
Watching Watford in the Premier League each year is like watching a rubbish GIF. Here’s Pereyra beating his man to win a free-kick on the edge of the box â and here’s Holebas trotting up to hoof it into the wall. Starts out great, ends up crap. Over and over.
It’s inevitable. When the clocks go back, the players pass back. And back. And back and back. When autumn changes to winter, itâs like they all suffer Seasonal Affective Disorder â though S.A.D doesn’t quite capture it. Itâs bloody M.I.S.E.R.A.B.L.E.
As soon as winter arrives, the team sleepwalks through games. Maybe theyâre hibernating.
Itâd definitely explain why Troy Deeney builds up so much body fat each summer.
The multi-lingual squad seems to communicate via body language. When Etienne Capoue dangles a lazy leg, heâs saying to his mates: âLook at me, lads, I just donât careâ. Daryl Janmaat replies by jogging back after his winger. Heâs saying: âMe too, mate. CBA. Can’t be arsed.â
Whatever happened to Watford players giving a toss?
As a fan, I go way all the way back to Barry Endean. Barry cared. In January 1971, Watford were going out of the FA Cup at Oxford. Barry wasnât happy. In his own words in the Watford Observer: “There were only a couple of minutes left. The crowd was irritating me. I pulled down my shorts. I mean… we were almost out of the Cup. I was near to tears.”
Barry Endean cared so much that he pulled down his shorts. Yanked them down. He had to do it. We were going out of the cup.
Would any of the 2017/18 squad care that much? Would they pull down their shorts if we were going out of the cup?
After the season ended, I went to ask them. And hereâs what I found. This is the only post-season assessment that matters. Itâs…Â
WATFORDâS SQUAD ASSESSED BY WHETHER THEY WOULD PULL DOWN THEIR SHORTS IF THE HORNS WERE GOING OUT OF THE CUP

TOM CLEVERLEY
âDrop my shorts? Jog on,â Tom tells me. But heâs the one jogging â home from his holiday job at the library. He enjoys moving the books around. Quietly, efficiently. No-one ever notices him.
Heâs jogging at a nice steady pace. Not too fast, not too slow. Easy for me to keep up with â as every Premier League midfielder keeps finding.
âIâm a family man,â he says. âMy young kids wouldnât want to see me drop my shorts.â
Iâd ask his kids if this is true, but Tomâs pace means theyâre miles ahead of us.

ANDRE GRAY
âDrop me shorts? Are you âavinâ a laugh?â Andre asks. Heâs busy getting another tattoo done.
âTake me shirt off, no problem. Show off me tats of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King â symbolisinâ the struggle.â
Heâs got tattoos over every inch of his back, chest and arms. But none of them seem to depict his OWN struggle â to control the ball when itâs passed to him.
âNah,â he says, ânot me shorts.â
He sounds certain. But his eyes betray a lack of confidence. Like, if he tried to pull down his shorts, heâd miss and pull down his pants as well â revealing buttocks with as little ink as his goalscoring record for Watford.
Andre Gray wonât dare TRY pulling down his shorts.

JOSE HOLEBAS
âRemember down at Southampton, Jose, when we were going out of the cup,â I ask him. âWhy didnât you drop your shorts to show how much you cared?â
âYou and me. Now. Letâs sort it out,â he says. “Right here.”
The look in his eye makes me think itâs MY shorts that are going to get pulled down.
Luckily, Chris Kabasele holds him back.

ISAAC SUCCESS
I meet Isaac at a swish Hertfordshire hotel. âWould you ever drop your shorts?â I ask him.
âI’d need a couple of bottles of Baileys first,â he says.
He looks a bit embarrassed. He says: âProbably wouldnât go as planned, either.â

SEBASTIAN PRĂDL
âDropping shorts would ruin image,â Sebastian says, sipping a skinny macchiato in his local Hampstead artisan coffee roastery.
Seb shows me a selection of soft-focus glamour photos from his latest modelling shoot. âLederhosen always onâ, he points out. âIs important leave much to imagination.â
Which neatly sums up Watfordâs approach to football in the second half of every season.

RICHARLISON
I meet the lad in London. He nods and says: âI very happy drop shortsâ.
I smile. It looks like Iâve finally found someone who cares as much about the team as Barry Endean did.
Then he explains why heâd happily drop his shorts.
âSeptember, I take off shirt. Since November, no goal. I so sad. How you say â frustrated. When I score again I take off shirt AND shorts AND socks.â
I imagine him whirling his entire kit around his head as he runs out of the stadium, down the road, all the way to Chelsea to sign a contract there. I stop smiling.
CONCLUSION
It’s no surprise. Watford players don’t care the way they did in the days when everyone wore a hat.
(Even the ball wore a hat according to this photo of the great Barry Endean.)

Next season, I want to see players showing they really do care.
If we’re losing, I want to see the pitch absolutely bloody LITTERED with shorts.
(Red OR black, this is no time to argue.)
Thank you for reading.

THE END
FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER:
@jimmy armchair
Like this:
Like Loading...