For today’s ‘On This Day’ feature we look at Watford’s programme for the 1985/86 season. Read our review of the issue below and click here to view all of the Division One programmes from the season.
The Watford issue was once again presented in the ‘square’ format that had become familiar to Hornets fans. The programme was otherwise typical of Division One issues of the time, offering 18.5 pages of content for the price of 50p.
The programme for the game against Tottenham Hotspur opened with ‘Kick Off’ – a collection of news snippets and adverts, before manager Graham Taylor’s column, in which he referred to the “uncertain climate” in which football found itself and the inconsistent performances that Watford had delivered in the first half of the season. ‘Hornets News & Views’ offered more information from around the club, including details of the postponement of a planned stadium redevelopment due to cost concerns.
The centre pages of the programme featured an ‘Action Profile’ of winger John Barnes, who is pictured in full flow in a recent Watford game. The article included stats on Barnes’ career to date and his hopes for the following summer’s World Cup tournament in Mexico. The Watford programme was very good on coverage of previous matches at all levels with ‘Action Replay’ focusing on the first team’s results, ‘Action in Reserve’ looking at the reserves fortunes in the Football Combination, and ‘Junior Playback’ covering the youth team’s performances in the South East Counties League and FA Youth Cup. The results, scorers, line-ups, and attendances were detailed in each instance. League tables and fixtures were for each team were covered separately in ‘Fact Finder’ towards the back of the issue.
Visitors Tottenham were covered over two pages, which featured a full colour team group picture, notes on the last meeting between Watford and Spurs, and details of the club’s players. Winger Chris Waddle was singled out for special mention, following his £600,000 move from Newcastle United in the summer of 1985.
‘Viewfinder’ offered something a little different, in the shape of an interview with Spurs fan Julie Welch – the first female sportswriter on a national newspaper. Welch had written the screenplay for the TV film ‘Those Glory Glory Days’, which looked at Tottenham’s double-winning season of 1960/61 through the eyes of a young girl nicknamed “Danny” after her hero Danny Blanchflower. Welch discussed her career on Fleet Street, covering her big break with the Observer and her developing interest in writing screenplays and books.
The most interesting feature though was ‘Seasons Past’, which in each issue looked at a season from Watford’s past. For the Spurs programme, the season covered was 1952/53, which was described as “the birth of a new era for Watford”. Having had to apply for re-election to the Football League in 1951 a new board had taken over the running of the club in 1952 and, with a long list of new signings, the club’s fortunes began to improve with Watford finishing 1952/53 in 10th place.
This Watford issue provided good value with some interesting reading and a wealth of statistical information. The design work utilised well the space available with the shape of the programme, with good use made of colour to mark out different types of content.