Bristol Rovers 1 Watford 1 (Rovers win 4-2 on pens)

I successfully heard the extra time on HornetsPlayer with no problem.  Same old same old again.  We should've won.  Lots of shots and possession.  And yet, apart from Sordell, Lloyd Doyley sounded like our most dangerous player.  Gilmartin sounded no better than Loach.  Buaban's much awaited debut didn't sound up to much.  I reckon he'll be another Scott Severin.  Bloody hell.  We needed a win tonight, not sodding extra time followed by a loss on penalties.  If we'd made 10 changes and lost then fine.  To make it worse Don bloomin' Cowie scored twice as well.  Not a good night.

HornetsPlayer- Club apology

To be fair, the two times I've had problems with HornetsPlayer this season the club have apologised.  I know this isn't always the case with others who've complained in the past and been told they're doing something wrong.

But as this has appeared on the club website today...

http://www.watfordfc.com/page/NewsDetail/0,,10400~2428498,00.html

and as  I'd banged on about it in my last post I thought it only right to acknowledge the club's apology here.

I look forward to giving HornetPlayer another go tomorrow night for the Bristol Rovers match.

Coventry City 0 Watford 0

For the second time this season I attempted to listen in to the Three Counties commentary via HornetsPlayer.  I do realise I reside within one of the three counties that 3CR is suppose to broadcast to, but you try picking up a half decent FM signal when your house is deep in one of the valleys of High Wycombe.  Therefore, on the rare occasions when I'm not actually at a ground or on kids duty internet commentary is pretty important to me.  Not as important though as for @3Lions4Ever trying to listen in from the US today or @MadridHornet currently residing in Spain.  They aren't able to get in the car, drive for a half a mile and get to hear Luke Ashmead and the brilliantly enlightening Tommy Mooney (another thing he is a legend for) on the car stereo.

Todays attempt to listen was, if anything, more annoying than on the opening day of the season when for the first ten minutes HornetsPlayer listeners got to hear the McDonalds v Huddersfield commentary.   A truly anti-climatic start to the season yes, but it at least it was commentary.  This afternoon I simply couldn't log in.  Every time I entered my user name and password (and I checked I was using the right one several times) I was never allowed to get any further.  The URL changed automatically and seemed to suggest I was being taken to a logging out page.  Great.  I tried emptying my cache, resetting Safari and using Chrome instead.  Nothing worked.  After 15 minutes I gave up and played a game of Happy Families.  But my mind wasn't really on it and I eventually found an excuse to drive up to Flackwell Heath and gradually 3CR emerged from the abyss.

What I heard sounded like the same old same old from the Burnley and Derby games.  Lots of chances, lots of should haves but no actual proper goals.  At least we didn't concede.  Its very frustrating particularly because, again, we sounded like the better side.  There is that depressing thought that in a parallel universe somewhere there is Watford team with 9 points rather than 2, and as Derby are proving, once you start winning its a easy habit to get into however awful you might be.  Maybe in that parallel universe West Ham didn't score after 3 minutes and we went on to sneak a 1-0 win.

Any-way, the point is HornetsPlayer sort it out! Its not difficult to provide internet commentary.  I listen a lot to the WGN commentary on the Chicago Cubs via the MLB website.  In 5 years of doing this I've never had one problem.  They even record the commentary so if you miss the game you can still listen to it as live.

I, and I'm sure a lot of others, don't bother subscribing to HornetsPlayer for anything other than the 3CR commentary.  So if it doesn't work at 3pm or 7.45pm or whenever we are just kicking off there isn't actually a lot of point in subscribing at all.  I'll certainly think twice when its time to renew.

On the pitch we clearly need a new striker along side Marvin.  Sadly Troy Deeney doesn't seem to be the answer anymore than Big Chris.  We also need a big dose of self-belief and some luck.  Lets hope it appears on Tuesday and, crucially, continues into next weekend for the visit of Birmingham City.

Watford 0 West Ham United 4

There is nothing quite as depressing in football as that moment you go 3-0 down.  If it was snooker it is at that moment that you'd concede so everyone could do the sensible thing and go home.   Of course only the insane never leave early brigade like myself were still there at the end anyway (along with a few thousand Cockneys).

West Ham have that same sickly smarmy smell of Premiership arrogance about them that Newcastle did two years ago.  The sooner they are out of the Football League the happier we'll all be.

The picture of Sam Allardyce on page 15 of the programme is one of the most grotesque things I've ever seen.

I'm liking the retro stuff in the programme.  Leafing through history, Cozzi's classic and On this day are all brilliant.  I especially enjoyed the Wobby report of the 4-2 away win at Upton Park.

Chris Iwelumo runs as if he is treading water.  Is he injured or is that just how he runs?

His signature move is the chest down.

It was impressive that Gavin Massey, who must have less than half the body mass of Big Chris, managed to win the same number of headers as him tonight..

The new Post QPR dawn of no away fans worked well.  There were none in my bit of the Rous and only a couple in the Rookery.  Probably the best bit of the night was seeing them get thrown out.

We weren't terrible tonight.  West Ham were far too good for us and yet we were still able to put together some passages of play which hinted at better things to come.  However, Saturday away at pointless Coventry is very much the time for the better things to show themselves.

Incidentally if, by some quirk of time travel, you are reading this and the date is the 23rd October 1993 then ignore me on my first point.  Don't leave!  You'll seriously regret it if you do.  Gary Porter, get in there....

Watford 0 Derby County 1

Artistic merit, shots, corners, passes, pretty much anything other than goals scored (and yellow cards) and we won this game handsomely.

Darren Deadman is a very odd ref. Why did he only want to award things to the team shooting towards the Vic Rd End?

So we've still got that crappy scoreboard then.  The screen looked good though.  For those of us down the Rookery end of the Rous it would be nice to have the second screen up soon.

Dychy is keeping up the Malky tradition of making his subs too late.  

I originally hated the 7 subs but now we've gone back to 5 I can really see why they're a good idea. 

Not having multi-ball in use is definitely a good thing. 

People are being a bit too quick to start on Iwelumo.  Give him a chance.  

Nice to see that the Vic is being turned back into Watford FC'c ground rather than the corporate nothingness that was the VR Stadium.  Good move Bas.

Hello Again

Okay okay I've finally been tempted to blog again.  But not as much or as long this time.  No stats and only a few thoughts about each game (with big apologies to bhappy.  I'm not trying to copy your thunks).

Cheerio (for now)

After keeping this up to date for the last two seasons and with a new season bearing down on us unbelievably quickly I've decided to withdraw from the Watford blogging community for a while.  I certainly don't mean this to be the end of my blogging days.  But working, family life and watching football takes up so much time that finding extra minutes to then blog about what I've watched seems to get less and less every week.

Thanks to everyone who has ever stumbled across this page whether by design or whether they were mysteriously searching for the terms 'watford' and 'prostitution' on Google (try it, it still works).  Thanks also to all those who've got in touch.

If the mood takes me I might still post stuff or tweet ocassionally.  But if you're after a regular Watford blog then I'd strongly advise you to check out the guys at From The Rookery End who don't only blog but podcast too.  The old favourite bhappy is always worth a read and give the new kid on the block a try And It Was All Yellow.

Come on you 'Orns!

All the best,

hb.

And It Was All Yellow

http://jfreedman1993.blogspot.com/

Another Watford blog to spend time browsing when you really should be doing some work. 'And it was all yellow' has just been started by an occasionally suicidal teenage ST holder.

A great first post about the World Cup, especially the comment about ringing up someone with Sky+.  I look forward to reading his thoughts about the 'Orns when the season gets going.

Borehamwood 0 Watford 5

Flamin' Nora.  The first game of pre-season, the first proper football for two months and I end up missing it because of a car problem.  Thanks to the hot weather for that one.  It was one of the few pre-seasons I could get to as well.  Hope this isn't a sign of things to come.  

However, a good win for the first half team, and a decent run out for the reserves + Doyley, who always seems to get lumped in with the less experienced boys at this time of year.  Great that Buckley got a hat-trick because from his brief appearances last season I was slightly worried he was one of those that wasn't quite sure where the goal was.  Hopefully he won't do a Liam Henderson and only ever perform at Meadow Park.  

My son looked through the other results and pointed out that we were the days world champions as no other team playing managed a plus five goal difference, not even the Germans.  I reckon that can be classed as successful start for the team, even though it wasn't for me.

Big Game of the Weekend

Not the one in Soccer City on Sunday but Meadow Park, Borehamwood tomorrow.  I can't wait.