Saturday, February 23, 2002

Watford travelled to St Andrew's for a league encounter with a Birmingham City side captained for the first time by Tommy Mooney, signed from Vicarage Road the previous summer.

Having made a rash of team changes, Watford boss Gianluca Vialli watched his side slump to 3-0 down with Paul Devlin, later a Hornet, setting Darren Purse up for the first, and Mooney himself scoring twice.

A fine free-kick from loanee Jermaine Pennant signalled a fightback that yielded only one more goal, struck into his own net by Michael Johnson.

The final score was 3-2 as the Hornets continued to fail to meet the season's expectations.

Reproduced by kind permission of Matt Rowson from his book, Watford FC On This Day