In keeping with the modern thinking, in the summer of 2000, Watford announced their intention to appoint a sports scientist with a view to recruiting someone with IT qualifications to create programmes for match analysis, diet, nutrition and fitness testing.

“As the game moves on, people are more and more aware of things that are necessary for fitness,” said manager Graham Taylor, for indeed the game had changed with regard to off-the-field practices as well as the way players conducted themselves.

At the turn of the 20th century, two players were fined on recommendation from Watford’s first-ever manager, John Goodall, for being drunk during the game – the fact they were the leading goalscorers in an unbeaten side did not lessen the punishment.

The days when trainer Joe Upton was sent up Vicarage Road, into what is now The Hornets, and the local pub to remind the players it was about time they got changed for the match that afternoon, were some 70 years or more in the past by the time Watford brought in a sports scientist. I recall fans who regaled me with tales of a red-faced full-back in the 1920s, who was well known for sweating it off in the first half and being right on his game after the interval.

When I first covered the Hornets, Tommy Harmer, pint-sized genius, invariably popped into the loo at half-time to have a “calming fag”. He had enjoyed another “snout” before the kick-off.

A few years later, Ken Furphy stressed that he would come down heavily on any players who were caught drinking on Friday nights; Keith Eddy would be pleased to see me on the odd occasions when I travelled on the first-team coach, because it meant he was not the only one smoking, and I recall Dennis Bond constantly offering me cigarettes as my smoke would disguise his.

That was back in the 1960s, when drinking and wenching were part of the scene and, even in 1971, George Kirby, the club’s tormented manager, opted to take his squad to a hotel before the game on New Year’s Day, so he could make sure the players did not drink.

In fact that thinking was quite advanced and Graham Taylor would do that on a regular basis, but it had no effect on Kirby’s Hornets, who lost on New Year’s Day to Blackpool, 5-0, prompting some to muse they might have been better with a drink.

Ironically, a future Hornet player, skipper, coach and manager, Steve Harrison was at Blackpool and recalled the game years later.

I remember Jimmy Lindsay in 1972, telling off the young Billy Jennings for drinking a pint on a Thursday night, asking him if he thought that was the best way to try and break into the team.

It was considered best not to tie one on 48 hours before a game, so the message was beginning to get through.

Some 16 or so years later, I remember doing a feature on Rod Thomas for the club magazine, The Supporter, and the young striker admitted that his favourite tipple was rum with a mixture of soft drinks. Youth-team coach Tom Walley tore him off a strip for “admitting to Oli Phillips that you like spirits”, for as Tom related to me, the boy should have more sense than to dink it, let alone admit it publicly.

Tom had long been an exponent of “my body is a temple” philosophy, back in the days as a player.

In 1969, before the Hornets played Manchester United at Old Trafford and forced a 1-1 draw in the FA Cup tie, the Hornets went to Jersey for a training stint.

The flights and three-night stay was funded by wealthy club vice-president Harold Hutchinson and, after a lengthy lunch, those who wanted to, could travel by coach to St Helier for a bout of duty-free shopping.

We wandered round the streets and shops and then the players returned to their hotel to find Tom Walley seated in the lounge.

He did not bother with a shopping trip and when I asked him what he had done instead, he informed me: “I had a run over the fields and up and down the cliffs and along the beach, to get the clinkers off.”

In many ways, Tom was the first truly professional footballer I came across after eight years covering the club.

Managers and coaches had different ways of preparing players for matches. I recall a West Bromwich manager in the early 1960s, losing some dressing-room credibility when he ordered the coach to pull up by a forest en route to a game. He did not want to arrive at the game too early, but he needed the players to relax a little and also take a gentle stroll to walk the journey off.

“Right, out you get and into the woods with you. Be back within 15 minutes and each of you has to bring five different kinds of leaves.”

He remained manager for four years.

Moving on, Watford worried about Nigel Callaghan and his propensity for eating crisps, which he bought even more frequently than a new Walkman (personal stereo), and that was saying something.

Later Glenn Roeder questioned the choice of diet when he found himself in a traffic jam on the Watford ring-road and watched as the person in front ate two large pork pies in quick succession. It was Craig Ramage.

In the late 90s under Taylor, Watford’s players were told about diets and warned in pre-season about the detrimental effects of smoking and drinking, so it was no surprise to see the amount of publicity afforded the celebrated “Dentist’s chair”, when such as Gascoigne and Sheringham were photographed having serious drinks poured down their throats, caused quite a stir before the 1996 World Cup.

How the world of football has changed for 20 years later the fact Jack Wilshire is caught smoking on film and it became a major controversy and the player’s “shame”. John Goodall would have been amazed.

  •  A Watford fan, a friend of mine for the past 50-odd years, lives in North Carolina, and mentioned in an email earlier this year that the Hornets appear to get a flurry of positive results every time they change their manager. He dropped me a line last week, asking me if I had passed his observation onto the club.

In the meantime, I saw my son-in-law, a Vicarage Road season-ticket holder, had posted on Facebook: “Only six more managers ‘til Christmas.”