Non: Watford - 'a club is people. All of its people, all important, all valued. Lose that, and what is left?'

fritter said:
www.theguardian.com

Elton John’s Taylor-made Watford showed that clubs are about people

A new book on Watford’s glory years under Elton John and Graham Taylor illustrates how football has become poorer as it has become vastly wealthy
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

A very interesting piece. It chimes with many conversations on here.
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Excellent piece, thank you for sharing.

What is the "soul" of a football club ? What is the "soul" of Boscombe ?

Very hard to come up with an all-encompassing definition, but we'll know it when we've lost it.
 
I sense our club is drifting into the transactional and impersonal commercial world. I do hope our American ownership absorb this type of article, and more importantly take it's message seriously. I'm not holding my breath...
 
fritter said:
www.theguardian.com

Elton John’s Taylor-made Watford showed that clubs are about people

A new book on Watford’s glory years under Elton John and Graham Taylor illustrates how football has become poorer as it has become vastly wealthy
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

A very interesting piece. It chimes with many conversations on here.
Click to expand...
Good article and I think that book will be well worth a read .
Lionel Bernie wrote a book called “ Enjoy the Game “ , about Watford’s rise through the divisions under Elton John and Graham Taylor’s partnership- that is an excellent read too .
 
I expect many of us yearn for some elements of that lost world in football and across many other facets of life. Back in an era when life seemed simpler.

Football at top level sold its soul years ago and if we stay there for a long duration then we will go the same way. So much focus on money.

However, I do like how afcb players are happy to sign autos and do selfies at Dean court - not many prem clubs do now and it’s a very appreciated opportunity for young and old fans alike.
 
Watford was an amazing success story. Long ball assault not appreciated by many purists of course and part of that club’s DNA even today
 
AFCBade said:
Watford was an amazing success story. Long ball assault not appreciated by many purists of course and part of that club’s DNA even today
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It was a form of the high press - get it up there quick and then harry the opposition in around the final third … with Barnes and Callaghan on the wings there was plenty of skill and trickery in the side too …
 
AFCBade said:
I expect many of us yearn for some elements of that lost world in football and across many other facets of life. Back in an era when life seemed simpler.

Football at top level sold its soul years ago and if we stay there for a long duration then we will go the same way. So much focus on money.

However, I do like how afcb players are happy to sign autos and do selfies at Dean court - not many prem clubs do now and it’s a very appreciated opportunity for young and old fans alike.
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Agree. Sadly things have moved on. The clubs that mainly talk about being part of the community, and meaning it, are in the lower leagues. They need the fans.

At PL level they may try, but things will inevitably get lost over time.
 
I think people are letting nostalgia re-write history a bit here. Football club owners have never had the best interests of fans and players at heart. They often got wealthy off the back of the players best efforts and refused to pay them what they were worth. They underinvested in football grounds to the extent that they became death traps.

It is fans that are the lifeblood of clubs and nothing owners do can take that away.
 
Think those days are well gone for our club now.

As fans of this club we have seen it come up through the leagues until we are in the big club, big money league.

To survive this league you need money and Max D provided it for so long and then maybe it started getting out of his league and decided to find someone who could take us further.

There was always talk way back of finding a ‘White Knight’ for our club.

Step forward Bill Foley and his team.

We have seen how things are gradually changing around our club.

Also for the future there is talk of a new bigger stadium which our fans keep calling for, this is after the Canford project is finished.

So we can look back to our past which was mainly in the lower leagues, but in reality our club is way past those days.

If you want the new training facilities and a new stadium, we have to accept even if we don’t like it that changes will continue under our new owner, even with the Razzmatazz from America.
 
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SlowDownDerek said:
I think people are letting nostalgia re-write history a bit here. Football club owners have never had the best interests of fans and players at heart. They often got wealthy off the back of the players best efforts and refused to pay them what they were worth. They underinvested in football grounds to the extent that they became death traps.

It is fans that are the lifeblood of clubs and nothing owners do can take that away.
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Think Elton John was a genuine Watford fan and continued to be.

Understand the general comment about owners and, you are right, but there is a clear sense that some football fans are feeling disconnected from their clubs in a way that didn’t use to happen. Probably Man Utd the most extreme example with the glazers
 
AFCBade said:
Watford was an amazing success story. Long ball assault not appreciated by many purists of course and part of that club’s DNA even today
Click to expand...
Well not this season really as it’s all been very much possession based as most teams are .

It it interesting though how that style has been received quite negatively because our fans remember the best years being about getting the ball forwards and getting goals .

Mind you as ever does tend to depend on the result that day !

Obviously wasn’t any social media then but results were generally good so wasn’t a lot of moaning I shouldn’t think .
 
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AFCBade said:
Think Elton John was a genuine Watford fan and continued to be.

Understand the general comment about owners and, you are right, but there is a clear sense that some football fans are feeling disconnected from their clubs in a way that didn’t use to happen. Probably Man Utd the most extreme example with the glazers
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Very much so - man and boy .

Local lad etc.

Suppose we got lucky I guess - like Brighton now.

Multi millionaire fan taking us over when we were in the old Div 4 - only way was up.

We had such good players and obviously a manager to boot.

These days a John Barnes type would be in a top PL academy by 11 and GT poached at some point long before Villa came in for him .

There was a strong connection between club and fans too as the article states .

Now most of the time is spent with fans arguing with each other on Twitter etc or complaining about the club .
 
SlowDownDerek said:
It is fans that are the lifeblood of clubs and nothing owners do can take that away.
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Yes but I get the feeling that the traditional supporter bases of the elite clubs (Liverpool Man Utd , Chelsea etc) have been hollowed out and replaced by a mix of tourists, trippers and corporates.

The fans are different now. Compared with, say, 40 years ago, how many local working class lads do you find on The Kop or the Stretford End these days ?
 
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