Kennedy: one of five Watford men to score two against Luton

Hats off to Charlie Hare: he did it twice in the space of a year in the late 1800s.

Johnny Goodall achieved the feat in 1904, so did Len Andrews 20 years later and George Harris carved his own piece of Watford history on Boxing Day 1964 when he became the only player – so far – to bag a hat-trick against the Hatters.

And then, in 1997, Peter Kennedy became the fifth and perhaps the most astonishing of the quintet because he did it at Kenilworth Road on a day when Watford ran out 4-0 winners having scored all the goals inside the opening 32 minutes – and in front of the home fans as well.

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Until October, when that scoreline was repeated at Vicarage Road, it was the most memorable derby in living memory for most fans.

Trips up the M1 have not been happy occasions on the whole for Watford fans – in the last 60 years, the Hornets have won just four of their 24 games at Kenilworth Road in all competitions. The Hatters have come out on top 14 times.

But on October 4, 1997, Graham Taylor’s side gave a performance and earned a result that has lived on in the memory, and has even become folklore among fans that weren’t even born then.

It was Kennedy’s first season at Watford, having joined from Notts County for £130,000 in the summer, and the Northern Irishman came to Vicarage Road with the help of another former Hornet.

“I believe Graham Taylor was looking for a left-sided player. How Gerry Armstrong came into the conversation with GT I don’t know, but I do think Armstrong may have phoned him and that’s how the ball started rolling,” recalled Kennedy, who will turn 50 later this year.

“Graham told me he signed me without scouting me. He just took Gerry’s word and I think he may have remembered me from the game at Meadow Lane against Notts County the season before.

“I think perhaps that Graham just took a punt on me.”

Born in Lisburn, Kennedy began his playing career with local amateur sides Glentoran, Glenavon and Portadown.

“I didn’t go to England until my early 20s, and I had been playing local football part-time at home in Northern Ireland,” he said.

“The year before I went to Notts County we had a great season at Portadown where we won the league and a couple of cups, and I won Ulster Footballer of the Year.

“That season was basically what laid on the move to England and to Notts County.”

It may only be a relatively few miles across the sea, but the move from Northern Ireland to England was not straightforward for Kennedy.

“When I moved to England I wasn’t even driving so straight away I was in Nottingham in the digs with the youth team kids and I was sort of basically walking about the place, trying to get lifts everywhere.

“I did get a bit homesick. We didn’t have a great season either, and the manager got the sack at the end of it.

“Sam Allardyce came in and took over, and binned me straight away without even having a look at me.

“So it was a tough first year and at the end of the season I went back home to Ireland and although I had two years left on my contract I was thinking about just not going back. I was considering going back to working and playing part-time in Northern Ireland.”

However, the intervention of Gerry Armstong and a phone call from an agent led to an about turn and Kennedy came back to England, and headed south.

“The move to Watford came out of the blue. I got a phone call from an agent saying that he’d heard a team wanted to sign me and would I be interested in him trying to do a deal?

“I wanted to know what team it was, and he said Watford. I said I was interested and let’s see what happens.

“I went back to Notts County and did one day of pre-season. Next day I went down to Watford and I signed that day.”

Kennedy arrived at Watford after the club had finished middle of the League One table, but there was a change in the manager’s office.

“Graham Taylor had come back, and Watford had signed a few players. There was a buzz about the place,” said Kennedy.

“We had a decent team, we won the league and I ended up top goalscorer.

“It was brilliant, a really, really good season. I think I missed a few games because I got a knee injury, but it was a great time to be at the club.

“I really liked the lads, my wife Deborah Anne and I really settled into the area well. We had a nice place on the Reeds in Watford.

“People around the town were really good to me, and because the football was going well it was nice to be in the area.”

Although he is remembered by Watford fans as a marauding left wing-back, it was a new position to Kennedy.

“When Graham played me as a left wing-back it was probably the first time I’d really played it,” he said.

“When I look back then, tactics and formations were not such a big thing. It’s not like it is now.

“Graham was really into his tactics and reviewed everything about every game. He knew how many balls you put into the box, how many runs you made into the box. That was well before people were using computers and analysts so he was probably doing it by spending hours watching games on TV.

“It was a big factor in our game and how we played. He got you thinking about things and he made you work hard. You wanted to get your levels higher every time for him.

“We had a good solid base and we didn’t concede many goals. I wouldn’t say we scored an awful lot of goals – we didn’t really have an out and out scorer, we all sort of chipped in.

“I scored 13 when we won League One and I was the top goalscorer, but there were players who got 8, 9, 10 goals.

“It was a great season, brilliant to hit the ground running and I never really looked back from there.”

Of course, along the path to winning the league at Fulham on the last day of the season, Watford had that other great victory.

“I didn’t know too much about how intense the rivalry with Luton was,” admitted Kennedy.

“I’d heard some stuff, but I wasn’t really doing anything more than concentrating on the match and my role in the team.

“It was only when I got to Kenilworth Road that it felt different. There wasn’t really much chat on the bus about it, other than we knew it was an important game for everyone and we expected a bit of an atmosphere.

“I seem to remember in his team talk Graham said to focus on the game and not to get involved with referee decisions or supporters.

“But once I went out for the warm-up it was like ‘oh s**t’. The atmosphere was intense. The home fans were booing and squealing and everything.

“I’d played at Kenilworth Road the previous season for Notts County, and it was completely different.

“I could feel the edge as soon as we started the warm-up and I knew it was going to be hard. But we were in a good place and while we sensed it was a different game, we as a team were really confident.

“Then of course we made that really good start and went 4-0 up in 32 minutes.”

Kennedy can readily talk through those four goals, just as the fans who saw them can.

“Richard Johnson scored the first one from long range and it seemed to go through the keeper. The second one was Dai Thomas and I played a very slow pass into him. It certainly wasn’t the best cross in the world and I think it fooled everyone.

“I remember Dai taking his shirt off. I lived with him for about two weeks in digs. He was quite a character.

“For the third goal I think I contested the original corner and then it went back out to the left. When it came back in it bounced around a bit and then just dropped perfectly for me and I hit it on the half-volley sort of sideways. I caught it lovely.

“Then almost straight after I scored my second goal and our fourth. I remember their centre-half tried to play a pass across the back line and I caught him out and went on a run. I was in a one-on-one with another defender and I don’t know what I was thinking but I cut inside onto my right foot.

“I actually then finished it with my right foot into the corner – I honestly can’t recall scoring many other goals with my right foot.

“I remember I then just ran the whole way down the pitch and celebrated in front of our fans pretty much on my own until other players caught up!

“At 4-0 up at half-time the famous story is that Graham Taylor told us not to score any more goals or the home fans will wreck the place. He did say something along those lines, but it was more sarcastic than anything.

“The game was over and they probably just wanted to get off the pitch, and the second half was pretty forgettable.”

The intense pre-match atmosphere was far more subdued when the teams came back out after half time.

“There wasn’t too much noise coming from the home fans in the second half,” said Kennedy.

“There was at the start, but us going 4-0 up sort of killed them. You could only hear the Watford supporters.

“It was a brilliant game and one I’ll always remember. Like I said, I probably didn’t realise how much it meant to the supporters until the day of the game, and so to win it like we did really set us up to kick on just before we went into the Christmas period.”

Kennedy’s 13 goals was quite a haul for a player not deployed as an out-and-out striker, but he was more satisfied with his contribution in terms of assists.

“What was always more important to me was the amount of goals I set up. Free-kicks, corners, second balls into the box,” he said.

“I was quite pleased with the quality of my delivery at dead balls.

“I’m not being big-headed but I think for some reason the majority of left-footed players seem to strike a ball better or sweeter.

“I’ve watched the whole season back online, and I was pleased with the balls I was putting in and the goals I helped set up.

“To me personally, the part I played in other goals meant more to me than the goals I scored myself.”

Although that 1997/98 season was only the start of the journey, Kennedy felt that was his stand-out campaign.

“The first season was probably the best season I had in terms of performances, but the second season I played in every game,” he said

“The quality in the Championship was so much higher, and I only scored seven goals but I felt I had a steady and solid season.”

Steady and solid is a very modest way of summing up Kennedy’s contribution to what was to be Watford’s first promotion to the Premier League.

Once again, the maestro that was Graham Taylor found a way of getting his team to find another level.

“In the Championship season we were two years into the project that Graham had started,” said Kennedy.

“He had brought Ciaran Cosgrave in to work with the team on psychology and team spirit, and that was something a bit different.

“We had something else to think about and that seemed to work. We were all – players, coaching staff and supporters – in a good place, and we went on that run at the end of the season where we kept winning and Tommy Mooney scored in every game.

“We were a hard team to beat. We had really good pros and good people in every position on the pitch. We weren’t unbelievable footballers but we were all very solid and a good mix of players and characters.

“We were dangerous, we could play when we needed to play and we could dig in if we had to.

“It’s difficult to explain what made that squad so special. It was a great group who were very together and supported each other.

“And when you’re winning games it’s even better. I think when you look at the calibre of teams we were beating that season, we deserve a lot of credit. Right up to the final at Wembley – look at the players Bolton had like Gudjohnsen, Jensen and the like. We beat them three times that season.”

What is his overriding memory of that day at Wembley on Monday May 31, 1999?

“Wrighty’s overhead kick. To score a goal like that in a Play-Off final at Wembley was amazing,” Kennedy said straight away.

“And yeah the corner I put in caused a few ructions in the penalty area to help him on his way!

“I remember right at the end they had a shot that went out of play and Richard Johnson asked the referee how long to go and he said ‘that’s it’. And I remember Johnno giving me a big hug because we knew we’d won and we were in the Premier League.

“Alec Chamberlain kicked the ball up the pitch and it was all over. What an amazing moment.

“It was great because I had my family there – my Mum, my brothers, my friends.

“It’s 25 years next year, incredible really. We had the 20th anniversary night just before the pandemic and that was brilliant. I really enjoyed seeing everybody again.

“My first two years at Watford were amazing. I’ll never forget them.”

The journey to the Premier League was wonderfully magical – the season spent there was far less enjoyable.

“Graham was loyal to us and didn’t bring in loads of players. Two seasons before we were League One players,” Kennedy pointed out.

“We were just out of our depth basically, and to be honest that season changed things for a lot of people. We weren’t winning many games, the atmosphere changed, people getting new contracts and new players coming in on big money.

“These things go on behind the scenes but I could see it changing, and it changed for me.

“I had an injury that took a while to clear up and I think I played a couple of dozen games that season.”

Kennedy stayed at Vicarage Road after relegation, although he found out years later that there was an attempt to sign him.

“I did hear, from Paul Jewell who signed me for Wigan, that when he was Bradford manager around the time they and us went up to the Premier League, he made an offer for me.

“I didn’t hear about that though, which was probably fair enough given the two seasons I’d had and Graham didn’t need to sell.

“I got a new contract and it didn’t really matter to me but I’m sure other players could have stayed in the Premier League. I know there was a lot of talk about Johnno getting a move but then he got a bad injury.

“When you think about that run to the Premier League, we only had one player leave and that was Darren Bazeley who went to Wolves on a free transfer.”

The start of the 2000/01 season was quite remarkable, as Watford went undefeated in their first 14 Championship games, winning 11 of them.

Then a midweek League Cup defeat at home to Manchester United seemed to have a hugely negative effect and the Hornets went on a run of eight defeats in 10 games, culminating in a 5-0 humbling at Craven Cottage on a bitterly cold Boxing Day from a Fulham side that went on to win the league at a canter.

“I remember the season we came down we had that unbelievable start where us and Fulham were running away with the league,” said Kennedy.

“Then we just hit a brick wall and didn’t even make the play-offs.

“Graham retired, Mr Vialli came in and I knew I was on my way. I was transfer listed. That was fair enough. If you’re working in a factory or you’re a footballer, these things happen. Your time comes to an end.

“I was around for the first five or six weeks of pre-season and it was very easy to see the club changing.

“When you’re going to Sopwell House every day for lunch and then staying there for a sleep in the afternoon, it’s not what you’re used to. The club was spending money and players were coming in on big dough.

“The sad thing was that didn’t work out well for Watford.”

Kennedy was sold to Wigan for £300,000 and then had a short loan spell at Derby before moving to Peterborough.

“Nothing I experienced after leaving Watford came close,” he said.

“Wigan wasn’t bad, Paul Jewell was there and the first season we didn’t really gel as we had a lot of new players.

“But the second season I think we won the league with about 100 points, so that was good.

“In the third season I was in and out the team, had a couple of injuries and went on loan to Derby.

“I knew by then my time was up there, and went to Peterborough which was a bit of a disaster. It was a bit of a joke of a club really.

“Barry Fry was a great man who’d do anything for you but football wise it wasn’t great.

“I had a couple of seasons there and then decided to go back home to Ireland. I was always going home at some stage, I was sure of that. My wife is from there and we went to school together in Ireland, so coming home was always something we were going to do.

“I had 11 years in England and I was happy enough – it was a boyhood dream to play professional football and have a wee bit of success. And then I felt it was the right time to go home.”

He had earned 20 full caps for Northern Ireland during his time in England, and rejoined Portadown on his return to Ireland.

“I played Irish League until I was about 36, and then I stopped for a couple of years. But I went back to it again and I played amateur football until I was 44.

“I’ve always tried to look after myself and stayed in shape. I ran my first marathon in Dublin last year. It was tough but I did it and it was something I always wanted to do. I won’t be doing another one as I can’t go through the training again!”

Peter Kennedy after running the Dublin Marathon. (Image: Peter Kennedy)

Kennedy is now back on ‘civvy street’ having finally hung up his boots

“I’m an internal auditor for the local council here in Lisburn. I’ve been doing it for the last six years,” he said.

“I wasn’t in a position to just retire and do nothing. Oh my God no! I wish!

“I did ok from playing football and I’m only 50. People have different ideas about how much they need to retire and, I mean, I was never earning £20,000 a week!

“I don’t really talk much about football unless I’m asked the question. I don’t talk about football when I’m in work or at the bar, or with my friends or when I’m playing golf.

“If someone asks me about my football career then of course I’ll answer, but I don’t make a big thing of it.”

However, Kennedy clearly enjoyed looking back over his career, and particularly his time at Vicarage Road.

“Watford was definitely the best time I had in my career, especially those first two seasons.

“I have no regrets. It was and is a fantastic club. I went back there with my family for the Manchester United game last season, we were hosted in the directors’ box and I went down on the pitch at half time.

“For my kids to see that I think it sort of brought home that I might have done ok in my life.”