Its a Tradition

Losing to Millwall – I’ve been going for 47 years now and we’ve been doing it consistently over that period . We’ve only beaten them once since the Crimean War when they finished the game with 3 men and even then it was a 90th minute disputed penalty. 

I didn’t go yesterday because a) it clashes with my weekly exercise tennis and b) its a 3 hour round trip .  Why bother when you know the result in advance.

To be fair and to take SCP’s point on board – we were missing our 3 best players , Cort, Solly & Kermit . Its difficult to win without them . Nevertheless I don’t understand how Pigott got the vote to start yesterday ahead of the more experienced, 30 goals at this level, England U-21, Sordell .

The midfield lacks an enforcer , bringing Hughes back at the end of last season transformed our results . Stephens deserves an award for the most square passes in a match – as far as I can see , he adds nothing at this level , no invention , no pace , no passing FORWARD . Pritchard & Jackson deserve better help.

Don’t worry though , there is one thing you can all be certain of – just like last year we will finish above Millwall .

We will win at Burnley ……………………..

Can I have a vowel please Jeff ?

I spent a very pleasant afternoon on Saturday in Watfordio watching our brave warriors from South East London taking on a team brimming with locals from the Hertfordshire area all of whom apparently had surnames ending in a vowel . One particular player , Iriney was of particular interest since his parents had actually omitted to give him a Christian name atall . No matter , we’d soon thought of a short memorable one for him.

How on earth did this happen to our football ? Even at Championship level , Its no longer , Arthur , Derek , Peter and Mickey fighting it out with Fred , Barry , George and Willie is it ? – I think I preferred it then.

Turning to the game , although they were very dangerous when they broke quickly, we dominated possession and probably should have held on . Quite how their number 23 with the impossibly big hair didn’t get sent off for persistent fouling & moaning is beyond me .

Watford are a strange team – they have lots of very talented and fast players  but they also put it about a lot physically , so it was a battle , just like last year.

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I’ve never had an particular feeling positive or negative about Watford , but its impossible not to hope they fail . They’ve bought loads of foreign talent over , but apparently in Italy its OK to only have 3 sides to a ground – surely they should build a proper stand first. They could call it the Elton Johnnio Stand

Woe , woe and thrice woe !

For you younger readers , you won’t have seen Up Pompeii with Frankie Howerd but there was a character called the Soothsayer who kept interrupting Lurcio to tell of impending doom see Ode to Flavia to get an idea of how the programme worked . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIpkNVL1JNQ

Anyway, the point is that when I went on my hols to Turkey 10 days ago , it was all woe , woe and thrice woe from the CAFC faithful . We’ve got no money, everyone’s been sacked , the team’s useless , my mate down the chip shop says he was offered the club for a fiver … you know the routine .
I come back from my hols and here we are , having beaten Leicester ( inevitably) , Messrs Pigott and our hero , Mr Solly have signed new long term deals .
All we need is for big Yann to be awarded the Legion D’honneur which I’m sure is imminent and everything is rosy dans le jardin.

I see nothing but positivity on the horizon – well that’s until the next game of course ……after Watford we will be back to woe , woe and thrice woe .

By the way , if you haven’t ever been to Istanbul – add it to your list – fantastic place to visit , best weekend break I’ve done .