12 surprising headlines from 2014

Here's a look back on some of the year's unexpected big hitters from our website and social networks, all of which made the top five most read or shared in their respective months.

1. The appeal of television's Game of Thrones, based on the books by George R. R. Martin, reaches far beyond the boundaries of our patch and this was reflected in January by the number of people who read "Village name to be changed to mark Game of Thrones release".

The village of Kings Langley became Kings Landing (temporarily) in honour of the fantasy series and residents reacted to the news with emotions ranging from "exciting" to "a bit weird and confusing". One was also keen to point out that the series is "actually extremely violent".

2. We were lost for words in February when Dean Leighton sent in this image of a couple paddling past B&Q during the floods and to be honest, in ten months, not much has changed. 

Hats off to the pair for making the best of a bad situation. Those three paragraphs were our most read in the whole month and the story remains one of our most popular on Facebook.

3. Dividing opinion in March was this picture, which allegedly contained the Cassiobury Park ghost. However, in our ballot only 16 percent of you said you could see the spooky apparition.

This lead to us putting together this comprehensive guide to the ghosts of south west Hertfordshire.

4. In April we received a telephone call from a woman who asked us whether we were interested in filming her son proposing to his girlfriend in the intu Watford Centre.

The pictures and video we published became the second most read story of the month, with readers commenting on how pleased they were to see something joyous rather than the political wrangling we publish.

5. Redressing that balance in May was our comprehensive live coverage of the Watford and Three Rivers local elections, which was the third most read story of the month.

6. In June one of our most popular stories on Facebook compared old and new pictures of the Watford pond. 

Remember when it looked like this?

7. Also popular across our social networks in July was this story about Milly Gibson and George Whiteman who turned up at the Francis Combe Academy prom in a helicopter. 

8 & 9. Unsurprisingly our sports reporters were busy in August and September writing about changes at the top of Watford FC. It kicked off with an article suggesting head coach Beppe Sannino’s reign was in serious doubt, and ended seven weeks and three appointments later with current boss Slaviša Jokanović.

If you need a reminder of the events that took place this summer then look no further than our head coach timeline.

However, over on the newsdesk we were tied up with another high level resignation, as in August the Watford community was rocked by the news that Gordon Scott shoe shop window stalward Charlie the Chimp was being put out to pasture.

To quote one website comment: "WHY?"

You voted for your favourite of three speculative names for the replacement primate and "Gary the gorilla" was picked as the people's favourite.

However, a slightly more official ballot was cast and "Champ the chimp" has taken over the high bars to delight another generation of children.

10. In October we were told a canal boat had capsised in Cassiobury lock and could take days to recover. Cue technical speculation on how the boat ended up on its side and much debate involving words like "stern" and "cill" on our social networks.

11. In November one of our colleagues in York asked "how did this missing dog found in Watford travel 200 miles from its home?" and we were only too happy to find an answer.

After publishing the story on our website we were contacted by the man who discovered the wandering hound and the resulting tale was one of the month's most shared stories.

12. Although not quite over yet, one of December's biggest stories was this warning about a woman caught out by a motorway con. 

We hope you've enjoyed our coverage during 2014 and look forward to seeing which stories top the charts in 2015.