When Watford didn't win an away league game for 18 months

A truly miserable run which extended on Saturday with the 3-0 defeat at Leeds, meaning it’s now 12 away league games without victory – 14 in total if you add in the FA Cup defeat at Reading last season and the draw (and subsequent penalty defeat) at Stevenage in the Carabao Cup this term.

You have to go back to January 2 for the last time away fans left a stadium other than Vicarage Road celebrating a Watford win, when Vakoun Bayo’s late strike secured a 1-0 victory over Norwich for a Hornets squad that was decimated by injuries.

Since then, the travelling fans have seen six draws and eight defeats in all competitions – while in league games it’s five draws and seven defeats, a return of just five points from a possible 36.

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However, there is still quite a long way to go before the Hornets even come close to their longest sequence without a league win on the road.

That stands at 32 games and went on for more than a year and a half, with the barren run of away games stretching between April 1971 and November 1972.

Watford won 1-0 at Cardiff on Saturday April 17, 1971, with a goal from Charlie Woods. In the team that day were the likes of Tom Walley, Stewart Scullion, Duncan Welbourne and Keith Eddy.

It’s doubtful they, or any of the Watford fans in the crowd of 26,536 at Cardiff that afternoon, would have imagined they wouldn’t win another league away game for more than 18 months.

That grim 589-day wait between away wins began in Yorkshire, with a 3-0 defeat at Sheffield United on the final day of the 1970/71 season.

Ken Furphy was in charge, and Watford had just about clung onto their place in the old Second Division (now the Championship) for the second consecutive season.

They had been promoted in the 1968/69 season under Furphy, and then finished 19th in 69/70 before managing to achieve 18th in the 70/71 campaign.

Furphy departed to take over at Blackburn, and former Halifax Town manager George Kirby came to Vicarage Road and was to oversee two awful seasons which very nearly saw the club drop from Division Two to Division Four.

Watford failed to win any of their first six league games at the start of the 71/72 season, and didn’t muster an away goal in any of their opening four trips to Fulham (0-3), Charlton (0-2), Carlisle (0-2) and QPR (0-3).

Larry McGettigan netted the first away goal of the season in a 4-1 defeat at Birmingham City on Tuesday September 28, but Watford lost each of their first nine games on the road – scoring just five times and conceding 23.

Remember what this feels like? Watford last won away in the league when Vakoun Bayo's late goal secured a 1-0 win at Norwich in January. (Image: PA)

They finally picked up their first away point of the season in a 1-1 draw at Norwich City a fortnight before Christmas, Pat Morrissey scoring on his debut after an £8,000 move from Chester City.

However, that was mere respite and heavy defeats at Blackpool (5-0) and Hull City (4-0) followed soon after.

Ironically, one of only four away league points that season came courtesy of a 0-0 draw at Luton on March 4, 1972: Watford had beaten the Hatters 2-1 at home in November, one of just five league wins during the entire campaign.

The season ended with four consecutive away defeats in which Watford conceded 11 goals without scoring.

Incredibly, despite being relegated back to the Third Division weeks earlier and having been cast adrift at the foot of the table (15 points from safety), a crowd of more than 22,000 watched Welbourne score to earn a 1-1 draw with Norwich at Vicarage Road as the woeful season ended on April 29, 1972.

The Canaries won the Second Division that season, and yet failed to beat Watford home or away.

For the hardy Watford travelling fans, the drop back to the Third Division didn’t bring with it any immediate relief though.

They didn’t win any of their first 10 away games at the start of the 72/73 season either, scoring a paltry two goals in five draws and five defeats.

And then, after nearly 600 days, Watford won an away league match.

On Saturday November 25, 1972, in front of just 4,718 spectators, two goals from Morrissey and one from Mike Keen secured a 3-1 win at Walsall.

Remarkably, that away win in late November left Watford sitting fifth in the league table – and two more home wins against Bolton and Plymouth before Christmas seventh in the Third Division on December 25.

But that season, just like the festive decorations, the only direction was down in the new year.

Watford began a run of nine consecutive league defeats with a 1-0 reverse at Notts County on Boxing Day, and crashed from seventh to 22nd in the table in just two months.

The away win at Walsall truly was a false dawn as the next six away games all ended in defeat, and it eventually turned out to be the only win away from home in the league during the campaign.

Safety was secured by the Hornets scrambling nine draws from their last 15 league games, plus a very handy 5-1 win at Vicarage Road on a Tuesday night over Scunthorpe, who eventually finished bottom of the league.

Ross Jenkins scored his first two Watford goals in front of less than 5,000 people at Vicarage Road on a March evening in 1973. (Image: Watford Observer)

Ross Jenkins, who had signed from Crystal Palace for £30,000 the previous November, came off the bench that night to score his first two goals for Watford. There were just 4,579 at Vicarage Road that night, though still considerably more than the 1,544 who watched Scunthorpe beat Watford 1-0 in the return fixture on Saturday April 21.

Watford came 19th that season, avoiding the drop back to Division Four courtesy of goal average, a statistic used then to decide league placings before goal difference was introduced.

Rotherham finished 21st on 41 points but were relegated with a goal average of 0.785 while Halifax came 20th with a goal average of 0.811.

Watford were a place higher with a goal average of 0.896, staying in the Third Division by a goal average superior to relegated Rotherham’s by just 0.111 of a goal!

For the record, that run of 32 away league games saw Watford draw nine times and lose the other 23, scoring 11 goals and conceding 62.

Watford failed to score in 23 of those 32 winless away games, while keeping just six clean sheets.

• Much of the research for this article was made possible by the truly excellent Watford Football Club Archive website – a treasure trove for fans who love statistics, want to learn more about anyone who played for the club or just fancies trawling through thousands of pages of Watford content!