YBR! From the Vaults

Colin Payne looks at the time the hero returned, playing for someone else   With the passing of time, it’s easy when assessing past players to lose sight of just how damn good certain ‘legends’ really were. We get caught in the celebrity factor of today, where what is said and done off the field ...

You may not have heard of Ernest Protheroe, but in 1932 he earned Watford a British record transfer fee. Only two games later, he met a tragic end. Olly Wicken tells the story.   Ernest Protheroe signed for Watford from Charlton Athletic in June 1931. The Watford Observer headline announced ‘The ...

Nick Catley on a time when staring at a screen of text was a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon   The days before teletext were deeply unsatisfactory – or at least they were if you weren’t at the ground watching Watford on a Saturday afternoon (and I usually wasn’t, for various reasons, the i...

Nick Catley presents his list of GT's greatest seasons at Watford   The highest of the top-division seasons (apart from the first one), and not just because of the league position – ninth place, which remains our second-best ever, despite a spirited challenge in 2018/19. We were evolving nicely –...

Nick Catley presents his list of GT's greatest seasons at Watford   By a distance the most comprehensive of the three times we have topped a division in our 103-year Football/Premier League history, the season brought with it the sense of revolution and boundless possibility. If three points for ...

Nick Catley presents his list of GT's greatest seasons at Watford   If 1977/78 was largely about getting Watford back to their traditional historical level, 1978/79 was more of an acid test – the club had only once been promoted to the second tier before, and had only lasted three seasons. Anothe...

Nick Catley presents his list of GT's greatest seasons at Watford   This might seem a pretty high ranking for a season where we only really escaped relegation worries in the last couple of months, ultimately finishing ninth. However, this was the year where we started to think we might be the equ...

Tim Turner ponders the role of injuries in determining the fate of players – and clubs   During the period last winter when the Watford communications team were churning out news stories about injured players like dispatches from a battlefield, there was one that could easily have been missed ami...

Geoff Wicken starts a look at those who have come on and changed a game    There can be no argument that Heiðar Helguson’s 36 minutes on the pitch against Leicester City in 2009 represents one of the great all-time substitute appearances (see YBR! 36). But recalling it got me thinking. Who are th...

Colin Payne tells the story of the White City Stadium, where Watford played on three occasions   When West Ham moved into the then-named Olympic Stadium a few years back, and basically sold their soul for a cheap lease and the right to declare they had the worst big ground in London, they no doub...

Nick Catley on getting your football news in a time before the internet   Funnily enough, it was never really a Watford thing, for me at least. I just about remember popping down to Jennifer’s News on the old A41 in Berkhamsted (not the nearest newsagent, but the right side of the main road and t...

Footballers leave the pitch, or miss games, for all kinds of reasons. Twice, Harry Wood had reasons that were somewhat unusual. Olly Wicken tells the story.   Harry Wood was a regular for Watford in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But it was his absence from the pitch on two oc...