Horns made of the Wright stuff

8:10am Sunday 11th May 2008

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Watford hero Nick Wright believes Aidy Boothroyd's men won't go into today's Championship play-off first leg with Hull with as much confidence as the class of 1999 did en route to promotion to the top flight.

Wright was part of Graham Taylor's team that edged past Birmingham City on penalties before hitting a stunning overhead kick in the play-off final against Bolton Wanderers at the old Wembley Stadium.

Wright, Tommy Mooney and co entered the double clash with the Blues on the back of a glorious run - completely the opposite to Boothroyd's fortuitous team.

"It is totally different to when we got into the play-offs," said Wright. "Watford looked to be cruising to the Premiership at one stage this season but then they had that squeaky spot and their current form is very average.

"They won't be going into it with the same confidence as we did and they will be feeling disappointed they didn't do it via automatic promotion. But they are confident in their ability to do well and I'd like to see them do it. However, the play-offs are a lottery and in the Championship this year every team has proven they can beat each other - there has not been one outstanding team in it."

A knee injury ended Wright's career but the 32-year-old still has fond memories of helping Watford reach the top flight under its current guise.

"We were very confident going into the first game against Birmingham at home as we'd already beaten them in the league. We were massively on top in the game and won 1-0 (Michel Ngonge scored), but it should have been three or four - I even hit the bar.

"The second game was totally different as it was a very intimidating atmosphere (at St Andrews). They scored early on (Dele Adebola) but after that we dug in as hard as we could and hung on. I remember Alec Chamberlain playing particularly well that day and we ended up winning the penalty shoot-out."

Wright, now a regional training manager for a mobile phone company, revealed Watford's penalty success was largely due to some unusual spot kick practice.

"Graham (Taylor) didn't need to change anything because we'd won eight of our last nine games to reach the play-offs," recalled Wright. "We never talked about nerves but there is always going to be an element of nerves due to the enormity of the game. We were the team in form and the one everyone wanted to avoid, similar to Crystal Palance this year as they are on a very good run.

"Once we knew we were in the play-offs we practised penalties including walking up from the halfway line to make it as life-like as possible. Graham had a list and we knew what number penalty taker we were. But eight or nine of us all volunteered to take one. The mentality of the players was that we would all go up there and have a go - nobody shied away from that."

Wright, who still keeps in touch with Richard Lee and his goalkeeping mentor Alec Chamberlain, can't help but reminisce about THAT goal in the Wembley final.

"I still talk about that day at Wembley in work now. I'll never experienced feelings like that again," he added. "I enjoy my current job but I miss football a 100 times every day. I always had to do something after retiring through injury but nothing compares to football. I scored the best goal of my life in the most important game of my career."