Brian Owen, a member of Watford’s historic 1968/69 promotion-winning side, has passed away. Geoff Wicken offers his reflections.
About three years ago I had the great pleasure of interviewing Brian Owen. He was highly engaging, coming across as the sort of person who would get on with everybody. Much of what we discussed ended up as an interview feature in the Watford Treasury book ‘Champions!’. His observations about his teammates in the Watford side that won the 1968/69 Division 3 Championship were fascinating and perceptive. We republish the feature in full below.
He had many other stories to tell, not least about scoring probably the most bizarre goal ever witnessed at Vicarage Road – his shot deflecting so high into the air that Tranmere’s goalkeeper set off to collect the ball from where he thought it would land behind the goal, only for it to descend and bounce in. Another concerned Cliff Holton, on a return to Vicarage Road in Crystal Palace’s colours. In Brian’s telling, having already scored two goals Cliff picked up the ball for a free-kick close to the halfway line. Watford striker Dai Ward goaded him by saying ‘I bet you can’t score from there, you big ****’. Inevitably perhaps, Cliff’s shot flew into the Watford net for his hat-trick.
Brian was unique, he thought, in that he played, coached, physio-ed and scouted in all four divisions of the Football League as well as serving as physio for the England team at all levels from youth to the full international side. Chatting with him, it was easy to understand how his career in football after his playing days was so extensive. His personality, allied to his skills as a physio, coach and scout, would have made him a valuable man to have at any club.
He attended Vicarage Road a couple of years ago, as a guest at the ‘100 Years at Vicarage Road’ celebration evening. The old place had changed a lot since he used to take the pitch in the 1960s, he observed. His own place in its history is well deserved – not only as the man who scored the stadium’s strangest goal, but as a key member of one of the great Watford teams.
From ‘Champions!’, published by The Watford Treasury
Brian Owen’s perspectives on Watford’s 1968/69 promotion season are filtered through the experience accumulated from his many years in the game. As he talks about his team-mates and how Ken Furphy organised the team, you hear the wisdom of the true football man that he became.
He wore the number 11 shirt in the first Watford match I ever saw, a 0-0 draw with Swindon Town at Vicarage Road early in 1968/69, as well as on 34 other occasions that season. Yet although a regular member of the side, he didn’t capture the attention as much as Keith Eddy, Stewart Scullion and Barry Endean, or the alliterative defensive trio of Walker, Welbourne and Williams.
He featured too in the FA Cup run of 1969/70, playing against Liverpool and in the semi-final against Chelsea, before – already battling a knee problem – moving on to Colchester United. Then aged 25, he’d played 170 first team games for Watford, scoring 20 goals. Injuries meant he would only play 16 further Football League matches, but he went on to enjoy a remarkable career in the game. He believes he’s unique (and it’s hard to think he’s wrong) in that he played, coached, physio-ed and scouted in all four divisions of the Football League as well as serving as physio for the England team at all levels from youth to the full international side.
His six decades in football have given him a wealth of stories. Many of them appear in his autobiography A Man For All Seasons, including a particularly good one about being late for supper at his own home with his dinner-suited guest Sven-Goran Eriksson (his wife Carol wasn’t pleased). There are plenty of Watford tales too, including descriptions of his 12-second strike against Barnsley and his freak goal at home to Tranmere Rovers, both from 1968/69.
Speaking to him now, it’s clear he looks back on his Watford days fondly. They were his early years in the game after all, and were happy and successful. He readily acknowledges that 1968/69 was the pinnacle.
Brian joined Watford as an apprentice in September 1961, somewhat under the radar since his signing was overshadowed by the same week’s big news that Cliff Holton had been transferred to Northampton Town. Living in Harefield, at first he would go to training by bus or on his bicycle. Early on, he might sometimes spend afternoons coaching in schools, and evenings training along with Watford’s amateur players, before cycling back to Harefield at the end of the day. Before long, he bought a car from Sammy Chung.
Brian’s father died soon after he joined Watford, and Pat Molloy became something of a mentor to him. He started learning physiotherapy alongside Pat at just 19 or 20, then took a postal course, then Football Association courses, and was appointed to the England Youth team at the age of 24 while still playing at Watford. He also started coaching very early on – initially in schools, then on courses led by Bobby Robson and Don Howe – which gave him an excellent grounding that served him well later. Graham Taylor was his course leader at one point. Thus his later career in several ways paralleled that of Pat Molloy’s, with its mix of physiotherapy, coaching and scouting over many years.
He made his first team debut late in 1962/63 against Brighton at the Goldstone Ground. Watford were at risk of being sucked into relegation trouble, but – as Brian puts it – goalkeeper Dave Underwood cleaned out two Brighton players, reducing the home side to nine, and the Hornets won 4-1. His second appearance a few days later, against Queens Park Rangers at White City, was noteworthy for being Pat Jennings’ debut. The pair then made their Vicarage Road debuts together.
Brian remained in the squad for the rest of the decade as Watford operated in the top half of Division 3, endeavouring to gain promotion. He was playing in the last match of 1963/64 at Kenilworth Road, when Watford had a chance of going up, and he’s still unhappy that the home side’s winning goal came after their striker John O’Rourke handled the ball.
There was another near-miss in 1966/67 when Watford finished in third place again, then 1967/68 saw them finish sixth. As Brian recalls: “We were close to promotion several times. Ken got us over the line in the end. It was frustrating. You’re thinking it’s going to happen at some time, but for one reason or another things kept going against us. Like that last game in 1964 – we should have won it but were cheated out of that one. We were always a very strong team in the division.”
So there was a sense that promotion had been coming. What made the difference in 1968/69? Brian sees it as an evolution from what was already happening: the right players, in a happy squad with no conflicts. “We were all good mates and respected each other. There was never any animosity or jealousy. We all got on and did our jobs, and used to enjoy going into training, and the training was great.”
Ken Furphy was a modern, forward-thinking coach. Brian points out that, unusually for the 1960s, “most of the training involved movement with the ball. Before it was all about running; with Ken it was all ball-orientated. I used a lot of his stuff later when I was coaching. Ken was very well thought of by the FA, he brought new ideas, his training was interesting.”
He brings his eye as an experienced coach when describing how the side was set up: “It was a well-balanced team. Mike Walker was a good, solid keeper – good build, good size. We had Brian Garvey and Keith Eddy at the back who complemented each other. Brian was very solid and dependable. He was brave, very good in the air. You wouldn’t want to play against him every week. You had Keith with him, who was better on the ball; he would come out with the ball and pass it; Brian was good at nullifying centre-forwards. Then there was Walter Lees. Ken got him down from Scotland. He was brave, solid, a good defender. You could rely on him.”
The full-backs had contrasting skillsets too. “Duncan Welbourne was very quick and very tough. Not necessarily great on the ball but he was a good defender. Johnny Williams was good on the ball, going forwards he was probably better than Duncan, but not as good as Duncan at defending. He was from Hemel Hempstead; we also had Micky Packer coming through; those two and me were the only local lads who’d come through the youth system.
There was a balance of skills up front too. “Barry wasn’t a great player, but he was a great finisher. He was pretty basic in a lot of other parts of his game but he was a very good finisher: he had this concentration on the ball. He was brave as well. Terry Garbett was probably a better all-round player, he could hold the ball up, he was a more intelligent player.”
The style was 4-4-2 or 4-2-4, with Brian and Stewart Scullion the two wide men. “Scully was a lovely lad. He was excellent one-on-one, great at beating the defender and getting crosses in. With Stewart and me he was the one who’d take people on, I was the one who’d work back and defend. Tommy Walley used to call me ‘the scythe’ because of all the tackles I’d make. I used to make sure that defensively we were sound. Then I would get in on the back post. I wasn’t a bad finisher and could strike a ball quite well. We were different types of player.”
“Dixie was the creative player. The player I got on really well with was Tommy Walley; we had a really good understanding – when I would run in behind, he could almost put the ball into my path; we had a great understanding together – when to get it to feet, when to get it into space.”
“Tommy was a great competitor. When the ball was lost, Tommy and I could get the ball back. Scully was good at getting the ball across; we were good at defending and the more basic stuff. One of my assets I was an OK defender. We were pretty solid through the team and had that balance between defence and attack.”
“It didn’t surprise me the likes of Keith Eddy and Terry Garbett going on and doing well in higher divisions. When you look back that was a really good team that Ken had got together.”
When I ask Brian about Rodney Green, he chuckles. “The Jersey trip, Rodney and I took our guitars to have sing-songs at night. When we came back to Heathrow, he and I got arrested because they thought we were a couple of hippies! The team were on the bus, ready to go back home before the Manchester United game; they had to wait an hour while we were being questioned in there!”
As for his most memorable games, Brian featured in both of the big FA Cup matches, in which Best, Charlton and Law ultimately made the difference. “We played Manchester United at Old Trafford and Duncan kept ‘Bestie’ quiet. We fancied ourselves in the second leg, and we played quite well. George Best hadn’t done a lot at Old Trafford but all of a sudden he got the ball and it was an icy pitch. He knocked the ball past Duncan, and not only has he caught it, he’s crossed it to the far post and Denis Law’s headed it in. No-one else in the world would have got to that ball. His balance and speed were unbelievable. Bobby Charlton was fantastic too – as well as a good footballer, he was a good competitor. He was talking to the team, his attitude stood out. We were all pushed forward looking for an equaliser, but he put the ball over the top and Denis Law ran on and scored the second goal, and that killed it really.”
Brian was in the stand rather than on the pitch on the night of 15 April 1969 when the long-awaited promotion was finally achieved with victory over Plymouth, but he well remembers what that night was like. “Oh, fantastic. It was the first time we’d done it. Such a fantastic feeling to get there. When you’ve worked so hard and been so close for so many years, to actually do it was great.”
For Brian, and for the players who had been at Watford some time while Ken Furphy fine-tuned the squad, it was the culmination of many years of striving and toil. The celebrations on the night and later at the Town Hall were well-deserved.
And he’s aware too of the significance of the 1968/69 promotion in the club’s history, the point at which Watford crossed the great divide between the lower and higher leagues. As he says, “It’s amazing how well the club has done since. They’ve gone on great. I’m quite proud that we were the team that got them out of the Third Division.”
