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Anyone feel just a little bit sad for Watford fans?

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32 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Exactly, it’s under 22k capacity. Considering Hertfordshire doesn’t have another equivalent sized club, seems a missed opportunity.

Well, Watford is basically North West London and is on the tube line and has Arsenal and Spurs in close proximity. 

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8 minutes ago, Alex said:

Well, Watford is basically North West London and is on the tube line and has Arsenal and Spurs in close proximity. 

Alex, I'm sure if you went on mastermind Watford would be your specialist subject🙃💛

Edited by nutty nigel

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3 hours ago, BarclayWazza said:

Getting irritated by the people who look at this as a binary issue. Having a rich foreign owner doesn't immediately mean they are a sh*thouse and that we should be grateful for what we've got. 

What's become obvious is that without external money, we're really going to struggle to ever compete in the PL. We're still favourites to go down and 2 results against very poor teams is just masking this.

With money we might improve, we might not. Without it we almost certainly are limited to where we've been last few years.

No one has said that.

If anything its those who want new owners that are deluded. You've said it yourself, we might improve or "we might not"

Thats a delusion. We might improve, we might significantly go backwards to a lower midtable championship club like plenty of others of similar size. We might even become a regular league one participant as several similar sized clubs have faced.

Your post suggests we might improve or we might just stay as we are. Thats not how the risk works.

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3 hours ago, Kenny Foggo said:

But Wolves

 

1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

But...

Watford, Burnley, Fulham, Bournemouth, QPR, Blackburn, Forest, Stoke, Sheff Utd, Swansea, Birmingham, Hull, Cardiff, Reading, Derby, Sunderland, Sheff Wed, Ipswich, Portsmouth...

And Nuttys list is conservative.

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Blimey, sobering read that. I had no idea things were that bad there.

Mind you, even the Pozzo's are poor by PL standards. Didn't someone post a table and only we have poorer owners than Watford out of the 20 Premier League clubs?

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7 hours ago, Nexus_Canary said:

This is why i love having a family club and why Delia Smith is good for us.

 

This is also why i never understand the body of our fans who would have been over the moon if the Saudi's had bought us instead of Newcastle.
Rather League two and a soul than Premier league and classless.

Each to their own but  to be honest I would rather we didn't have Delia in charge. We can only go so far under the current structure and I believe she holds us back from progressing. The self funded model just allows Delia to keep hold of something she can't actually afford.

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I don't feel any sympathy for them at all. I live nearby and know many Watford fans. I have often told them what a soulless, pathetic club they now support and asked them, "What is the point of your club?" It has nothing to do with Watford anymore - most of the players don't live anywhere near here or have anything to do with the community. They are simply player traders - the owners don't really care what league they are in, other than the money they can generate is a bit higher in the PL - not much, because most of it goes on wages anyway (King, Sissoko and before them Danny Rose).

They put out 11 players in the same colour shirt for every match who all play for themselves (Ranieri finally said that, but it's been the case for the last 5 years). They couldn't give a hoot about the results, and nor could the owners. They don't entertain; they just grind out the occasional result.

Their turnover is similar to ours but in the f/y to June 20 they lost £35m as against our £2m profit and they are now carrying well over £100m of debt so selling it will be difficult. They have no youth talent to speak of because anyone decent goes to the London clubs. They had to do a revaluation of their fixed assets in 2020 in order to get a remotely acceptable balance sheet. As soon as the current owners decide they've had enough, another Derby is looming. They are in a total mess compared to us.

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

Well, Watford is basically North West London and is on the tube line and has Arsenal and Spurs in close proximity. 

While Spurs and Arsenal are kind of close to the east, there isn’t a big club for ages North and West of it. It hasn’t done a good job of catching the county’s imagination. I’ve lived in Hertfordshire most of my life and never felt encouraged to support the county’s biggest team.

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1 hour ago, hogesar said:

No one has said that.

If anything its those who want new owners that are deluded. You've said it yourself, we might improve or "we might not"

Thats a delusion. We might improve, we might significantly go backwards to a lower midtable championship club like plenty of others of similar size. We might even become a regular league one participant as several similar sized clubs have faced.

Your post suggests we might improve or we might just stay as we are. Thats not how the risk works.

Nice bit of name-calling and missing the point there hoggy 🤣

What the Delia apologists hang onto is 2 fairly flimsy arguments... that the alternative is a stinking rich Eastern based owner with questionable plans for the club/human rights records (it's not) or LoOk At IpSwIcH aNd PoRtSmOuTh, Be CaReFuL wHaT yOu WiSh FoR etc.

Instead of misdirection and whatabouttery, how about recognising that the last 2 games actually put us in a really good position to have the chance of staying up and the owners lack of ability to put a few quid into the club and acquire the player that gives us a much better chance to stay up actually means they are a hindrance as an owner.  If relegation occurs again this season, it's one again at the feet of the cook. 

Let's just break this down... Hoggy's words basically translate as wanting an owner that can put a few quid in to give us a better chance of staying up is a deluded view.  Let that take a moment to sink in...

 

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

Each to their own but  to be honest I would rather we didn't have Delia in charge. We can only go so far under the current structure and I believe she holds us back from progressing. The self funded model just allows Delia to keep hold of something she can't actually afford.

Absolutely this, and I can't believe people still buy into the alternative.

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8 hours ago, hogesar said:

Important quote here below, alongside others where they're not happy about having rich owners, who have given them some prem years but taken away their feeling of what their club means to them....

Sold our soul for some time at the top table, simple equation really.

I compare it loosely to being a recording artist who decides to make pop hits of whatever the in sound is at the time, a few singles will sell millions and chart, but in doing so they sacrifice having that classic album, never really establishing an identity, get any critical acclaim and don't ever build a solid, core fanbase

A fair few bands I’ve loved over the years have done that and I stopped going to their gigs and buying their albums as a result. It’s called “Selling out” in the music context and that’s exactly what Watford have done with the heart and soul of their club, they sold it to the devil.

Do feel for their supporters.

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8 hours ago, Nexus_Canary said:

This is why i love having a family club and why Delia Smith is good for us.

 

This is also why i never understand the body of our fans who would have been over the moon if the Saudi's had bought us instead of Newcastle.
Rather League two and a soul than Premier league and classless.

Newcastle haven’t had any soul for ages, now this Saudi takeover makes them look even more of a joke.

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Well my Watford mate has apart from a little bit of banter been very sympathetic to our plight as I hope he has felt the same from me. The only thing I will add to this debate is the talk about their crowds. Let's be honest here. Watford is a very small town that with the growth of the commuter belt has grown. It is still nowhere near a big as Norwich. In the same time most of our season ticket holders take to get to Carrow Rd they could get to 20 or so league teams. Also as Watford has grown it's mainly due to people moving out of London so many people already have a connection to a London club either through birth or family. They have for many years up to the 80s been a 3rd /4th division team. We have a big if sparse area to pull fans from but we have no competition. A kid in Norfolk who wants to watch football is not going to go to Ipswich and not just because they are s*#t. 

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12 minutes ago, Canaries north said:

Well my Watford mate has apart from a little bit of banter been very sympathetic to our plight as I hope he has felt the same from me. The only thing I will add to this debate is the talk about their crowds. Let's be honest here. Watford is a very small town that with the growth of the commuter belt has grown. It is still nowhere near a big as Norwich. In the same time most of our season ticket holders take to get to Carrow Rd they could get to 20 or so league teams. Also as Watford has grown it's mainly due to people moving out of London so many people already have a connection to a London club either through birth or family. They have for many years up to the 80s been a 3rd /4th division team. We have a big if sparse area to pull fans from but we have no competition. A kid in Norfolk who wants to watch football is not going to go to Ipswich and not just because they are s*#t. 

Some of what you say is fair, that said I have lived in Hertfordshire nearly all my life and they haven’t made an effort to make the county adopt it as their team. Other clubs, including Saracens rugby have been quite successful in encouraging new fans from a county that doesn’t have any major sporting teams but a lot of disposable income.

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59 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

While Spurs and Arsenal are kind of close to the east, there isn’t a big club for ages North and West of it. It hasn’t done a good job of catching the county’s imagination. I’ve lived in Hertfordshire most of my life and never felt encouraged to support the county’s biggest team.

Yes but other parts of Hertfordshire  are actually closer or as close to big London Clubs.  The Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium is probably closer to Herford than Vicarage Road.  Aylesbury not sure if that is Hertfordshire is probably closer to Stamford Bridge for example.  

 

http://www.myfootygrounds.co.uk/LeagueMap.asp?League=PREM

Edited by Alex

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49 minutes ago, BarclayWazza said:

Nice bit of name-calling and missing the point there hoggy 🤣

What the Delia apologists hang onto is 2 fairly flimsy arguments... that the alternative is a stinking rich Eastern based owner with questionable plans for the club/human rights records (it's not) or LoOk At IpSwIcH aNd PoRtSmOuTh, Be CaReFuL wHaT yOu WiSh FoR etc.

Instead of misdirection and whatabouttery, how about recognising that the last 2 games actually put us in a really good position to have the chance of staying up and the owners lack of ability to put a few quid into the club and acquire the player that gives us a much better chance to stay up actually means they are a hindrance as an owner.  If relegation occurs again this season, it's one again at the feet of the cook. 

Let's just break this down... Hoggy's words basically translate as wanting an owner that can put a few quid in to give us a better chance of staying up is a deluded view.  Let that take a moment to sink in...

 

This whataboutery criticism is spot on. That what about Leicester and what about Wolves just doesn't work. It assumes the owner we get will be the ones they have. Which then brings in more whataboutery with a much longer list of clubs. The law of averages says we are more likely to get one of those. Which is the point.

So if we ban whataboutery what's next?

Edited by nutty nigel

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56 minutes ago, BarclayWazza said:

Nice bit of name-calling and missing the point there hoggy 🤣

What the Delia apologists hang onto is 2 fairly flimsy arguments... that the alternative is a stinking rich Eastern based owner with questionable plans for the club/human rights records (it's not) or LoOk At IpSwIcH aNd PoRtSmOuTh, Be CaReFuL wHaT yOu WiSh FoR etc.

Instead of misdirection and whatabouttery, how about recognising that the last 2 games actually put us in a really good position to have the chance of staying up and the owners lack of ability to put a few quid into the club and acquire the player that gives us a much better chance to stay up actually means they are a hindrance as an owner.  If relegation occurs again this season, it's one again at the feet of the cook. 

Let's just break this down... Hoggy's words basically translate as wanting an owner that can put a few quid in to give us a better chance of staying up is a deluded view.  Let that take a moment to sink in...

 

I dont know how to tackle the long list of things you've got wrong in your post. Something tells me it's not worth it.

For someone accusing others of missing the point, its ironic that you've got this so blindingly incorrect, and not been able to take the actual point from my post.

Either way, none of your moaning on here us going to get rid of Delia so we've got her and I'm happy with that until a better offer arrives.

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29 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Some of what you say is fair, that said I have lived in Hertfordshire nearly all my life and they haven’t made an effort to make the county adopt it as their team. Other clubs, including Saracens rugby have been quite successful in encouraging new fans from a county that doesn’t have any major sporting teams but a lot of disposable income.

Yes but Saracens were the top club in the country. It's easier when you are at the top. I will also add Saracens play in the London borough of Barnet. One last point, you have mentioned how what Watford do with Udinese is morally wrong. Now you are putting forward Saracens as an example😂🤣. As said I still think as a smaller club, our catchment area is a lot more suitable. My watford friend happily says any stadium over 25,000 would be a waste as they would never fill it no matter what they did on the pitch. 

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18 minutes ago, Alex said:

Yes but other parts of Hertfordshire  are actually closer or as close to big London Clubs.  The Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium is probably closer to Herford than Vicarage Road.  Aylesbury not sure if that is Hertfordshire is probably closer to Stamford Bridge for example. 

It’s about 30 mins to Vicarage road from Hertford and quite a bit more to Spurs. Stamford Bridge in Kings rd down by the Thames it’s nowhere near. Aylesbury is Buckinghamshire and way closer to Watford than Chelsea. This is my point there are no other big teams in Beds Herts and Bucks. The surrounding area has potential for expansion. It’s not a hotbed of Football by any means but they could do way more.

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3 hours ago, shefcanary said:

Yeah, if their board had say real ambition Vicarage Road would be a 35,000 seat stadium now.

 

3 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

Exactly, it’s under 22k capacity. Considering Hertfordshire doesn’t have another equivalent sized club, seems a missed opportunity.

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/19215166.watford-borough-council-continue-talks-watford-fc-stadium-plans/

You mean a stadium like this?

Last week, the Watford Observer revealed that plans for a 33,000-seater carbon zero football stadium had been published after the private owners of Bushey Hall had put forward their site for redevelopment as part of Hertsmere Borough Council’s local plan, proposing the club as the occupier of the site.

 

I think COVID may have delayed it, not sure.

 

Edited by Miss Demeanor

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7 minutes ago, Canaries north said:

Yes but Saracens were the top club in the country. It's easier when you are at the top. I will also add Saracens play in the London borough of Barnet. One last point, you have mentioned how what Watford do with Udinese is morally wrong. Now you are putting forward Saracens as an example😂🤣. As said I still think as a smaller club, our catchment area is a lot more suitable. My watford friend happily says any stadium over 25,000 would be a waste as they would never fill it no matter what they did on the pitch. 

I’ll address each point individually because you’ve tried to make a killer argument but it’s all got a bit tangled.

Saracens are a big rugby club, my point is they made an effort to grow their fan base through school trips, local rugby sevens, friendly’s against local teams etc. 

Saracens played at vicarage rd Watford for a number of years, that’s partly why I made the comparison.

I go to Saracens often. Barnet borders Hertfordshire, it’s right off the A1 and M1. It’s very easy to get there and they have a large Hertfordshire following.

Pointing out Saracens are good at marketing is completely different to saying they have acted morally or I agree with the tactics they have used to bypass wage caps. The Udinese point is a big swing and a miss.

If your friend thinks they will be small whatever they do then fine, but I don’t think they’ve particularly tried as someone who has lived in the county.

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18 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

It’s about 30 mins to Vicarage road from Hertford and quite a bit more to Spurs. Stamford Bridge in Kings rd down by the Thames it’s nowhere near. Aylesbury is Buckinghamshire and way closer to Watford than Chelsea. This is my point there are no other big teams in Beds Herts and Bucks. The surrounding area has potential for expansion. It’s not a hotbed of Football by any means but they could do way more.

According to Google maps Spurs is closer. 

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Silly me, I was all in favour of new ownership before I found out some Watford fans (that’s Watford with an PL winning manager and some serious top level players in their team) who are going through a bad spell are blaming their owners. I do wonder however, if you ask the same fans moaning if they would like an owner worth £20m they would snap your hand off?, I have an idea and I’m pretty sure they would rather swap for Newcastle’s owners than ours.

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11 minutes ago, Miss Demeanor said:

 

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/19215166.watford-borough-council-continue-talks-watford-fc-stadium-plans/

You mean a stadium like this?

Last week, the Watford Observer revealed that plans for a 33,000-seater carbon zero football stadium had been published after the private owners of Bushey Hall had put forward their site for redevelopment as part of Hertsmere Borough Council’s local plan, proposing the club as the occupier of the site.

 

I think COVID may have delayed it, not sure.

 

It’s interesting, there has  been talk of Watford expanding the stadium for decades but this seems different. It also seems actively driven by the local council. It is a run down stadium, if it did move to a new ground then I can see the benefits but the current one is deep in the heart of Watford. It has that, rows of houses and then suddenly a football stadium charm, which i’m fond of. I’ll be interested to know how it will be financed.

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10 minutes ago, Alex said:

According to Google maps Spurs is closer. 

Yeah you’re right it’s quicker than I thought. I have used a bad example to be honest, Hertford is on the other side of Hertfordshire. If I had used Big towns / cities like Hemel or St Albans it would have made more sense.

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7 minutes ago, Miss Demeanor said:

Yeah, as you say, it seems council driven. Would they finance it or the club?

Devil is in the detail. Do they propose sharing facilities with another sport? Are they genuinely worried they’ll do an MK Dons? What’s in it for the council or is it the private company involved trying to ratchet up the noise from fans? We’ll see.

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20 minutes ago, Son Ova Gunn said:

Silly me, I was all in favour of new ownership before I found out some Watford fans (that’s Watford with an PL winning manager and some serious top level players in their team) who are going through a bad spell are blaming their owners. I do wonder however, if you ask the same fans moaning if they would like an owner worth £20m they would snap your hand off?, I have an idea and I’m pretty sure they would rather swap for Newcastle’s owners than ours.

A PL winning manager on the verge of being sacked (again). Who are these serious top level players?

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