Thursday, September 17, 1987

Watford sold David Bardsley and Richard Hill to Oxford United for a combined fee of just under £500,000.

Manager Dave Bassett defended the sales, asserting that neither player was happy and that neither was in his first-team plans despite Bardsley having narrowly missed out on the previous campaign's Player of the Season award.

He further asserted: "People want to move on and that is fair enough. I wonder how Falco and Richardson are enjoying life in Glasgow Rangers and Arsenal's reserves as opposed to Watford's?"

Bardsley, like the recently departed Kevin Richardson, was later capped by England.

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