Where should Watford finish?
It’s been a while since I wrote — a sure-fire sign things have been going well at Vicarage Road.
Depending on your outlook, Watford are either sailing serenely through choppy waters toward a safe mid-table finish, via a brief playoff flirtation, all while becoming more lean and reducing overheads and liabilities. Either that or they’re already shipwrecked. Marooned on the rocks with no hope of reaching the promised land or the treasure beneath the spot marked ‘X’.
Ah yes, ‘X’. The artist formerly known as Twitter. As ever — and I feel like I say this every time I write— it isn’t indicative of the entire fanbase, however much it might feel like it at times when every decision, match or transfer is analysed in its minutiae. I’m not above this and as one-third of a Watford-centric podcast, I’m certainly not pretending I’m not part of the problem at times, too!
That said, I do make a point of listening to Do Not Scratch Your Eyes’ post-game Twitter Spaces. They act as a sort of 6–0–6 for Hornets supporters and expose you to a wide range of views, which is something I find interesting and healthy. In the post-Cardiff City edition, however, more than one ‘caller’ opined that the current iteration of the club is no better off than it was under Laurence Bassini. Fair enough, it was that caller’s view and they’re entitled to hold it. Game of opinions and all that. But I really struggled with that one.
I can understand why people are fed up with Gino Pozzo. Really, I can. I was a latecomer to this particular party and I maintain that taken over the entire duration of his tenure, he has been the next-best owner in the club’s history behind Elton John. We’ve enjoyed more consecutive seasons in the top-flight on his watch than anyone bar the original Rocket Man and reached the FA Cup Final — something only previously achieved during those halcyon days.
All that said, there has been chronic mismanagement. In the age of Premier League riches, we’ve somehow managed to tumble from 11th and said cup final to mid-table in the Championship. All while seeing numerous head coaches, sporting directors, directors of football and technical directors through the revolving door. Player transfers have become increasingly miss rather than hit and there have been some pretty unsavoury headlines thanks to off-field and personal matters relating to Pozzo.
My own suspicion is we’re now approaching end game. That the reduction in squad size, wage bill and fat trimming is an attempt to avoid stumping up much more of his own cash ahead of a potential sale. A sale that is unlikely to be achieved without first winning promotion first due to the level of owner debt.
Despite that, I’m not too downhearted. I have enjoyed this season. Plenty of games have been good. A similar number have been crap. Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland away instantly spring to mind for reasons of boredom and utter ineptitude. In summary, we’re as likely to win as we are get beaten. Which is about where Watford have always been in my lifetime.
In a sense, there has been an almost nostalgic quality to this season which has heightened my sense of enjoyment. I’ll be 32 in May so my frame of reference is skewed by that. Do we have a divine right to expect to be challenging for promotion from the Championship? Personally, I don’t feel we do. But that’s because for the large majority of my formative years we didn’t challenge for promotion from this league. We were in League One (née Division Two, Division Three) for two seasons in the 90s and had enjoyed two solitary sojourns to the Premier League before Pozzo arrived in 2012.
All of which got me thinking: what is Watford’s natural station?
It’s an impossible question to answer but I’ve had a go.
I needed a starting point and picked the 1958–59 season as it marks the restructure of the Football League to introduce Division Four, as opposed to Division Three North and South. In other words, the closest thing to what we have today. Of course — and I learned this in my number crunching — there have been plenty of tweaks in the 66 years since. I hadn’t realised, for example, how often the number of teams in each division changed over the years. But hopefully that serves as a logical point to look back from. The ‘modern era’, so to speak.
So, here are the headlines:
Years in Division One or the Premier League: 14
Years in Division Two, Division One or the Championship: 31
Years in Division Three, Division Two or League One: 15
Years in Division Four, Division Three or League Two: 5
Taking every finishing position since 1959 and giving it a ranking as if the Football League was a continuous league of 92 teams, then taking an average of those positions, leaves us with… 36.63. Rounded up to: 37th. In other words, if we work on the basis the top flight has either 20 or 22 teams, Watford’s natural station is 17th to 15th in today’s Championship.
Doubtless, the logic in this is flawed. Not least by the fact this only accounts for the last 66 years, rather than the club’s entire history. I’m also certain fans who are better with numbers will take issue with my methodology — I am open to feedback! I won’t pretend it’s anything other than a crude attempt to cure an idle curiosity on my part. But, if I understand how averages work at all, introducing another 6o-odd years in Division Three South and the Southern League won’t move the dial much. They certainly won’t push the Hornets’ average finish higher — that is for certain.
So what does it all mean? At a time when there’s been so much talk about expectation, entitlement and delusion, it gives some idea of what our base level is. It also means we can take a range from that data to see what different generations of fans might expect.
Good news if you’re only 10 — and well done for making it this far — perhaps unsurprisingly you should expect Premier League football. The bad news is, it’s 20th position for us, so not for long! Twenty-year-old supporters can claim with some legitimacy that their Watford should be a promotion contender. Twenty-fifth overall is good for a playoff spot in the Championship (5th).
Unfortunately, 30-year-old supporters are the first to begin to see the tipping point. If you are of that fine vintage, your iteration average a 29th-place finish. Or 9th in the second tier. Forty-year-old fans, aided by the glorious first Graham Taylor era, actually see a marginal improvement to 27th (7th). After that — as in life one might argue — it’s all downhill. Supporters hitting their half century should anticipate a 32nd-place finish (12th in the Championship) and it’s 35th (15th) if you’re 60.
Crucially — and this isn’t to ignore anyone aged 61+, I just didn’t collate the data as we know — each of those finishing positions bar one is in the Championship. Scott Duxbury (I know, boo, hiss) said at one of last summer’s fan forums that we should be ‘proud’ to be a Championship club. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.