Fulham 4 Watford 1 (10/01/2025)
Yesterday at 09:23 AM
1- Taking someone to their first game is always high risk. Or rather… a potentially high stakes enterprise.
And the person involved doesn’t have to be a particularly close friend. Canadian Mike was a housemate in for maybe six months. I’m not sure we were ever in touch once he left. I wish him no ill, he was a good guy but we were never close.
And yet when I think of him, if I think of him at all, it’s in the context of a failed introduction to football that foundered on the pathetic injury- and underinvestment-hit form of Glenn Roeder’s side late in 1995. The first trip was to Leicester City, a game settled by Iwan Roberts who had left Vicarage Road five years earlier and scored a shedload of goals in the intervening period. The away section was silent as Filbert Street exploded around us, but for Mike’s dumbfounded guffaw of “Wow! Look at THOSE guys!” in awe at the outpouring of emotion in the home stands. Two weeks later, a joyless 2-0 defeat to Norwich City contained no such novelty. He never came along again, lost, I fear, to Ice Hockey for good.
Jude is a fellow actor. A good one. She has “been to a game before”, she thinks, but it was a long time ago. Again, high stakes then… her future lies in the evening’s hands even if she’s not aware of it and would never admit it.
It starts well. I’d spent the tail end of a gratuitous day off walking along the Thames from Vauxhall, passing a lit up Albert Bridge and other attractions before meeting Jude at Putney Bridge. We look for a pub and chance upon the Eight Bells where I double take at the sign in the window which reads not “Home Fans Only” but “Away Fans Only”. Tickets are checked on the door and we’re in… and if the fact that the place is rammed with civilised folk of good taste and upbringing means that I have to be gentle and respectful in navigating a route to the bar it’s nonetheless a Fine Thing. Affable gestures are shared across the bar with Hutch and John, a passing hello with Jamie, it’s boisterous and noisy and good natured and a fine start to the indoctrination.
2- Roughly two hours later, things are noisier still. Around us, 4200-ish travelling Watford supporters are lost in the glorious afterglow of a 19 year-old winger pinging in a shot from distance to equalise at a Premier League ground. For myself, I have both fists in the air and am bellowing wordlessly into space. In front of us a bunch of lads are in full bundle, the bearded guy at the top of the pile making quite extraordinary noises. “Screaming like a girl”, as Jude would later recall…. whilst Jude herself is giggling uncontrollably at the glorious drama and release of the moment. She’s sold. She’s long gone.
That parity is relatively fleeting, that we end the game well beaten is an irrelevance. There are far duller ways to go out of the Cup (indeed we a long history of these, including at least once at this stadium). If the end point, if the conclusion defined the value of the moment then as a side who have had, yes, plenty of highs but nonetheless in the grand scheme of things “won f*** all” (Copa de Ibiza excepted, sorry Sarah) you’d have precious few memories to look back on with joy. Troy’s goal against Leicester isn’t any less glorious by virtue of the fact that we’d go on to lose the final. Ditto Ian Richardson against Kaiserslautern, Geri’s goal against Wolves, Luther’s goal at Highbury in 1987.
3- And lest the scoreline obscures the narrative, we were all quite chipper at half time, and not just because of Vata’s equaliser. Both sides had named classic fringe line-ups, but the distance between such line-ups in a Prem vs Champ tie is perhaps greater still than that between first elevens in most cases. Andreas Pereira, one of those brought in to Fulham’s line-up, is a Brazilian international and ran the midfield.
And yet we’d held our own. Not that we weren’t outclassed, not that Fulham weren’t very evidently the better side, but even a 1-0 half-time deficit would have been credible and hard fought. Bodies were put on the line. Things were Got In The Way Of. Ryan Porteous was in his element, backs to the wall rumbustuousness and bravado called for without quite the focus and pressure of a Euros opener against Germany, say. He was quite tremendous, so too Angelo Ogbonna dogged and defiant.
It took a fine strike to break the deadlock. The sort of thing that happens to doughty but outclassed opponents against Premier League sides, as history has repeatedly taught us. Nonetheless, a fine strike from Rodrigo Muniz whose previous effort against us for Boro in the Vic Road centenary game had been rather more prosaic. Vata’s equaliser less than ten minutes later was magnificent in it’s own right (for all that he wasn’t closed down, for all that it wasn’t quite in the corner) but the more so for the defiance that it represented.
4- Another part of the football experience is of course the bundle for half time sustenance. Jude made light of her inexperience by improbably managing to both locate and join me in the queue, but our Chicken and Sage pies still took the entirety of the interval to procure. Mercifully they were worth the effort, though mine had to be protected from a cheeky miscreant as I held it injudiciously in edging back to our seats.
By the time we assumed position the penalty had been conceded. Antonio Tikvić’s edgy first half had been characterised by him “conceding” a corner by congratulating Bond for a fine fingertip stop to an Iwobi drive just as the referee prepared to signal a goal kick, the confirmation of the stop causing him to change direction. The penalty, which on review arose from Tikvić himself giving away cheap possession before clumsily trying to rectify the error, also announced to those recently returned to the arena (with pies or otherwise) the half-time introduction of Raúl Jiménez, who was never likely to miss.
There are many in visitors’ ranks who can rely on a cold welcome from Watford’s support either travelling or at Vicarage Road. Of these, Marco Silva is harder to sympathise with than most after having his head turned and subsequently phoning it in from roughly eight games into his miserable time at Watford seven or so years ago. He got the bird that he deserved, but looked to have read the riot act at his charges at the interval. The brief for a Fulham in this situation is clear – kill the game, put it to bed. Fulham weren’t to screw this up a second time.
5- There was a brief window. At 3-1, both sides rang the changes… Fulham largely bringing the big guns off, the battle taken as won. Watford bringing the (relatively) big guns on with Baah and Chak introduced to the fray. It didn’t backfire on Fulham, but it could and probably should have done on a moral level. If Fulham’s players had let Watford back in in the first half, Silva’s overconfidence could have done so here.
It wouldn’t have taken a lot; 3-2 would have felt very different to 3-1 with Watford kicking towards that boisterous away end. Doumbia’s not the first to struggle in that lone striker role but had enough about him not to be intimidated by Andersen who he left on his arse more than once. He sent a gasping, searing pass out to Baah with the outside of his foot, the winger couldn’t quite get it under control. Later Baah got to the byline and pulled back, as is his wont; the scruffy clearance dropped for Kayembe to execute a fine volley that flicked off the post on its way out.
It would have been daylight robbery of course, since Fulham had their boots on our throats for most of the second half, but cup games are about winning not deserving to win. If you get to a final, nobody cares that you got a bit lucky in the third round. Instead, Fulham extended their lead and we sloped off well beaten but in generally good spirits, as befits an away day with 4000+ fans making a noisy racket throughout.
Jude seemed disappointed that I was philosophical rather than distraught at the defeat, implying a rather concerning sense of humour. She probably pulls the wings off flies, too. Nonetheless, and despite the damning scoreline, it was a fine evening and a much better indoctrination than Canadian Mike had managed. She’ll be back.
Similarly, for all that this was a comprehensive fourth defeat on the hop this was not something to be despondent about. The resilience of support for the manager was evident, Tom’s name still being sung on the way back through the park. We need bodies, obviously, and it’s inconceivable that a striker, given Jebbison, and probably a goalkeeper, given Bachmann, won’t be on the way in through the door.
Which is good, because silver linings or otherwise we could do with another win sooner rather than later.
Yooorns.
Bond 3, *Porteous 4*, Ogbonna 4, Tikvić 2, Andrews 2, Dwomoh 3, Kayembe 3, Ince 2, Larouci 3, Vata 4, Doumbia 3
Subs: Louza (for Dwomoh, 31) 2, Baah (for Ince, 67) 3, Chakvetadze (for Vata, 67) 3, Nabizada (for Doumbia, 89) NA, Bayo, Sissoko, Sierralta, Morris, Roberts
