HOMETIED - it was short, but sweet

Nick Brodrick goes back to a time when a pen and a small notebook was all a boy needed for a hobby... Well, to be strictly accurate, pre- teen at the outset, which gets me off the hook slightly. Still above the age of criminal responsibility, though, so no real excuses. Here’s how things unfolde...

 Published between March and July 2020, Home Tied was a fortnightly magazine sold to mail-order subscribers only. It would last for nine issues prior to evolving into YBR! just before the start of the 2020/21 season. Very much a labour of love, the purpose was as much to offer an outlet for the c...

Geoff Wicken on one player's part in a very special night   I had a chance encounter earlier this year with a man who set up one of the most memorable Watford goals I’ve ever witnessed. I was on Watford Treasury business, in that I’d gone to interview Steve Palmer for a feature that will appear i...

Sometimes you should meet your heroes. Colin Payne goes back to 1999when he first properly met Graham Taylor. “I was going to buy you a bottle of Taylor’s, but it was twice the price.”And that was my opening gambit when I met Graham Taylor to interview him for ‘The Yellow Experience’ back in 199...

Richard White on his early fascination with 'the shirt'   For some reason, and I’ve no idea why, I became obsessed for one season with the football kits worn by teams visiting Vicarage Road. I’ve never done this since, and I promise to never do it again. But for that single, epoch-marking season ...

David Harrison was at the Watford-Liverpool game on 21 February 1970. It was a bit special.   ‘It’s quiet. Too quiet.’ So began the Watford Observer ‘FA Cup Special’ supplement, issued prior to the quarter-final against Liverpool in February 1970. It may have been 50 years ago but I can vividly r...

In 2005/06, a Watford side won promotion. Yet remain unloved. Colin Payne has a theory as to just why that is.   Some sides you just warm to, forever they will form part of the emotional psyche that ties you in, binds you so intrinsically to that time and place. Graham Taylor’s great 1978/79 team...

Geoff Wicken interviews Steve Palmer about those three special seasons when Watford went from the third tier to the Premier League.   Steve Palmer is a very engaging and interesting man to interview. After a playing career that spanned 17 seasons he continues to work within the game, his speciali...

During those lock-down days Olly Wicken presented a Hornet Heaven tale, imagining when football begins again.   It was far too long since she’d last been here. Now, though, at last, she was back on Occupation Road. She walked down the slope and savoured what she saw. On one side of the road was a...

Nick Catley waxes lyrical over his favourite painting.  I’m currently listening to quite a bit of the Richard Herring Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, in which comedian Richard Herring plays the part of an incompetent, shambling interviewer, having a disorganised chat with his guests (usually a...

Ian Grant yearned for the return of football.   There’s always something eerie and magical about an empty football ground, but never more so than on the morning of a matchday. Preferably a bright winter’s morning, silver frost on the ground, rising mist in the air, crisp sunshine in the offing. T...

Olly Wicken looked back at the staple of English football   Back in the day, it was everywhere. Fences and gates, walls and roofs. For years, it was the answer to everything. “Need to keep supporters off the playing area?” Corrugated iron. “Need a stand at the Rookery End?” Corrugated iron. “Need...