Line definitely crossed in reaction to new Watford captain

A new job, a promotion at work, a pay rise. We’re coming around to GCSE and A-level result time too, and then there’s university degrees, driving tests, career qualifications and so on.

So many things that make us proud and happy as an individual, and that we share with our friends and family.

However, we all know there can sometimes be that bit of resentment, jealousy, envy – maybe the green-eyed monster has even made us think and say things we regret later.

• Bachmann named as captain and signs five-year deal
• Hornets end pre-season with 3-0 victory
• He helped secure promotion, then opted to go back down

Nonetheless, those bitter and twisted comments – whether with some good reason or totally without foundation – are generally not broadcast publicly.

It’s not usually the case that our parents, our wives, husbands and partners, our children, our nearest and dearest, have to see the name-calling and finger pointing – let alone it being slathered across social media for thousands of others to debate and share.

When Daniel Bachmann was made captain last week and it was announced he had signed a new five-year contract, it was only to be expected fans would have opinions.

Football is exactly that – a game of opinions.

So, to my mind, if fans want to have their say on whether Bachmann is the right choice as captain, then that’s fair enough.

Similarly, the awarding of a five-year contract in this day and age is a little unusual (though not at Vicarage Road in recent years) and so that was bound to divide opinion too.

And, all of us armchair fans – and I accept many have played football to a far, far higher level than I ever did – will have their thoughts on whether any individual player is good or not.

I’ve not had the chance to speak to Dan yet, but I would like to think that as a seasoned pro he would probably have expected last week’s announcement to lead to much discussion of all three of the above areas. And I’d also hope he agrees that fans, as paying customers and loyal followers, are entitled to air their views even if some aren’t what he might hope they’d be.

Bachmann in action away at Burnley. (Image: Action Images)

However, what he has no need to expect or be on the receiving end of – and what has led me to write this piece – is personal abuse.

Yes, I know he gets it most Saturdays, but that’s usually from the away fans.

I know footballers are well paid – but the number of digits on your payslip does not increase the thickness of your skin.

And I accept being in the public eye means getting dug out on social media comes with the territory. Sportsmen, politicians, TV stars, musicians, actors: they all get it, some deserved but often much is unfair, unwarranted and unkind.

As I wrote at the start, everything written on social media is likely to be seen by the person it is aimed at. I’m aware Dan blocked quite a few fans in the hours after the announcement. I don’t know what those fans said but I have to say, some of the comments made towards and about Daniel Bachmann were so nasty, so undeserving and so baseless that I’d have blocked people too, and I’d have even thought about speaking to a solicitor.

Many fans say they haven’t seen that level of vitriol for themselves. I read a fair few dreadful comments, and I wasn’t actively looking for them.

I’m not going to share the exact wording or name those who wrote the comments.

But in my opinion – and it is just my opinion – suggesting the new club captain is disliked or disruptive in the dressing room, commenting about his private life and describing him as a ‘very questionable character’ goes way, way beyond fair comment and opinion.

To go back to my earlier reference to celebrating our personal achievements, imagine how you’d feel if you were basking in the happiness of a promotion at work and people you’d never met before started posting comments along the lines of the above on social media.

Not much surprises me with football – the last year of covering the club has taught me a lot has changed since I worked at Vicarage Road in the late 90s.

But to see fans of my club, Watford, turning on one of their own players in that way really knocked me back.

After the dismal defeat at Blackburn last season, Bachmann tried to placate the angry travelling Watford fans (Image: Action Images)

And let’s factor this in: the decisions to make Dan the new club captain, and to give him a new five-year contract, were not made by him. Nor would anyone expect him to say no to either, surely?

One or both will have been made by head coach Valerien Ismael. There’s an At Your Place event coming up next week – maybe some of the ‘fans’ who have been readily dishing out the abuse at Bachmann about both those topics will stand up and tell Ismael exactly what they think to his face at London Colney. Or maybe not.

I’m going to say right now that, just like any other fans, I’ve had cause to criticise Daniel Bachmann over the last season. He’s not perfect, but he’s never claimed to be.

His sending off against Huddersfield was embarrassing, petulant and let everyone down. I’m sure he knows that.

He makes mistakes but show me any footballer that doesn’t. There are areas of his game he’d doubtless like to improve upon: that’s why players train, none of them are perfect.

As an aside, when I worked at Charlton, we had Paolo Di Canio. A brilliant, gifted, experienced player who was coming to the end of his career. He was often the first to arrive at training and regularly the last to leave after staying on to do some extra sessions of shooting, free-kicks, penalty taking etc.

I remember him saying that he felt he still had as much to improve upon then as he did when he started out as a teenager.

The first time I interviewed Dan was almost exactly a year ago, and I’d watched him make a bad error in a behind-closed-doors friendly with Bolton a few days earlier which had led to him conceding a goal.

So I asked him about it, and he answered honestly and with humility. There was no hint of any ego or aloofness (something I’ve also seen him accused of on social media over the weekend).

“When I came off at half-time I couldn’t remember a game where I’d played worse in my career,” he said to me.

“That sort of error shouldn’t happen. I like to think I’ve got good ability and a bit of experience now, and I shouldn’t be doing that.”

Away at Norwich, where Bachmann kept a clean sheet in a 1-0 win (Image: Action Images)

Throughout last season he was a willing interviewee, even after some of the worst team performances. Whenever I spoke to him, he tried hard not to trot out the ‘we go again’ platitudes while being honest and open.

I think I know Dan well enough to say that he’s a thoroughly nice bloke with no ego and he is well liked around the training ground and in the dressing room.

I accept that ‘nice blokes’ aren’t always winners but such was the depth of the insults thrown his way, I think it’s fair to clarify he’s decent, kind and friendly. Having worked with and talked to hundreds of footballers, I’ve met a good few who are the opposite.

Dan is a very decent human being.

One quick example: my son played Under-18 football last season and his captain was, ironically, his goalkeeper. I asked Dan during the summer if he might have a spare pair of old gloves I could give the keeper as it was his last season in youth football.

What I wasn’t expecting, two days later, was a brand-new pair of his own personal gloves, the same as those he wears on matchdays, along with instructions of how to clean/wash/dry them so they stayed in good condition.

He hardly knew me then, he went above and beyond what I expected, and he made one 17-year-old goalkeeper feel like a king each Sunday morning.

The key thing is, he didn’t have to.

I’m sure some readers are screaming ‘but giving gloves to a teenager doesn’t make him a good captain’ – of course, that’s quite possibly true. But when someone’s character has been called into question, I’m trying to balance the scales.

One of the accusations made over the weekend was that it’s wrong to give the captaincy, and a five-year contract, to a player who was desperate to leave not so long ago.

That was a reference to stories which appeared while he was out of the team during the 2021/22 season that suggested he was trying to find a new club.

I asked Dan about that last summer – you can read the whole interview here – and again he was very open and willing to talk about it. From personal experience, I can tell you players will often state before the start of an interview things they won’t talk about, or will refuse to answer certain questions during it.

He admitted he had been asked about his future while away with the Austrian national team, and had said that staying at Watford was his first option but you can never tell what might happen during a transfer window.

“Then it appears differently in English media, and I saw the things some of the Watford fans said,” he told me last summer.

“All I kept thinking was I didn’t say that. I’ve come to love this club and there are always rumours, which are part of football. But I didn’t say I wanted to leave or that I wanted to get out of Watford.”

I also asked him back then about rumours he might have joined Manchester United.

“It’s obviously very flattering having a conversation about Man United, and I fit the profile of what they were looking for. And that was it really. For a club like that to show interest in you is nice clearly, and it felt nice. Yes, I won’t lie, we had conversations but I’m a Watford player,” was what he said.

The red mist, and the red card, against Huddersfield (Image: Action Images)

So, whether you choose to believe what he said or not, Dan answered the questions, addressed the rumours and talked far more about things than many other players I’ve encountered would.

Let me be clear – I am not suggesting that fans are not entitled to their opinions, that they must happily clap every decision and announcement, or that they should not voice their concerns, doubts or even anger.

As with so much in life, it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.

Just like all those other high-profile careers – politician, pop star, actor etc – most work a footballer does is in full public view. It’s there to be critiqued. And because of their fame, the bits that are done in private often end up in the public domain anyway.

Just stop and think for a second, how you might feel and react if what do you do for a living was displayed in public, and anyone who saw it was able to comment and pass judgment.

It happens to me. And it’s lovely when you get praise and congratulations. But it’s far less pleasant when you get called names and you’re publicly slagged off – particularly when it’s by faceless anonymous people called things like @nobbygolden on Twitter or YellowandMellow in the WO comments section (I made those names up incidentally, apologies to any trolls who do actually use those disguises).

For me, though, it happens very occasionally. But for footballers, it’s every game – dissected on TV, on social media, on forums, in the media.

It comes with the territory, footballers earn fortunes, they get used to it and they can even do their best to ignore it - but that doesn’t make it any easier to take.

One theme that did make me laugh and wince at the same time was the assertion Daniel Bachmann is ‘the worst keeper the club’s ever had’ (or words to that effect).

I’m not going to name any names, but he’s not. That’s just childish, playground-style insults that are akin to ‘my Dad would beat yours in a fight’.

What I found particularly distasteful and perturbing about what I read in the days after the Bachmann news was the depths that some – not all – people who apparently support Watford went to in order to make their point.

Social media can be so good - but it also means people can anonymously say things that very quickly get amplified, safe in the knowledge they'll probably have to face any consequences.

Because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. And while both the nastiness and the social platforms will continue, that doesn't mean we all have to sit back and accept it.

That’s why I felt I had to write something.

We can all hold our opinion and share it, and that should be encouraged. But some of the comments made about Dan, the inferences and suggestions, the language used were - I believe - very, very wrong and bordered on bullying.

We’ve had two pretty rank seasons to endure, and we’ll all have our own expectations what might unfold starting on Saturday.

In the same way that fans turning on each other and abusing fellow Hornets online and at games last season was rightly and publicly called out at the recent fans forum with Gino Pozzo and Scott Duxbury, this personal onslaught aimed at the man chosen to be captain of our club by those who disagree with the decision – and particularly the levels stooped to – had to be highlighted and chastised.

Everything at Watford FC certainly hasn’t been rosy in the last few years, and next season may or may not be an improvement.

But throwing around abuse at one of our own players is going to help nobody. We’re Watford, and we’re better than that.