Gold shirts, Big Cliff and the great turning point…
After digitising the old Watford Observer photographic plates in the Museum basement plus those salvaged by the late Nick Beach (see also ‘Golden Shots and Visions of Blue’) it was clear that we had a gallery of the 1959/60 season.
Many of today’s older fans still claim 59/60 as their favourite season of all… Watford’s first Football League promotion after so many fallow years… Gold shirts for the first time… Cliff Holton… A whole generation became supporters.
We felt that creating 'The Dawn of the Golden Age', a book that told the story of 59/60 using many of these ‘never-before-seen’ images, would be a nostalgic treat for supporters from the era.
Being able to interview team member Peter Walker for the book added fantastic additional context.
But also we wanted to position 1959/60 within the club’s overall history. Watford’s achievement was to finish fourth in Division 4. Put like that, it doesn’t sound especially glorious. But one might argue that if any season was the starting-point of the club’s success, this was the one.
We also wanted to convey something of how football has changed. The language quoted from the Watford Observer’s contemporary coverage does this, as do some of the season’s events. How the opening game kicked off late because Stockport’s kit had been mistakenly unloaded from a train at Rugby station… how the away game at Hartlepools was postponed due to the following day’s general election…how Dennis Uphill’s award for being Division 4 player of the month was a Ronson cigarette lighter!
(There’s also a Chas and Dave joke in the February 1960 chapter. If you spot it and don’t chuckle, well, There’s No Pleasing You!)