Jay DeMerit will be back at Vicarage Road to watch Watford’s Premier League clash with Swansea City on Saturday – and before the game he will be signing copies of the new book Tales from the Vicarage volume four in the Hornets Shop.

In 2006, the American scored the opening goal in a 3-0 play-off final win over Leeds United in Cardiff to steer Watford into the Premier League under Aidy Boothroyd.

He features prominently in one of the chapters in the book, titled Going Up, Staying Up, and talks of the challenge of trying to stay in the Premier League as a newly-promoted club in 2006/07.

That’s one of ten chapters in the book written by journalist and Watford season ticket holder Lionel Birnie. His previous books about Watford include Four Seasons, Enjoy the Game, The 100 Greatest Watford Wins and the first three books in the Tales from the Vicarage series, which he started in 2012.

Other chapters include interviews with former Hornets Tommy Mooney, Gifton Noel-Williams and John McClelland, as well as a look at last season’s promotion campaign and some of the most notable friendlies in the club’s recent history, including the time the Hornets faced Barcelona.

With DeMerit in the country to see Watford in Premier League action it seemed the perfect opportunity to get him to join Lionel for a signing at the Hornets Shop before the game.

On Sunday, DeMerit was part of the Tales from the Vicarage Live event hosted by Adam Leventhal at Watford’s Palace Theatre.

Speaking backstage at the event he said: “I talked to Adam a few months ago and said I was coming over to England to catch Watford in the Premier League, which every good Watford fan worldwide should try to do. It turned out that it coincided with this event so I was delighted to take part. I also have my place in Camden town and with the Canadian dollar where it is right now we’re thinking of selling it. So it all worked out nicely.”

In the book, DeMerit talks of the difficulty of stepping up to the Premier League after a successful Championship campaign, and particularly the strength, speed and ruthlessness of top-flight attackers. But he’s been encouraged by Watford’s solid defensive start to the current season.

“It’s still early but I think they’ve done really well,” he said. “They needed to add some firepower and they’ve done that in the last couple of weeks, so I’m interested to see how they get on against Swansea. Hopefully we can get that first win because you can’t stay in the Premier League with draws.

“But you can stay in the Premier League if you keep zeros and ones. If you keep clean sheets it gives you a great basis to win games. Now they need to start to grow at the other end and start scoring a few goals. I think they have a good enough squad to stay in the Premier League.”

* Jay DeMerit and Lionel Birnie will be signing copies of Tales from the Vicarage volume four at the Hornets Shop on Saturday from 1pm. All four volumes in the series are available in the shop.