Championship Football

Been reading the forums. The football ones are too premiership-centric. As a Watford fan I resent the prejudice! So I thought I'd start a Championship forum. Feel free to chat about the football league as well. As a starter: what did everyone think about Jay Bothroyd's England call up?

It was a bit desperate by England because they had so many cry offs for the latest international. Bothroyd is no way international class, if he was he wouldn't be playing in a Championship side for the last few seasons.
As for Watford, they havent been much of a side since the days of Barnes and Luther Blissett. Did you get to see them around their peak circa 84-85?

No. Sadly I hadn't even been imagined! seen plenty of vids. I believe we finished 2nd to Liverpool having beaten them home and away. Glad they got a taste of thier own meds for that from Utd a couple of seasons back! 

I agree by the way. Bothroyd had his chance and spurned it he when sulked off the pitch for the Arsenal youth side and chucked his shirt at Don Howe. Still I do think it's possible for international players to emerge fomrt he championship. Couple of decent England prospects down here! Connor Wickham and Nathaniel Cline Sping to mind. Bothroyd's done it the wrong way round I suppose. If you're gna play for a lower league side it's got to be at the start of a career. Then you very quickly need to crack on. These days if you're not premiership quality by 20 it's a very tough. Chris Smalling is one fairy tale that breaks the mold.

URZ!!!

Down into the bottom half of the table now after our game was postponed at the weekend. Unfortunately Matightsky is now always selling our best players, so the rest of the season will probably be - win a few games and get into the play-off positions but then lose a few and be out of them again, so the finshing position will depend on where in the cycle the end of the season comes. At least we won't go the same way as Portsmouth, but it would be nice to think we can get back into the Premiership someday

The Championship is saturated by so many huge, albeit mostly poorly run, clubs now. It's so tight. Blackpool really experienced a miracle last season. I just look around Watford and see the likes of Forest, Leeds, Cardiff, Leicester etc and wonder what hope the future holds for a smaller club like us. We're not minnows but when you look at our attendence, which has definately dropped with the decline fo the quality of football, compared to theirs... well it doesn't stack up. Not sure how we will compete really.

Wow back at work after an absolutely fantastic christmas for the hornets! Thrashed the previously unbeaten league leaders, demolished cardiff in second, hammered Pompey and edged scunthorpe last night. Very pleased. Last post said not sure how we are gna compete, well looks like we are!

Your side have really got themselves back in the mix. It looked like they had blown their good start to the season with some indifferent results but 4 wins on the bounce has put them back in the play-off frame. The Championship is notoriously difficult to get out of and you'd like to think that Watford can do it this season, but with some good youngsters coming through the future looks quite rosy as long as they manage to keep hold of most of them.

Yeah. Well that's part of the highs and low of following one of the most unfashionable championship teams! Watford never fail to surprise whether it's by being truly inept when you expect success or visa versa. Lving watching us at the moment we are hammering in the goals. More goals scored in games involving us than anyother team and league top scorers. One thing I will say is that if we make it up it will show how average some of the "big" teams the championship are. We are lively and have some good prospects and clearly we know where the goal is but we are not top flight in my opinion!

Those goals against hartlepool were pretty good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCZxn6pEX38

Another win for Watford at the weekend keep them within touching distance of the automatic promotion places. If they win their games in hand they'll be in 2nd which was unthinkable a few weeks ago. As for my time, good to see Kenny breaks his losing streak!

And the 'orns go marching ON ON ON! Another very good win. We are still taking the run of form lightly. With the things that have occuered at the Vic in the last few years anything is possible (in negative terms sadly). However, a few things which really are great to see and have obviously made us a bit more secure are the fact that Graham Taylor is now on the board as an exec, we've kept Malcky despite the advances of Burnley and the academy products currently propping up the 1st team show no signs of being fazed. Add the takeover talks into the mix and thing maybe looking up...

I guess you feel you are due a change of fortune. It's been a few years since you were last in the Premiership. Maybe it was a mistake to let Aidy Boothroyd go when you did as in my eyes he did a pretty decent job with limited budget.

Nice to a see championship forum. Def agree with the stuff bein said about the mighy hornets. He did a really good job. We had a crap board at the time who had allowed debt to go out of control and then expected him to maintain momentum when they sold off all his players and used the money to service the debt.

Our roller coaster season continues. In a bit of a troth at the mo having been dumped out of the cup by brighton. Frustratingly, bad goalkeeper error cost the game. Gilmartin for Ireland!!

Another game against Cardiff, another two points dropped because of an official's error .

Two errors in fact: firstly it shouldn't have been a free kick, and secondly it happened 4 minutes and 10 seconds into injury time (which was supposed to be only 4 minutes). QPR and Norwich (currently the top 2!) in the next 2 games

After yesterday's crazy games in the Premiership you can see now why it proves so popular. For Newcastle to come from 4-0 down was amazing and Everton's 5-3 win frombeing 3-2 down all goes to show why the Prem is so special. You would never get that happening in Serie A or La Liga.

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 You would never get that happening in Serie A or La Liga.

Absolutely agree. Both top English leagues are so tight at the moment. La liga has been dull for as long as I can remember. It's become a bit of joke really. Hopefully some of the fair play rules will sort it out. Real and Barca won't be able to spend money they don't have after that. Might make a difference.

Watford hit another troth in a season of endless ups and downs. Still within touching distance of the play-offs the players seem pretty robust in their assessments of their chances so still keeping all appendages crossed!

Not a good week for the Royals - lost to QPR and also Leigertwood suspended for three games (two defeats since he came, both in matches where he didn't play), down to 11th now. With the table still a bit concertinaed I guess we can get back to 7th with a couple of wins (especially as we have two home games coming up against Watford and Millwall, immediately above us) but looking a bit doubtful for the play-offs. Need firepower up front, Shane Long's doing great but not sure about Simon Church at all, not much of a worker. Hopefully this new guy Manset (bought from Hereford) will deliver