his success just went on and on with another three albums in the next three years: Caribou, Captain Fantastic and "Rock of the Westies" (which I must admit I'd never even heard of when I wrote this). It has to be said that from around this point in time his music did start to lose some of its appeal for me. But it was also during this period that Elton started to take a much more serious interest in football and his home town club, Watford, who were definitely having a decidedly less successful time.
Maybe Elton could sprinkle some of his magic in their direction.
He first got involved in an official capacity (as "President") in 1973 but within three years, he'd be chairman of the club.
Just before we get into that critical part of Watford's history and their link with their most famous son, here's one more Elton classic from the 1970s. This song brings back strong memories for me as it was played to death at discos in the summer of 1976 as I spent my first holiday away from my parents, up at Filey Butlins. I could write a whole blog on what happened there, but rather than open up that hornet's nest, I leave it here, maybe to revisit the subject in a future post.
Watford were languishing back in the fourth division, when Elton became chairman and he obviously loved being heavily involved from day one.
He was obviously able to give some much needed financial support but he also made some really smart decisions, notably the appointment of a rising star of English football management, Graham Taylor in June 1977.
Taylor, was born in Worksop, Notts, grew up in Scunthorpe but made 189 league appearances as fullback for Grimsby Town before joining Lincoln City where he made another 150 appearances before becoming their player manager in 1972.
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| Graham Taylor - Lincoln City Full-back |
Under Taylor, Lincoln City won the fourth division by a canter in 1976 and so it was an inspired appointment by Elton John that took him down to Watford a year later to try to do the same thing there.
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| Graham Taylor and Elton John |
With Elton holding the purse strings and Graham Taylor in charge of the football, there was only one direction for Watford and that was up.
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| Elton celebrates promotion back to the Third Division in 1978. |
It's ironic how Forest's meteoric rise to glory under Clough & Taylor happened pretty much at the same time as Elton John and Graham Taylor brought success to Watford. Clearly, the hornets were starting from a much lower base and they never reached the heights that Forest did, but their rise was, in many ways, just as astonishing.
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| Watford start their rise up the tables under Graham Taylor |
So that just about covers a quick snapshot of Watford's history. Again, similarities with Brighton abound, even to the point of Forest's 100% league domination over them by the start of 1978-79 season.
But in 81 years of Watford's history they'd only played Forest nine times...
... and they had the far better record: Played P Won 1 Drawn 3 Lost 3 For 5 Against 7.
Catching Up
So, let's now catch up now to the date of the semi final from the last blog for the quarter final against Brighton. What else had happened in the world of football since the Brighton game?That week, at Chelsea, Danny Blanchflower had become their new manager (staying with North Ireland at the same time) until the end of the season after previous manager Ken Shellito resigned.
Three days after beating Brighton 3-1 to reach this League Cup semi-final, Forest were back in league action and managed a 1-0 win at home to Birmingham City.
16th December 1978: 150th Match at the City Ground: (Match 293)
Nottingham Forest 1 Birmingham City 0
(211th Forest match, 3rd Birmingham )
Here's the match day programme...
Notice who the player focus was that day?
Forest were unchanged for the match, so no place for Martin that day..
Notice who the player focus was that day?
As I write this (the day after Martin was appointed Forest manager, I am still bubbling with excitement like an eight year old. It has to be the best appointment the club has made in 44 years, since Brian Clough came through the door.
Forest were unchanged for the match, so no place for Martin that day..
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 5 David Needham, 7 Ian Bowyer, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 John O'Hare, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Archie Gemmill 1.
Birmingham City
1 Jim Montgomery, 2 Jimmy Calderwood, 3 Mark Dennis, 4 Bruce Rioch, 5 Joe Gallacher, 6 Malcom Page, 7 Kevin Dillon, 8 Trevor Francis, 9 Don Givens, 10 Alan Buckley, 11 Stewart Barrowclough.
Substitutions: Alan Ainscow(12) came on for Alan Buckley (10).
The big results of the day were Bristol City beating Liverpool and Middlesbrough's 7-2 thrashing of Chelsea. Not a great start for Danny Blanchflower, then!
The video coverage of matches in these days was very patchy. Four highlights are available on-line of matches that day - but none of any of the the League Cup semi-final matches!
Bristol City 1 Liverpool 0
Joe Royle's cool strike in the 73rd minute gave the Robbins a famous win.
Everton 1 Leeds United 1
John Hawley's first half goal was cancelled out by a storming free kick from Trevor Ross in the second.
Middlesbrough 7 Chelsea 2
Amazingly, Peter Osgood put Chelsea 1-0 up in the 25th minute. It was 3-1 at half time. The sixth from Terry Cochrane was probably the best of the bunch.
Queen's Park Rangers 2 Manchester City 1
The substitute Billy Hamilton scored a great first goal in the second half.Mick Channon's late goal was too little too late.
The current form (last three home/away games) was as follows...
Liverpool's defeat and Forest's win put us back on top of the 1977-79 cumulative table.
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| Back on top |
Watford were playing fellow third division Southend United in the second round of the F.A. Cup that day. They drew 1-1 but lost the replay.
In the midweek following, on 19th December, the Football Association imposed a ten year ban on Don Revie for 'bringing the game into disrepute" after signing a deal with the United Arab Emirates whilst still in the England job.
The week after, Forest played away at Manchester City in the league.
I didn't go but here are the highlights...
... and a match report...
Martin O'Neill returned to the team after missing the last two league games.
In other matches Everton lost their first game of the season, at Coventry City... so there were no more unbeaten clubs in the first division.
The result of the day was Arsenal's amazing 5-0 thrashing of Spurs at White Hart Lane.
Liverpool and West Brom didn't play, so Everton's defeat meant that Arsenal were the big gainers that day. West Brom and Arsenal were now the "in form" teams.
As I said, I didn't go to Maine Road to see Forest, but I did nip along to Meadow Lane for the second time this season to watch Notts County in their second division match against Sunderland.
Saturday, 23rd December 1978, Match 294: Notts County 1 Sunderland 1 (Second Division) Meadow Lane 16. 27th time I saw Notts County, 6th time Sunderland.
Thanks to a huge away following, it was one of Notts County's biggest crowds of the season.
Notts County and Sunderland were both on the edge of the promotion race.
Watford won 1-0 at Colchester United to stay top of the Third Division.
Boxing Day 1979
I was becoming more football mad than ever at this time and having broken up from university I was excited as Boxing Day gave me the opportunity to watch two games on the same day.Here is a list of all the Boxing Day matches I have ever seen. As you can see, on 26th December 1979, I attended two.
Match 295: Sheffield United 1 Newcastle United 0 - 4th time at Bramall Lane. 7th time I'd seen Sheffield United, 6th time Newcastle United.)
I think the match at Bramall Lane was a noon kick off - either that or a 1 pm kick off and I left the second half early to get back to Nottingham. Just like at Notts, there was a big contingent of fans from the North-East, pushing the crowd to over 23,000, their highest attendance of the season.
After the game, we jumped in the car and sped back down the M1 to watch the big Derby derby. See my blog of last season for more about the Forest-Derby rivalry and a comparison with other local derbies in the UK. I think it's one of the best I've done.
Match 296: Nottingham Forest 1 Derby County 1 (151st Match at the City Ground. 212th Forest match, 8th Derby)
So, not much to say about this match but here's the programme...
Forest were unchanged...
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 David Needham, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Tony Woodcock 1.
Derby County
1 David McKeller, 2 David Langan, 3 Steve Buckley, 4 Gerry Daly, 5 Roy McFarland, 6 David Webb, 7 Steve Carter, 8 Barry Powell, 9 John Duncan, 10 Billy Caskey, 11 Gordon Hill.
Goals : Gerry Daly 1.
Substitutions: Vic Moreland(12) came on for Steve Carter (7).
Attendance: 34,342
And here's the match report from the Guardian...
Martin O'Neill's most significant contribution on the day was to give away the penalty that put Derby in front.
Liverpool stormed back to winning ways beating Manchester United 3-0 in front of the biggest crowd of the day, almost 55,000.
West Brom also had a massive win, 2-1 at fellow in form side, Arsenal.
Bristol City continued their great form with a stonking 5-0 win against Coventry City.
The current form table now looked like this with Bristol City up in 3rd place.
Watford drew 2-2 at Shrewsbury Town at Gay Meadow on Boxing Day, but they stayed top.
After Christmas, on 27th December, Kevin Keegan was voted European player of the Year. He had left Liverpool for the German club, Hamburger SV, at the end of the 1976-77 season. Hamburg were currently on their way to winning the Bundesliga and Keegan was winning rave reviews every week.
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| Kevin Keegan - European Player of the Year 1978 |
Forest's scheduled home match against Norwich City was one of the many casualties of the cold weather so I got a rare Saturday off.
Saturday, 30th December 1978
Seven first division games were played that day.
As Liverpool's game was also called off, this allowed Everton to join them on 33 points and for Ron Atkinson's West Bromwich Albion to move to just two points behind the Merseyside pair.
Here is some great footage of West Brom's amazing 5-3 win at Old Trafford which was the big result of the day. Shocking to hear the racist abuse against Regis, Cunningham and Batson from the Old Trafford fans. The clip also includes coverage of Arsenal's win over Birmingham.
Here's Ipswich's 5-1 thrashing of Chelsea. John Motson the commentator.
Watford won 2-0 at home to Swindon Town in their last game of 1978 to stay top of Division Three.
So, ended 1978. It was a great year for Forest, of course, but if you compile a table of First Division matches played only in 1978, Forest only have the third best record.
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| Forest's record in 1978. Only one defeat, but 21 draws. |
1979 !!
The traditional New Year's Day fixture list was almost completely wiped out and only three games were finished, including a single game in the First Division which, significantly, saw West Bromwich Albion beat another in-form side, Bristol City, 3-1.So, into the new year and it was onto the F.A. Cup and what was always one of the best days in the football calendar, the 3rd Round where the big clubs could get drawn against the minors from the lower leagues or even from outside the Football League altogether.
F.A. Cup 3rd Round 1978-79
Forest had been drawn at home, but to a fellow first division side, Aston Villa who were mid table and on decent form, so it would be a tough challenge for certain.
Match 297: Nottingham Forest 2 Aston Villa 0 (152nd Match at the City Ground. 213th Forest match, 10th Villa)
Again, not much to say here, but here's the match day programme ...
Note that although the programme says the match day was Saturday, 6th January, it was postponed and actually played four days later, on Wednesday night.
Only three scheduled games were actually played on that Saturday, which was an all-time low for the third round - equal with the big freeze of 1963.
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 David Needham, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: David Needham 1. Allan Evans o.g.
Aston Villa
1 Jimmy Rimmer, 2 John Gidman, 3 Gary Williams, 4 Allan Evans, 5 Kenneth McNaught, 6 Dennis Mortimer, 7 Tommy Craig, 8 Ken Swain, 9 John Deehan, 10 Gordan Cowans, 11 John Gregory.
Attendance: 29,550
Match Report...
This was Forest's 46th consecutive unbeaten home game (in all competitions).
Here's the full list of F.A. Cup 3rd Round ties that season. Note how from first tie to last, the round almost took a month to complete, such was the disruption by the weather that year.
44 games were needed before the 32 teams for the 4th round were finally decided. Notice also the epic battle between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday that took four replays to resolve - that's five matches altogether. I covered the topic of replays in my F.A. Cup 5th round replay blog v QPR last season if anyone is interested.
Here are some highlights from a few third round matches (alas not Forest's)...
Leicester 3 Norwich 0
Sheffield Wednesday 1 Arsenal 1
Stoke v Oldham was abandoned at half time
Southend v Liverpool. Record attendance
The Saturday after that, Forest were back in league action at in-form Arsenal and Forest lost 2-1.
Saturday, 13th January 1979: Arsenal 2 Nottingham Forest 1
£450,000 signing, Brian Talbot made his Arsenal debut after transferring from Ipswich two days earlier. The fee was Arsenal's highest at the time but it fell slightly short of the £482,222 West Brom had just paid to Middlesbrough for their striker David Mills, which was a new record for an English club.
Forest were unchanged again...
Arsenal
1 Pat Jennings, 2 Steve Walford, 3 Sammy Nelson, 4 Brian Talbot, 5 David O'Leary, 6 Willie Young, 7 Liam Brady, 8 Alan Sunderland, 9 Frank Stapleton, 9 Frank Stapleton, 10 David Price, 11 Graham Rix.
Goals: Frank Stapleton 1, David Price 1.
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 David Needham, 6 Larry Lloyd, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : John Robertson 1.
Attendance: 52,158
John Robertson scored the opener for Forest in his 116th consecutive match for Forest. Sorry to keep banging on about that but it is the most astonishing statistic that Robbo was still not even half way through his amazing run of 239 successive first team appearances for the Reds. Surely the best run ever, for a team at the peak of Europe. (Click here for more on Robbo's amazing run.)
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| Brian Talbot |
Arsenal
1 Pat Jennings, 2 Steve Walford, 3 Sammy Nelson, 4 Brian Talbot, 5 David O'Leary, 6 Willie Young, 7 Liam Brady, 8 Alan Sunderland, 9 Frank Stapleton, 9 Frank Stapleton, 10 David Price, 11 Graham Rix.
Goals: Frank Stapleton 1, David Price 1.
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 David Needham, 6 Larry Lloyd, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : John Robertson 1.
Attendance: 52,158
John Robertson scored the opener for Forest in his 116th consecutive match for Forest. Sorry to keep banging on about that but it is the most astonishing statistic that Robbo was still not even half way through his amazing run of 239 successive first team appearances for the Reds. Surely the best run ever, for a team at the peak of Europe. (Click here for more on Robbo's amazing run.)
Here are the highlights of the match. Brian Moore is the commentator, of course. Forest could (and should) have been 3-0 up before Arsenal equalised through David Price. But the defeat seemed to signal the end of Forest's title ambitions as Liverpool were showing such awesome form in the league.
And the match report...
Only three other first division games were played that day.
This was the match that put West Brom at the top of the table for first (and only) time in the season...
Here are the Baggies, top of the league...
Destination: Sincil Bank
I didn't go Arsenal, or any matches that day, as the big freeze was still going on north of Watford, but some of us football-crazy lads from uni did try to go to one match. A group of us set off from Nottingham with the team at the bottom of the third division, Lincoln City's, home match (I think against Southend United) in mind.Clearly, since the departure of Graham Taylor to Watford, things hadn't gone well for the Imps and they were set for a return back to the bottom tier.
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| Graham Taylor must have gone breakin' Lincoln's hearts |
So, from my dark and lonely room of Sherwood Hall I joined up with the lads and we set off. We caught the train from Nottingham, over green fields, trees, but not mountains... to Lincoln. But upon arriving to find out that the match was another victim of the weather we consoled ourselves by going on a pub crawl in beautiful Lincoln city center. We definitely wanted to get a belly full of beer. We arriving back in Nottingham late that evening completely sozzled.
When we got back I think we found a disco that was going on and, oiled as diesel trains, we set the dance alight (but not in a nice way.) I was drunker than a barrel full of monkeys and I was looking for a dolly to see me right (some chance!). Amazingly, this Saturday night was alright but I don't think there was any fighting.
It is embarrassing to think of the childish antics we got up to in those days (and on that night!) but one, most bizarrely, was "doing a hulk". Apparently I used to think it was really funny to pretend to be the hulk to random students passing by at Sherwood Hall. It's little wonder I never had a girl friend during those years! I feel heartily ashamed of myself.
The following Monday, recovered from a four-star hangover, and determined to see some football, my Boro-supporting mate (called, you'll never guess - "Boro") and I left Nottingham University early in the afternoon and caught the train to London to watch his team in another weather-affected F.A. Cup tie.
Match 298: Crystal Palace 1 Middlesbrough 0 (1st visit to Selhurst Park. 3rd time seen Crystal Palace, 7th time Middlesbrough)
It was quite an adventure, especially getting back after the match. Boro managed to persuade a coach driver of Middlesbrough fans to let us get a lift up to junction 25 on the M1 for a couple of quid.
Selhurst Park was my 49th English ground visited...
I was simultaneously delighted, and embarrassed, to find this entry in my diary written the day after.
Presumably I paid £1.50 at the turnstile to get in, to make the total £14.
It was a long journey up the M1, when the coach finally got out of the London traffic (before the days of the M25 of course) and several hours were spent counting the headlights on the highway. Still, it was good of the coach driver to come off the motorway and let us off at the A52 junction but the walk home was still horrible. It was freezing and a bloody long way. As I write in my diary, I only got back to Sherwood Hall at 2:20 am.
Still, it was another great adventure and, of course, I have no regrets whatsoever.
It was a long journey up the M1, when the coach finally got out of the London traffic (before the days of the M25 of course) and several hours were spent counting the headlights on the highway. Still, it was good of the coach driver to come off the motorway and let us off at the A52 junction but the walk home was still horrible. It was freezing and a bloody long way. As I write in my diary, I only got back to Sherwood Hall at 2:20 am.
Still, it was another great adventure and, of course, I have no regrets whatsoever.
The "Pop" Music scene that week
As this blog has a very musical theme, here is the UK Top Twenty as it was when we played Watford in the League Cup Semi Finals...Not many of those are songs I'd want to play again but here's a few...
Earth Wind and Fire's "September" plucks lots of nostalgic chords for me, none happy. It brings bag a tonne of reminders of so many dance floor humiliations and rejections
Chic's Le Freak sounds as fresh to me today as it did then.
This was Elton's entry in the chart at the time, the haunting "Song for Guy". Apparently Elton wrote it the day their 17-year old messenger boy, Guy Burchett was killed in a motorcycle accident in New York.
To end my selection, a bit of good old 70s sleaze...
As the Watford team followed us up the M1 to Nottingham two days later, they were already well on their way to a second successive promotion but, to be honest, I don't think many of us really appreciated the size of the Graham Taylor/Elton John revolution going on there yet.
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| Watford on their way to a second successive promotion. |
So, finally, to the City Ground for the big match...
Match 299: League Cup Semi-Final (First Leg) Nottingham Forest v Watford (153rd Match at the City Ground. 214th Forest match, 1st time seen Watford
As Watford were coasting at the top of the third division they were full of confidence having reached the semi-final in the League Cup for the first (of two) time. They certainly didn't hold much fear for Cloughie and his team of champions that night.
Looking through the Watford team today the one stand-out name on the sheet is Luther Blissett.
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| Blissett - Watford hero |
Blissett was sold to A.C. Milan in 1982 for a million pounds but didn't enjoy his time there. He scored only 5 goals in thirty appearances and complained that "no matter how much money you have here you can't seem to get Rice Krispies." Of course he returned to play not one, but two more spells for Watford.
The programme...
Forest were unchanged with John Robertson playing in his 117th consecutive match.
I am embarrassed, again, to admit that I have no memory of this game but DO I know I definitely went.
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| Birtles equalises |
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| Birtles... 2-1! |
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| Robbo - 3-1 |
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 David Needham, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Ian Bowyer, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 John O'Hare, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Gary Birtles 2, John Robertson 1.
Watford
1 Steve Sherwood, 2 John Stirk, 3 Keith Pritchett, 4 Dennis Booth, 5 Ian Bolton, 6 Alan Garner, 7 Brian Pollard, 8 Luther Blissett, 9 Ross Jenkins, 10 Roger Joslyn, 11 Keith Cassells.
Goals : Luther Blissett 1.
Substitutions: Alan Mayes(12) came on for Keith Cassells (11).
Attendance: 32,538
Watford shocked Forest by taking an early lead but Forest fought back to lead 2-1 with ten minutes to go. Then, Luther Blissett almost equalised by hitting the bar, before Forest stormed down the other end for Robbo to seal the victory and make it 3-1. (I only wrote that summary after reading the report below but I did know the score was 3-1, honest!)
So, Forest's amazing unbeaten home record (in all competitions) continued. This was their 47th game unbeaten at the City Ground.
What happened next?
13 days after the first leg at the City Ground, I went down the M1, just north of London, to see the second leg. In the 12 days in between the two games I managed to fit in a further three matches: Leicester City v Blackburn Rovers in Division Two, Leeds United v Southampton in the other League semi-final and Forest's F.A. Cup 4th Round tie at home to York City.
I'll cover the York City match in the next blog for the F.A. Cup 5th Round match at home to Arsenal and the Southampton v Leeds game when I do a post about the final, but I'll just mention the game at Filbert Street here as they were one of the few clubs around at the time with any kind of weather protection (a great big air bag over the pitch) and, again it was another severely weather-hit day.
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| Filbert Street's hot air tent meant this game was always likely to be on |
Forest would have played Manchester United at home that day but, of course, it was called off so we caught a train from Nottingham to Leicester and then walked to Filbert Street to watch Leicester City play out a totally unmemorable 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers in the second division.
It's a testament to how fanatical we were at the time, that even as many first division clubs failed to play a single game in January 1979, I still managed to go to seven!
Match 300, on 20th January 1979: Leicester City 1 Blackburn Rovers 1 (2nd time at Filbert Street, 5th time seen Leicester, 4th time Blackburn)
I didn't realise it at the time, but I reckon this was probably my 300th game attended. My record keeping, in the early days of going to matches wasn't quite as detailed as it should have been and according to my log book in which I noted all my games, I'd already been to 309 by this stage - (my 300th game, according to that log, was Chesterfield v Darlington) but when I entered all my games I'd attended into my database I couldn't find definitive proof of going to some of these games - they were probably friendlies at local amateur teams like Sutton Town - they used to play teams like Sheffield United or Wednesday in pre-season friendlies - so, one has to err on the side of caution, I think.So, I'd definitely been to at least 300 games by this day, but probably more.
It was a dull afternoon, with a dull match played between two dull, struggling second division sides. I had absolutely no memory of it whatsoever and was probably best that way. But, thanks (again) to Boro, who was there too, I was reminded of one highlight of the match: It was the outstanding performance of the Blackburn Rovers fullback, Kevin Hird. (Yes, that says it all, really!)
We were obviously not the only ones impressed with him because about a month later Leeds United paid £357,000 for him. This was not only Blackburn's and Leeds' record transfer at the time but also the highest ever in England for a full-back.
It could, though, have been very different, and an exceptionally memorable match indeed, albeit only with the benefit of hindsight. Of course we did not realise the significance of it at the time but Leicester's previous home game, against Oldham Athletic, which was one of the three league games played on New Year's Day (thanks to the hot air tent again) included the debut of a young lad, just turned 18 called... Gary Lineker.
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| If only we'd gone to their previous match - and not this! |
Leicester won 2-0 but the young Lineker was not one of the scorers that day. His first goal for Leicester would come three months later in a 1-0 win at Notts County.
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| We almost saw his league debut at 18 |
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| Leicester v Blackburn - Not the greatest match , but a rare one played that day |
Again only four matches were played in the first division that day. The surprise being Chelsea's 3-2 win at Manchester City.
Because Liverpool's game was called off it meant that West Bromwich Albion stayed top for a little longer.
And Forest stayed top of the 1977-79 composite table too...
Forest's defeat at Arsenal had seen them sink to their lowest position (15th) in the current form (last 3 home/away) table since their promotion back to the top flight but spare a thought for Manchester City: They were now in relegation form! West Brom were on fire and with four other teams on better form than Liverpool, some fans (like me) were wondering if perhaps this could be Albion's year - their first title since 1920-21!
The First Division Top scorers were as follows... Notice, that man again - John Robertson, Forest's top scorer as he was about to play his 118th consecutive game for the club.
So, to Vicarage Road for the second leg...
50th Ground: Vicarage Road. Match 303: Watford 0 Nottingham Forest 0. (Watford 2nd time, Forest 217th)
This definitely was my 50th ground visited and what a dump it was too. I don't remember much about it other than it taking ages for the bus to find the car park by the ground and then we had to walk a maze-like route through some allotments (thanks, Boro - he was there too!) to the ground.
As I mentioned earlier, Watford changed grounds (and nicknames) in 1922 when they moved from Cassio Road to Vicarage Road, which was owned by Benskins Brewery - hence the club's nickname became "The Brewers".
Before football was played there it was just used as a gravel pit.
The Nickname (and colours) changed again in 1959 to the "hornets" but they remained at Vicarage Road, as they still do to this day.
Here are a couple of aerial photos of the ground in 1932 when Watford were a mid-table side in Division Three South...
The ground had a greyhound track around it for much of its history and it really was a ram-shackled old wreck for decades.
As the journey down from Nottingham to Watford was pretty much M1 all the way I think if Google had existed in 1979 it would have plotted the same route, pretty much as today.
This was waiting for us at the end of the road...
Watford's programme was also a bit "third division".
Before football was played there it was just used as a gravel pit.
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| Benskins Brewery with its gravel pit pre 1922 - soon to be home of Watford F.C. |
The Nickname (and colours) changed again in 1959 to the "hornets" but they remained at Vicarage Road, as they still do to this day.
Here are a couple of aerial photos of the ground in 1932 when Watford were a mid-table side in Division Three South...
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| Vicarage Road ca 1932 |
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| Vicarage Road in 1969 - promoted to the Second Division |
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| Pretty much the same journey today |
This was waiting for us at the end of the road...
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| No more greyhound track - but still a dump of a ground in 1979 |
Watford's programme was also a bit "third division".
The good team news for Forest was the Kenny Burns was finally back from injury and played for the first time in almost three months. David Needham made way. Frank Clark was also missing with Ian Bowyer stepping into the left back spot as he was often required to do.
Watford
1 Steve Sherwood, 2 John Stirk, 3 Steve Harrison, 4 Dennis Booth, 5 Ian Bolton, 6 Alan Garner, 7 Brian Pollard, 8 Luther Blissett, 9 Ross Jenkins, 10 Roger Joslyn, 11 Bobby Downes.
Substitutions: Keith Mercer (12) came on for Brian Pollard(7).
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Ian Bowyer, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Attendance: 27,656
The ground was packed on a very cold evening and there was plenty of passion showed from Watford fans but Forest "did a job" on them, professionally, to see us through to another League Cup final and the chance of more silverware.
It's terrible to admit it now, but the win was pretty much expected and the Forest fans were rather blase about it all. On the way back home we were all pretty quiet. How we'd love to go back in time and sit on that bus again now!
This was Forest's 15th successive unbeaten game (home or away) in the League Cup...
Their last defeat in the competition was a 0-3 drubbing at home to Coventry City in the 3rd Round on 21st September 1976, 861 days earlier, almost 2 and a half years.
Watford (and Forest) Glory Years
As I alluded to earlier, it's remarkable how Forest and Watford both rose to their most glorious years at pretty much the same time.
As Forest were winning the league and League Cup double, Watford started their ascent up the leagues by winning the Fourth Division by an eleven point margin. This season, Forest were destined to finish second in the first division and win the League and European Cups, whilst Watford won promotion for a second successive year and, as we have seen, reached the League Cup semi-final for the first time.
From this season's peak, it was pretty much downhill for Forest, although they would win the European Cup for a second successive season next year. Watford consolidated in the second division for a couple of seasons before, in their third, they won promotion again - the first division.
In their first season in the top flight, in 1982-83, Watford took the English Football league first division by storm as did Forest in 1977-78 and finished a remarkable 2nd place only to Liverpool.
They started the season on fire, winning four out of their opening five games to top the league on September 11th.
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| Watford top the First Division for the only time |
Ironically, the team that knocked them off top spot, the very next week was Forest. We beat them 2-0 at the City Ground in front of an appalling attendance of just 16,550.
Watford bounced back from this defeat though - just a bit!
Next up for them was Sunderland, at the Vicarage Road and Watford absolutely slaughtered them 8-0, their biggest league win, even today.
Here's the action from that game..
Forest seemed to have the knack of beating Watford though, even in that brilliant season for them, and a few weeks later I watched Forest v Watford at the City Ground in one of the most remarkable games I'd ever see.
It was a League Cup tie and the measly crowd of 14,583 were treated to a feast of goals. Bizarrely, Forest had beaten West Brom in the 2nd round in the home leg 6-1, with goals from Steve Hodge, Gary Birtles, two from Ian Wallace and two penalties from... John Robertson. Forest lost the away leg 3-1 making the aggregate score 7-4!
The 3rd round tie with Watford remains, even today, the highest scoring game I've ever seen.
Match 513, on Wednesday, 10th November 1982: Nottingham Forest 7 Watford 3 (259th at the City Ground, 356th time seen Forest, 12th time Watford)
These were the teams. Forest's side had changed a lot since the late 1970s but a couple of stalwarts remained, notably Ian Bowyer and John Robertson. Garry Birtles had actually gone to Manchester united and returned.
Martin O'Neill had left by then. After a short spell at Manchester City, he'd joined Norwich City by the time ten goals were flying in at the City Ground. O'Neill was playing for the canaries up at Roker Park that night in a 0-0 draw. Oddly, Sunderland was the team O'Neill supported as a boy.
Martin O'Neill had left by then. After a short spell at Manchester City, he'd joined Norwich City by the time ten goals were flying in at the City Ground. O'Neill was playing for the canaries up at Roker Park that night in a 0-0 draw. Oddly, Sunderland was the team O'Neill supported as a boy.
More about the Watford team below...
Nottingham Forest
Hans Van Breukelen, Kenny Swain, Brynn Gunn, Colin Todd (Colin Walsh), Willie Young, Ian Bowyer, Mark Proctor, Ian Wallace, Garry Birtles, Steve Hodge, John Robertson.
Watford
Steve Sherwood, Pat Rice, Wilf Rostron, Les Taylor, Steve Sims (Richard Jobson), Ian Bolton, Nigel Callaghan, Luther Blissett, Ross Jenkins, Kenny Jackett, John Barnes
Attendance: 14,583
All I remember was a blitz of goals and the buzz of appreciation at the end as we all walked away back over Trent Bridge feeling that was money well spent.
Sequence of goals....
Forest 0 Watford 1 (Ross Jenkins)
Forest 1 Watford 1 (Willie Young)
Forest 2 Watford 1 (Mark Proctor)
Forest 3 Watford 1 (Garry Birtles)
Forest 3 Watford 2 (Ross Jenkins)
Forest 4 Watford 2 (Garry Birtles)
Half Time
Forest 5 Watford 2 (Ian Bowyer)
Forest 5 Watford 3 (Les Taylor)
Forest 6 Watford 3 (Mark Proctor)
Forest 7 Watford 3 (Ian Wallace)
Of course such a memory sparked my curiosity about other high scoring games I've seen. Here's my current top 30 odd. It's disappointing that in all these years I've only seen six games with eight or more goals. Ironically yesterday was my 1,100th match, Perth Glory v Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League, and I witnessed one of many games with seven goals. Glory were 3-1 down in the 78th minute but somehow managed to score three goals in seven minutes to win and stay six points clear at the top of the table.
But, seriously, 1,100 games and only a handful with more goals than that!?
But, seriously, 1,100 games and only a handful with more goals than that!?
We really should make the goals bigger!!
Anyway, back to Watford's amazing 1982-83 season. They never got back to the top but their form was good enough to see them finish in second place, despite losing (for the third time) to Forest at the City Ground in April.
It was a great side with seven players missing only two or fewer league games. Those players: Steve Sherwood, in goal, ex-Arsenal Pat Rice at right back, Wilf Rostron at left back, Kenny Jackett at the back, Nigel Callaghan in midfield, Luther Blissett as striker and John Barnes as the demon winger.
Watford never did (so far, anyway) win the League, or the League Cup... or the F.A. Cup. But they did come close just a year later when they made it to the final against Everton.
557th match - Everton 2 Watford 0 1983-84 F.A. Cup Final (9th time at Wembley, 11th time saw Everton, 7th time Watford)
Strangely, I actually went to this cup final, standing on the urine soaked end among the 20,000 drunken scousers who were obviously happy as Larry that Everton were going to win the Cup that year.
By now I was a maths teacher at North Border Comprehensive school and as I'd done quite a bit of work for the school organising a 5-a-side competition that involved almost a third of the pupils, I reckoned, they rewarded me by giving me one of a few of complimentary tickets that they'd received from the Notts FA. Thousands of finals tickets get channeled, like this, through a myriad of sources, rather than to the fans of the finalists themselves. Scope for lots of corruption - could you imagine that?
I must say I did feel a bit guilty that I was taking the place of some poor deprived proper Evertonian but by the time the game kicked off and the twentieth drunken fan started pissing on the terrace in front of me, rather than going to the toilet, my sympathies had all drained away like an endless cascade.
By now I was a maths teacher at North Border Comprehensive school and as I'd done quite a bit of work for the school organising a 5-a-side competition that involved almost a third of the pupils, I reckoned, they rewarded me by giving me one of a few of complimentary tickets that they'd received from the Notts FA. Thousands of finals tickets get channeled, like this, through a myriad of sources, rather than to the fans of the finalists themselves. Scope for lots of corruption - could you imagine that?
I must say I did feel a bit guilty that I was taking the place of some poor deprived proper Evertonian but by the time the game kicked off and the twentieth drunken fan started pissing on the terrace in front of me, rather than going to the toilet, my sympathies had all drained away like an endless cascade.
Here are the match highlights...
Poor old Watford. They must be one of the biggest clubs never to have won a major honour even today.
In fact... of course I can't just make a statement like that and not investigate it a bit more thoroughly.
Turns out my hunch was right. Watford are currently the highest ranked club in England to have never won a major piece of English silverware.
Here's the top five in the "Won Nowt" league...
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| 5 Current Premier League Teams have never won a major trophy |
But it's not all about winning silverware, is it? What about a nice friendly atmosphere at the club? That has to count for something, right?
Here's a match of the day feature from the mid-80s when Watford played Forest at home. They were keen to stress the family friendly atmosphere at Vicarage Road.
So, to finish this very long blog off, here's a chart showing Watford's relative league position compared to Forest's up until 1999.
It always seems strange to me how some teams just seem to jinx others. In the early days, when Forest dominated Watford in terms of league placement, we only won one out of five games against them.
There was no such jinxing in this period, though - or if there was so, it was by us over them. The one season Watford did finish above us in the league, we beat them three times. Watford only beat Forest once in 15 attempts from 1978 up to the end of the last century.
~ ~ ~
For clubs playing above themselves, the inevitable, dreaded question in the minds of their fans is "When are you gonna come down?" For Watford it was 1988, for Forest 1993.
Aye, them wo't' days. I never knew me a better time and I guess I never will. My high flying bird has flown from out my hands. The years went by and our run just died. The English league got bossed by some foreign guys.
I hope you don't mind that I put all this down in words. It's the best I can do. Anyway, my gift is my blog, and this one's for you.
(Sorry!)
Here are a couple of current images which show how much the club's stadium has been transformed since 1979.
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| Googling down on Vicarage Road Today |
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| More impressive today: Watford F.C. - In the Premier League 2018-19 |
Welcome Back, Martin O'Neill!!
Since I finished this post, Forest fans all over the world have been gripped by the news of the return of one of the legends that has been my focus in writing these blogs, Martin O'Neill. I couldn't sleep Sunday night and waited up till the small hours waiting, hoping, for confirmation.
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| Martin is back, Martin is back... hello, hello! |
I think I'm a bit more than your average O'Neill fan as, personally, I had a double dose of Martin's infectious footballing wizardry. Not only did I experience pretty much the entire Forest career of O'Neill, the feisty, dangerous and dependable winger, but I also had the amazing privilege of being in the right place and the right time to witness his first proper stab at football management, at Wycombe Wanderers. I don't think many fans experienced that particular combination.
I didn't actually see his playing debut for Forest (at home to West Brom, when he came on as a sub and scored in Forest's 4-1 win) but I did see his third appearance in the starting lineup, at home to Spurs on 12th February 1972 (which Forest lost 0-1) and, surely, the majority of his appearances for the club after that. (Must fact check that!)
When it came to his managerial career, I just happened to be living in High Wycombe, having moved south, initially, to work at British Airways. Since then I'd changed jobs to Metier Management Systems - one of the world's first companies to produce project management software. I'd just got married to my wonderful, gorgeous, wife. We'd just moved into our first house, on London Road, and had had our first child, when I heard something I couldn't quite believe: the local club, Wycombe Wanderers had appointed Martin O'Neill as their new manager.
I'd already been to see them a couple of times, at their old, sideways sloping pitch, Loakes Park, but now, under the leadership of the well-known commentator, Alan Parry (the only other guy I know who has every Rothmans' Yearbook), they'd moved into a brand new stadium, Adams Park, and were looking to secure league status soon. They'd enlisted yer man to lead them there.
I was a season ticket holder for pretty much O'Neill's whole time at the club and I watched them home and away as Martin took them from the GM Vauxhall conference, to the Fourth tier, to the Third tier in successive years with three Wembley wins thrown in for good measure too. They almost made the third division play-offs too but in the close season Martin decided it was time to move on.
Of course, speculation about him coming back to Forest has followed Martin throughout his whole managerial career. I can't remember the year, or the exact circumstances, but I do remember meeting him, briefly, on the Rye - the big park in the center of town. Martin was there doing some work for a charity and I recall being brave enough to go up to him and tell him I hoped he got the Forest job.
"What makes you think I want the Forest job?" he retorted, putting me in my place.
This was very early in his career so I think it was probably a step too far, too soon, at that stage.
Martin went on to Norwich, again, jumping up a division but things didn't work out as promises made, about money to spend, were not promises kept. So Martin, and his No 2, John Robertson, moved to Leicester City where they achieved immediate promotion, through another Wembley play off, into the premier league, completing his unique sequence of football league tier hopping: From GM Vauxhall Conference to Premier League in successive seasons - no-one else has ever done that.
And of course, it didn't stop there. In their first season back in the top flight, not only did Leicester punch above their weight, finishing a very creditable 9th, they also won the League Cup and so qualified for Europe the next season.
So, from the Conference to Europe in six incremental yearly steps.
I'll cover more about Martin O'Neill's career in future blogs but I just wanted to add my voice as soon as possible to the thousands (but amazingly not all) Forest fans in welcoming him back.
For now, here's a summary of his superb managerial record, compared to the very best Forest managers over the years, for any doubting Thomases out there who thinks Jovanovic, Wagner or any other manager with high ratings in the FIFA or Football Manager game algorithms would have been a better bet.
And, last of all, I want to show off a signed photo of him my good mate Steve Buckley who, unfortunately, is a Leicester City fan, got me for my 40th birthday in 1999.
Welcome back, Martin!!
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