Triumph!

Wild scenes at Vicarage Road greeted Watford’s promotion into the First Division on Tuesday night. More than 10,000 of a 20,000 crowd swarmed onto the pitch after the final whistle to cheer the victorious Hornets. The crowd’s enthusiasm was not dampened as they were sprayed with champagne by players in the directors’ box, and the whole pitch was alive with the red and yellow club favours, scarves and hats. Celebrations went on into the night as fans marched through the town. Emotions reached such a fever pitch that supporters jumped into the Pond in Watford High Street to cool off!

[May 7, 1982]

May Day race

The first Watford MaraFun, initiated by this newspaper and supported by more than 900 runners, raised about £18,000 for the maternity unit at Watford General Hospital. And the 10-mile run on Monday was such a success that it seems almost certain to turn into an annual May Day event at Cassiobry Park.

[May 7, 1982]

Threat to trade

The last few shops would disappear from West Watford if Asda, the Associated Dairies superstore chain, built a £2 ½ million hypermarket nearby, a public inquiry was told this week. Expert witnesses said the development would also hit trade in Watford town centre. Asda is appealing against the borough council decision not to allow the hypermarket on an 11-acre site beside Watford’s Metropolitan line station. Asda director Mr David Gransby said the 70,000 sq ft scheme with nearly 800 free parking spaces would mean 350 jobs – and cheaper food.

[May 14, 1982]

Volunteers for war film

400 volunteers are needed as actors for scenes being shot in Watford for a major anti-war film by controversial director Peter Watkins. Watford is one of 22 locations chosen nationwide for their proximity to major military headquarters, prime targets in the event of a nuclear war. In Watford, Watkins wants 400 townspeople to act out scenes of chaos as families try to leave the area. Other scenes will be shot at a first aid post in a primary school with patients suffering from burns and radiation sickness. And some scenes will be shot in Hemel Hemsptead and High Wycombe.

[May 14, 1982]

Race row

Community leaders have protested to Britain’s highest law authority that Watford has no magistrate from the ethnic minorities. The criticism was made at last week’s annual meeting of Watford Community Relations Council, on the day before nine new Watford magistrates were sworn in – none of them from the four ethnic candidates. The community relations council passed a resolution that appointments of magistrates should reflect the 10,000 or more members of Watford’s ethnic groups.

[May 21, 1982]

Novgorod talks

A Russian embassy official is to meet Watford councillors to discuss the plan to twin the town with Novgorod. Labour councillors deliberately left the scheme off meeting agendas for the two months preceding the elections. “It’s a sensitive subject which we wanted to discuss carefully and thoughtfully,” said Cllr John Watts. “We now know that the Russians are keen to link but there are important issues to be discussed first.”

[May 21, 1982]

Horse-riders ban

The call for more control over horse-riders in Chorleywood has increased. The anti-“horsiculture” brigade claim that uncontrolled horse riders have ruined woodland, turned verges into racetracks and that mounds of manure is surpassing the menace of dogs fouling footpaths in the village. “It is not the beautiful animals I mind, it is the brainless riders,” complained Miss Alice Smith, who lives in Green Street, where the verges, she claims, have been turned into Newmarket Heath.

[May 21, 1982]

Hope for jobs

The number of jobless in Watford has fallen for the third month running. And the signs are that it will fall even further in the coming weeks. Recent business developments, including BUPA’s private hospital at Bushey and an American-style restaurant in Watford’s Lower High Street, have created around 200 jobs.

[May 28, 1982]

What was happening in the world in May 1982?

• US President Ronald Reagan begins five minute weekly radio broadcasts (May 3)

• In Portugal, a Spanish Traditionalist priest who opposed Vatican reforms, is stopped prior to his attempt to attack the Pope with a bayonet (May 12)

• Sophia Loren is jailed in Naples for tax evasion (May 19)

• Royal Marines and paratroopers from the British Task Force land at San Carlos Bay on the Falkland Islands and raise the Union Jack (May 21)

• Official opening of Kielder Water, a reservoir in Northumberland and the largest artificial lake in the UK (May 26)

• Pope John Paul II’s visit to the UK, the first by an incumbent pope, beings at Gatwick Airport (May 28)

• The Battle of Goose Green commences, the first land battle of the Falklands War (May 28)

• The Pentagon plans its first strategy to fight a nuclear war (May 29)