Vicarage Road: Watford 0-3 Burnley

Monday 2 December 2019

Watford 0-3 Burnley


Aerial shot of Vicarage Road (Newsflare) Rating Overall Ground Quality : 8/10 Ease of getting there : 9/10 Atmosphere : 7/10 Programme : 7/10 View of Action : 7/10 Quality of the game : 5/10 The "football" feeling : 8/10 Chances of coming here for a random game : 2/10 Legroom : 9/10 Surrounding area : 7/10 Overall : 69/100

Programme - £3.00

Vicarage Road Stand

Sir Elton John Stand

Vicarage Road Stand

Rookery Stand

Vicarage Road Stand

Sir Elton John Stand

Vicarage Road Stand

Sir Elton John Stand

Vicarage Road Stand

Sir Elton John Stand

Graham Taylor Stand

Vicarage Road Stand

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Watford 0-3 Burnley

It's been nearly 10 years since my (Ross) last visit to Vicarage Road and in that time, the club has made some significant progress.
Ironically when I last visited Vicarage Road, Malky Mackay was the manager of Watford with his assistant being non other than Burnley's current manager, Sean Dyche. That day I saw a Championahip relegation battle between Watford and Plymouth Argyle with the home side taking the spoils thanks to a Heidar Helguson goal. At the time, Vicarage Road was at the early stages of a redevelopment with the Main Stand due to be demolished and the corners being filled in at the Rookery End.
My visit on this occasion was accompanied by a few friends of mine where we had arranged to stop over night and have a few drinks after the match.
With tickets and accommodation sorted, we were all set for our trip. We set off at 9.30am picking everyone up before making our way down the M1. A fairly straightforward journey saw us arrive at 12pm parking the car in Sutton car park in the town centre near our hotel, Jurys Inn.
We made our way to the Estcourt Tavern pub for lunch and to watch the early kick off, West Ham United vs Tottenham Hotspur.
At 1.30pm, we made our way through the town centre heading towards Vicarage Road.

Vicarage Road has seen a vast transformation since my last visit and was nearly unrecognisable. Its current capacity is 22,220 following the completion of the new Sir Elton John Stand in 2014, and expansion work in 2015 and again throughout 2016 and 2017, this included expansion of the football pitch. Expansion and upgrade work is to continue, with plans to expand Vicarage Road to around 30,000.

The oldest existing stand, the Graham Taylor Stand, is a two-tiered stand renamed for the 2014–15 season, taking its name from the club's most successful manager Graham Taylor. It was previously named after former FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous. The official renaming ceremony took place on 29 November 2014. The stand with its distinctive wavy roof runs along the side of the pitch, on the west side of the ground. It is a two-tiered stand, with executive boxes and a TV camera gantry. Built in 1986, it replaced the Shrodells Stand. The £3 million development was partly funded via a loan from Elton John. The upper tier, complete with executive boxes, was constructed first, and temporary seats forming a lower-tier were added later. These were later replaced with permanent seats, first used for a game against Notts County on 18 September 1993.

The Vicarage Road Stand which was built following the conclusion of the 1992–93 season. Previously an open terrace, the all-seater stand was built to comply with the Taylor Report and raise the standard of the ground. It cost £2.3 million to build and had a capacity of 5,800 people. Construction was largely funded by the £1.2m sale of Bruce Dyer in 1994. Originally a mere earth bank when the club moved to the ground, it was gradually transformed into a conventional terrace. In 1978, an electronic scoreboard was put up, which became an iconic symbol of Watford's eighties heyday. In a display of solidarity with the home support, Graham Taylor maintained that the benches for the coaching staff and substitute on the side of the pitch would remain exposed to the elements until such time as the home end was covered. Its final game as a terrace was a 1–0 loss to Oxford United on 8 May 1993. It opened to the public once more on 18 September 1993, with Watford defeating Notts County 3–1. Previously the home stand, it now houses the away support. A partition was subsequently added, meaning that both home and away support could be put in the stand. Half of the stand is given to away fans, and the other half is used as the family area for home fans.

The Rookery Stand was built over the course of the 1994–95 season. Another former terrace, the all-seater Rookery stand has a capacity of 6,960. Larger than the Vicarage Road stand, it has facilities on two levels and also holds most of the club's administrative areas. The stand cost £1.6 million to build, approximately £300,000 of this figure was contributed by the Football Trust, with the remaining money coming from the £2.3m sale of Paul Furlong by then-owner Jack Petchey in 1994.
The new stand was used by Watford supporters for the first time on 22 April 1995, for the visit of Bristol City. As part of redevelopment work in conjunction with the Watford Health Campus, 164 units of affordable housing, known locally as The Wrap, were built on and around the Rookery end. Construction finished in 2009.

The Sir Elton John Stand sits on the east side of the ground, and contains the changing rooms & tunnel. The stand was fully opened on 13 December 2014, in a ceremony attended by Sir Elton John. Prior to the development of the Sir Elton John Stand, the east side of the ground was home to the Main Stand, which was constructed in 1922 following Watford FC's move from Cassio Road. The Main Stand was closed in 2008 due to safety concerns.
Following the acquisition of Watford FC by the Pozzo family in 2012, the club were able to finance the development of a new stand to replace the Main Stand. The redevelopment of the east side of the stadium began in 2013, with the aim of developing a 3,000 seater capacity stand which would also house the players changing rooms and tunnel.
In May 2014, it was announced the stand will be known as The Watford FC Community Stand. However the club announced in November 2014 that the new stand would instead be named after former chairman Sir Elton John. The changing rooms were used for the first time in a friendly match between Watford and Udinese on 2 August 2014. On 8 June 2015, the club confirmed that 700 extra seats were being installed in the recently built Sir Elton John Stand. This number was revised a day later to around 1000 extra seats, following the announcement of an expansion in the north-east corner.

Following a very uneventful first half, the Clarets took the lead early in the second half when Chris Wood hooked home a loose ball from a corner.
Burnley's Ashley Barnes was fouled by Watford's Jose Holebas in the penalty area which was waved away by referee Paul Tierney to the amazement of Barnes who continued to appeal whilst play continued. Play was stopped when Watford were awarded corner and a VAR reviewed the foul. Following advice from VAR, Paul Tierney pointed to the Burnley penalty spot from the other end of the pitch. It was Barnes who stepped up and scored the penalty which put the away side 2-0 up.
The game was put to bed when James Tarkowski put the gloss on Burnley's victory late on, forcing home a rebound after his first effort had been well saved by Ben Foster which cued the mass exodus of Vicarage Road.
Watford are yet to win at home in the Premier League this season and their lack of confidence in front of goal was summed up by another toothless display.
Sean Dyche's team had been equally poor on the road and showed limited ambition to contain their hosts for most of the 90 minutes.
However, in Wood and Barnes they have strikers on top form to make the difference in tight games, and this win pushes them up to sixth in a congested Premier League table.
Meanwhile, Watford are mired in relegation trouble after 11 successive home games without a win for the first time in their history.

After the match, we made our way back to the town centre and to the car park collecting our bags before checking into our rooms.
We then walked to the Golden Lion pub near our hotel for a few drinks and to watch the evening match, Manchester City vs Chelsea.
Afterwards we walking into the town centre and our evening of drinks continued through the night eventually making our way back to the hotel at 1am.
The next morning we checked out after Match of the Day had finished putting our bags in the car before heading to a Wetherspoons in the town centre for breakfast. After we finished our breakfast, we made our way back to the car and out of a fog covered Watford.

Watford 1-0 Plymouth Argyle
Vicarage Road is home of Watford. We arrived at Watford Junction at 1:32pm and made our way towards the ground which is situated about 1 mile away from the railway station. On our arrival, we took a few pictures of the exterior of the ground before kindly being allowed by one of the stewards to take a few pictures inside. As we made our way down Occupation Road towards the Rookery Stand, driving up the road was Chris Kamara of Sky Sports, UNBELIEVABLE JEFF!
Behind the Rookery stand was an unusual scene which included allotments just behind the stand. The stand recently had apartments built behind it to give it an impressive sight from the bottom of Occupation Road. The Rous stand was also quite unusual from behind as it backed onto the General Hospital. Also the second tier of the Rous stand was at road level as well as the Vicarage Road stand which is a similar example to Charlton Athletics ground, The Valley, where one of the stands roofs are below road level.
We decided to make our way into the ground. I (Ross) got myself the traditional football drink, Bovril for a very reasonable price compared to most football clubs, at £1.10! As we booked our tickets online, we were unsure about the sort of view we would get and we weren’t disappointed as our seats were 1 row from the top of the stand to give us a brilliant view of the whole of the pitch.
The outcome of the game saw an abysmal Plymouth Argyle side lose 1-0 against a not-much-better Watford side, giving them 3 valuable points in order to help push them away from the relegation zone. The goal was scored by Heidar Helguson in the 50th minute.
After the game, we walked back towards the town centre to get a drink from the McDonalds and continue our journey back to Watford Junction railway station.
On our arrival, we found out that our train had been cancelled due to someone jumping in front of a train at Harrow. Therefore, we had to wait for a train going to Milton Keynes Central, and then change back onto the later train going to Crewe via Tamworth.
When we finally got back to Tamworth, it was only 20 minutes later than our original arrival time.
Overall, our trip to Vicarage Road was very enjoyable not only for the visit to the ground, but also with a game which created a tense atmosphere around Vicarage Road. The only disappointment was that the ground’s image is let down by the old East stand which is currently shut and awaiting demolition but when the corporate structure in the corner of the Rous stand is built and the replacement of the East stand is built, the ground will be one of the best in the Championship . Guaranteed!

Monday 2 December 2019

Watford 0-3 Burnley

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