I spent most of my birthday at my parents house in Norfolk. The family's not originally from Norfolk, but my parents moved there over 10 years ago, mainly because Norfolk isn't in any way like Watford. The move means that my parents live near to one shop, a duck pond, a dodgy bus service and lots of green, rather than close to shopping malls, suburban estates, a tube station and lots of grey. I can understand why they moved. The move also means that now, whenever I go to stay, there's no longer a 'my' bedroom that has all my old comics, photos and exercise books stuffed in a cupboard and a couple of faded Wombles posters on the wall, so I have to sleep in the anonymous guest bedroom with a cute photo of me aged 10 staring back at me in the early hours of the morning. But I digress.
I spent most of my birthday at my parents house in Norfolk. We celebrated the double birthday with a full family roast beef dinner, of the kind that only one's Mum can ever cook properly. Clearly it's a bit unfair to expect one's Mum to slave away in the kitchen on her birthday, but Waitrose don't yet deliver ready-cooked banquets to the middle of the Norfolk countryside, particularly on a Sunday. I was getting nervous that someone might have sent in a request to the BBC Radio Norfolk Sunday request show ("and now, for Doris in Swaffham, it's Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus") although thankfully that fear was unfounded. But I digress.
Because we grew up in Watford, half of my family became avid fans of Watford FC. My dad and brother would walk down to Vicarage Road come rain or shine to experience the agonies and ecstasy of League football (and, if we're honest. it was mostly agony). There was a freak week back in 1982 when Watford were the top league team in the country, and they even managed to come second overall that season, but on the whole being a Watford supporter meant watching grim nil-nil draws against Port Vale in the pouring rain rather than spectacular seven one defeats of Southampton. Across the country there are many other teams just like Watford who have burned brightly for a brief time, but have since sunk back down into lower-division mid-table obscurity. Watford's recent descent from an unexpected (and sadly undeserved) year in the Premiership, plus the misguided signing of Vialli as a manager, have left the club in dire financial straits. Redundancy, bankruptcy and total shutdown have been on the cards this season. And then came this miraculous FA Cup run...
I spent most of my birthday at my parents house in Norfolk. We celebrated the double birthday with a full family roast beef dinner. And there while we were eating, in the background on the telly, there was Watford on Match of the Day. It felt like Sunday afternoons twenty years ago with Brian Moore on The Big Match introducing Watford as the consolation highlights game. Except that this was Watford in the unheard of heights of the quarter finals of the FA Cup, with Gary Lineker expressing comments and criticism on a team that normally only hide on the seventh inside sports page of any tabloid. What's more, as dinner progressed, it became clear that Watford were about to win. This was a bit galling to an Arsenal supporter like myself, whose team had contributed to a thriller of a match against Chelsea the day before but had only scraped a draw. Final score on Sunday: Watford 2, Burnley gutted.
They made the draw for the FA Cup semi finals today. Watford are there in the last five, safely apart from Arsenal and Chelsea, and hoping to repeat that seven one drubbing of Southampton in a month's time. The cup run will provide more than a million pounds for the Hornets, and has provided an unexpected lifeline out of club bankruptcy. If Watford go on to beat Southampton, and end up in Cardiff in the Final against Premiership champions Arsenal, who then thrash the life out of them, Watford will still still end up in Europe by default. 'If' is a big word in football, but it's the one word that all of football thrives on. Without dreams of success, football is nothing. And, just occasionally, footballing dreams do came true.
I spent most of my birthday at my parents house in Norfolk. We celebrated the double birthday with a full family roast beef dinner. The lemon meringue pie was fantastic. And my dad and my brother smiled all afternoon.
