Aidy Sidesteps Curse

Aidy was up against Tony Pulis, Gary Johnson and Plymouth's Paul Sturrock for Manager of the Month for February.

Thankfully that particular curse, erm, I mean prize went the way of Stoke's Manager Pulis, despite his team losing 2-0 at Deepdale on Tuesday.

"That's our promotion challenge f**ked then", Pulis may have remarked when no-one was listening.

An Artist's Impression

Piccies have been released to show what the new East Stand Development will look like when it's all done. You can see it here.

It will be a shame to see the mish-mash of stands go, it is a wonderful reminder of a time when football wasn't really a business. Before it's closure in 2004, the wooden part was the oldest stand still in use in the football league having been erected in 1922.

Still, times change and things move on, and the modernisation of the fourth side of the ground should leave us with a fairly intimidating ground and bring the club firmly into the 21st century. And at least the ground will still have some sort of character with it's four different stands rather than the horrid identi-kit grounds that can now be found in some parts of the country. Oh and we're still at Vicarage Road in the heart of Watford, so it's all good IMHO.

In other news (well, a rumour going around, is that), Liverpool and Newcastle are sniffing around young 'keeper Scott Loach. Hands off! says Yellow Fever, he's not even played a first team game for us yet!

PNE 2 Stoke City 0

Wey-Hey the Preston lads! A two-nil win thanks to a brace from baldie ex-Baggie Richard Caplow, and a heroic performance from Lonergan in the Lilywhites goal.

It's Alright For Some

The christmas break is long-gone, and I don't know about you, but the few extra days off at Easter still seem a long way off. If you're a professional footballer though, this is an ideal time for a training trip to Dubai. Tough life isn't it? Aidy says;

"The players will be training just as they would over here, but they'll be doing so in much better conditions."

The trip is designed to build a bit of team spirit before the final for the last 12 games, with Collins John, Eustace, Bromby and new Robbo all fresh faces in the squad, hopefully the trip will be a useful bonding excerise. Lets hope they get some shooting practice in, after the frustrating 0-0 draw with Preston at the weekend.

Finger's crossed that the rearguard action didn't take too much out of Preston, as the take on Stoke at Deepdale tonight. They've been in excellent home form since the new year, beating everyone (including us and the baggies) except Portsmouth in the cup, so hopefully they'll complete a hat-trick of promotion scalps tonight. Come on the Lilywhites.

One player not sunning himself, erm, I mean training hard in Dubai is Matt Jackson. This can be taken as a sign that he's not in Aidy's plans for the rest of the season. Instead he captained a young stiffs in last night's 1-2 home defeat to Wycombe, the team included Jordan Parkes, back from Brentford, Santiago Aloi, and Lewis, little brother of Ashley, Young.

Old Skool

Some of you will no doubt have had this brought to your attention already thanks to WML. However if you prefer not to have your inbox filled with every nuance of all that is WFC-related then it may have passed you by.

This first video shows Watford manager Ken Furphy giving a team talk during the lead up to an FA Cup 4th Round tie against European Champions Man Yoo in 1969. Apparently it was the first time that a manager had allowed TV cameras in to watch a team talk. Ken Furphy was one of the brightest managerial prospects in the game at the time; he led Watford to promotion that season to Division 2 for the first time in our history. The next season he took us to the FA Cup semi-final for the first time.

So this is 3rd division Watford taking on United, European champions in the FA cup 4th round at a packed Old Trafford. Check out the player having a fag at the back of the room - those were the days!

Then these are the goals from the game. The team talk inspired Watford to a 1-1 draw courtesy of a Stewart Scullion screamer (check Charlton's lazy defending - Ken was right) and a scrappy equaliser from Dennis Law. The surge of the crowd for the equaliser is amazing.

Sadly, United went on to win the reply 2-0 at Vicarage Road. We would get our own back 9 years later when, still as a third division side, we went to Old Trafford in the league cup and won 1-2, with Luther getting both the goals. Now those really were the days!

Thanks to Stevohorn in Norway for posting these up on Youtube. Go visit his youtube site; he has some other gems that'll make your eyes fill with nostalgic tears.

Squeeky Bum Time

Now that the promotion band-wagon seems to be back on track and my internet connection is up and running again, this feels like a suitable juncture to post a bit more on this here blog.

I don't know about you, but I'd have taken a point at the Valley last August, so given the situation we found ourselves in on Saturday at 15:45 I was very happy indeed to come away with a two-two draw.

John-Joe O'Toole, has somehow, while we were otherwise engaged worrying about our sieve-like back four, has managed to sneek his fourth senior Watford goal. That's twice as many as Tamas Priskin, even if you genourously give him that goal he scored in a swimming pool against Wigan.

But now we have Big Dan back from Africa, new robbo at left-back and surely two of the finest deadline signings in history in John Eustace and Leigh Bromby, and the back-four is looking far more solid.

Looks like it's gonna be a pretty tight run thing going into the end of the season, so there should be plenty to chat about. In the mean-time the FA Cup has given us a fairly decent draw, with the Boing-Boing-Baggies in with a decent chance of being distracted by an FA Cup semi-final given they face a trip to League One Bristol Rovers. Though either way, one suspects that being beaten by the Gas might be quite a downer too, so I think the draw is win-win for us, especially if Rovers can pinch a draw.

Elsewhere in the sixth-round draw, Barnsley on the right side of a last-minute win at Anfield will be rewarded by welcoming Chelski to Oakwell. We were due to play the Tykes that same weekend, so looks like we'll be be letting Bristol City and Stoke have a bit of head-start. In the words of the beetroot-faced scot - it's squeeky bum time.

P.S. Speaking of Liverpool, I'm starting a sweep on when Benitez will be sacked. I'm having Friday, what about you?