April 20 2008

The Football League

Jamesey returned south with a spring in his step after the Eagles' 0-2 victory at Vicarage Road.

I don't usually endorse cruelty to insects but pulling the wings off hornets gave me great pleasure on Saturday.

It was my second visit to Watford in three months, the first one being our FA Cup excursion in January, when everything went wrong ("A day to forget", Jan 6).

On that occasion it really didn't look as though we were up for it and we made an early and ignominious exit from the competition with a 2-0 defeat.

But this time it was a different matter, in a game of crucial importance in the jockeying for play-off positions.

The Vicarage Road Stand was packed to the gunwales with a noisy and confident Eagles battalion filling every seat.

Well, we would have been filling every seat apart from the fact that many preferred to stand and there's not a lot of point remaining seated when all around you are standing because you can't see anything.

Personally, I prefer to sit but I had to go along with it and the Watford stewards didn't seem terribly bothered.

We certainly had to defend like crazy as wave after wave of Watford attacks rolled in but our defence stood firm, and with a little bit of luck over the disallowed goal, we went in 0-0 at half time.

It doesn't seem that long ago that the Hornets' Jobi McAnuff had his own personal song at Selhurst so it was surprising to see how deep the hatred and venom seemed to be against him.

One would have expected some booing but to see Eagles supporters baying at him like a pack of jackals seemed way over the top me. He used to play for Palace. Now he plays for Watford. So what? That's football.

I could see why Danny Shittu got plenty of hostility though, as the scorer of both goals in the above-mentioned Cup defeat.

But even then, Scott Flinders' dodgy keeping and sloppy marking by defenders were as much to blame as Shittu's footballing skills.

Anyhow two cracking goals from Paul Ifill and Victor Moses settled the game in the second half and we consolidated our play-offs credentials.

Dare we even whisper it? After the Dowie Miracle of 03-04, could we be on the verge of the Warnock Wonder of 07-08?

I haven't been to Wembley, old or new, since David Hopkin's last minute goal put us back in the big time in 97.

Here's hoping...

*Over the years, supporters of CPFC have sometimes been accused of fickleness. But hearing that West Ham fans gave Alan Curbishley the bird for only beating Derby Co 2-1 really made me chuckle. What a load of misguided ingrates.

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