Over the years, Watford FC has had many a link with cricket.
Back in the late 1880s, Henry Grover (the club’s original founder) sat on a club committee that tried to bring about a merger with Watford Town Cricket Club. It didn’t happen in the end because Watford Town folded, but cricket was still planned to be a significant presence. When the football club moved to Cassio Road in 1890, the parent organisation that was set up to run things was called ‘West Herts Cricket and Football Club and Ground’. Cricket came first in the name.
Over the years, many Watford players have also been first class cricketers. Our first-ever manager, John Goodall, had played a couple of games for Derbyshire. In the 1920s, as a young man, Walter Keeton was an amateur with Watford before going on to play for Nottinghamshire and England. In the winter of 1949/50, Fred Titmus earned £4 a week as a seventeen-year-old playing for Watford’s ‘A’ team in the London Midweek League before playing 642 times for Middlesex and winning 53 caps for England. More recently, Steve Palmer had played first-class cricket for Cambridge University before he joined Watford.
Mike Gatting (front left)
The link between Watford and Middlesex/England cricketers isn’t confined to Fred Titmus. In the early 1970s, Mike Gatting played for Watford Juniors and Watford Reserves. In the mid-1980s, Mark Ramprakash played on schoolboy forms for Watford between the ages of 14 and 16. You could also add Steve Finn (a Watford fan, but not on the club’s books) who was mascot for the Premier League home game against Southampton in December 1999.
Steve Finn (Rather too tall mascot)
For many years, in the summer, Watford Football Club used to play cricket against local clubs. In August 1953, Maurice Cook and Tommy Eggleston put on nearly a hundred runs between them against Two Waters London Transport Bus Garage. In August 1980, Steve Sherwood took 7-52 against Berkhamsted CC. John Barnes once scored 62 against St Albans.
These days, though, the link with cricket seems to have disappeared. It would be nice to see Mattie Pollock, in whites, opening up his shoulders and heaving a six over cow corner. It would be a joy to see Giorgi Chakvetadze stealing a second run when only a single looked on the cards. And Vakoun Bayo looks as if he could get a lot of bounce from a slow wicket with 80mph deliveries in good areas.
Will a professional footballer with Watford ever again go on to score 20,000 runs and take 2,500 first class wickets? (A feat that puts Fred Titmus alongside W.G. Grace and only three other cricketers.) We doubt it.
The latest episode of Hornet Heaven tells the story of Fred Titmus’s time at Watford. You can listen here
A young Watford ensemble line up before taking the field.