The Watford Observer has again teamed up with its friends at The Watford Treasury to share stories from Volume 7.

Accompanied by images from a time long gone, Colin Payne looks back to the days before Watford had their own training ground.

If you were to ask any Watford fan where the club’s home is, they would, without deviation, hesitation or a moment’s trepidation, inform you that place is Vicarage Road. Ask the same question to anyone who wears the yellow shirt on the field of play, however, and the answer would be different. For in reality the place where they ‘work’ is a few junctions around the M25, the club’s multi-million-pound training centre at London Colney.

Developed over the past two decades, this state-of-the-art facility incorporates everything the club needs to ensure that come matchdays their players are in peak condition, as regards both fitness and health. It is where Xisco Munoz has his office, as does Gino Pozzo; it is the very core of the day-to-day activities of Watford Football Club.

It is an extremely far cry from what Graham Taylor discovered when he first arrived at Vicarage Road.

Watford Observer:

Watford training in Harwoods Recreation Ground in 1962. Picture: Watford Observer

Back in 1977 the players trained wherever a field could be found, as had always been the way through history. Graham was fond of recounting how the first training session he took in Cassiobury Park was remembered for Pat Molloy, the long-standing coach, falling asleep midway through proceedings. Yet the more startling fact was that it was held in a park! It was just one of several places the public would share with the players representing their town during a week.

The Croxley Guild playing field, Harwoods Recreation Ground and Watford Fields, behind the Benskins brewery, would all also see Watford players getting fit in a mish-mash of ill-fitting redundant kit, brilliant white plimsolls and quite literally (thick green knitted) jumpers for goalposts.

It was not uncommon for the team to partake in long cross-country runs around the outer reaches of the town, led by the indomitable aforementioned Molloy, as well as training on the pitch itself at Vicarage Road during the warmer months.

Watford Observer:

Taffy Davies leads a session at Watford Fields. Picture: Watford Observer

It must have been a treat for schoolkids on holiday to watch from the swings as their heroes were put through their paces just yards away.

A friend, sadly no longer with us, would talk of a warm day when Watford’s sixties ‘goal sensation’ Charlie Livesey discreetly broke away from one of Bill McGarry’s drills to hand him a shilling to get him a cornet from the ice cream van parked up in a local park, adding the words “…and get one for yourself!”

One would imagine that if such an occurrence were to take place today Ismaïla Sarr would require at least an Oyster with a flake and sauce!

Volume 7 of The Watford Treasury is available to buy from www.thewatfordtreasury.co.uk