Ryan Andrews, Adrian Mariappa, Lloyd Doyley, Nigel Gibbs, Kenny Jackett, Luther Blissett.
Half a dozen instantly-recognisable homegrown stars that have worn the yellow of Watford with honour, success and dignity.
Five of the six are regarded as legends (hopefully Ryan won’t take that as a slight, because legendary status has to be measured in length of service and number of games as well as the quality of play).
What set of supporters anywhere doesn’t love to see ‘one of their own’ out on the pitch?
A lad who was playing for the club as a schoolboy, did all the hard yards on the training pitches, played in evening and Saturday morning games while still in full-time education, and then successfully negotiated the notoriously difficult path to a professional contract and onwards.
Through those homegrown players, we all live our dreams.
Last night, and indeed two weeks ago when they beat the mighty Tottenham, the Watford Under-18s showed the club could be enjoying a golden age of Academy players.
The 2-1 win over Southampton was thoroughly deserved, and earned with a combination of skill, character, determination and grit, plus excellent coaching – provided by head coach Matt Bevans and his assistant, the lovable Doyley, both of whom are themselves products of the Watford youth system.
It was a victory that makes the Hornets first team to qualify for the semi-finals of this year’s FA Youth Cup, where they could well end up facing the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal or Manchester United.
Lofty company to keep, but they are mixing in those circles on merit.
Like Tottenham, who the Hornets swatted aside 4-2 in the last round, Southampton are a Category 1 Academy with the resources and finances that enable them to recruit players from home and abroad.
Both Spurs and Saints play in the Under-18 Premier League, meaning they are taking on some of the best of the youth footballing talent in the country.
Watford, meanwhile, are a Category 2 Academy, with a far, far smaller budget which means they are working on a shoestring relative to Southampton and Tottenham, and when they do unearth a gem the financial clout of the bigger clubs means they often end up losing them.
Left-back Harry Amass is a perfect recent example. At Watford from the age of nine, he made it onto the bench for an FA Cup tie away at Reading when he was 15 and would surely have been a contender for first-team football at Vicarage Road.
Instead, he opted to join Manchester United in the summer of 2023 with Watford receiving an amount of compensation, but nothing like the sort of transfer fees bandied about these days.
An England Under-18 international, Amass has been an unused sub for the United first team on several occasions and, should he make a senior start, then the Hornets will receive further payment as part of the compensation package.
But they would much rather have been able to play him in their own first team, particularly given left-sided defenders were a source of much searching during the January transfer window.
You can take the Amass story and multiply it several times, because despite all that Watford can offer a young player, the lure of the bigger clubs and what they can provide generally tips the scales.
Where Watford can make it work, though, is by providing a clear and proven pathway to the first team.
The team that beat Southampton last night included three players – Amin Nabizada, Leo Ramirez-Espain and Zavier Massiah-Edwards – who have all made a first-team appearance.
On what they have shown this season, they could well make many more, and there are definitely at least a couple more in the Under-18 group that could progress through to the senior ranks.
They were more than a match for both Spurs and Southampton, and it was noticeable that players from both those teams lost their heads when it became apparent they were going out of the cup to little old Watford.
Tottenham had two sent off, the Saints had numerous players booked and also sparked a 22-man scuffle in stoppage time.
For the 2,000+ fans who watched both those cup ties at Vicarage Road it was a glimpse of what the Academy have bubbling away.
To use a phrase that was uttered during the January transfer window, the Academy may have some ‘oven-ready’ players in their midst.
Not oven-ready in the sense of signing someone from another club that has already got a couple of hundred senior games under their belt.
No, that’s like buying an expensive ready-meal.
What the Academy have, quite clearly, are players that have been produced in Watford’s own kitchen – every bit as delicious, but you know what the ingredients are and the cost is comparatively far less.
And they have also managed to find a player or two externally that can be added to the Academy for very little to supplement what is already there.
Striker Nickson Okosun is a case in point.
Hats off to whoever within the Watford scouting system spotted the then 17-year-old at Bohemians in the League of Ireland and brought him to the club in January.
He’d played less than five hours of senior football for the Dublin side, and yet in the cup games with Spurs and Southampton he has looked like a grown man playing in youth football.
If it wasn’t for the rapidly-blossoming Mamadou Doumbia, then Okosun would be the most exciting teenage striker at Watford.
With Cleverley leading the club, it is clear that youth will – where deserved and feasible – be given its chance.
Slowly but surely, the Watford Academy is starting to become an exciting conveyor belt again.
And it’s long overdue.
Andrews, with 87 first-team appearances to his credit, will soon surpass Lee Hodson’s 91 from the mid-2000s, but no homegrown player has reached more than 100 first-team appearances since Mariappa (and his final total of 340 is not at risk any time soon).
However, in the early part of the century, the Watford Academy produced five players who would go on to make a century or more senior outings for the club: Mariappa, Ashley Young (110), Richard Lee (110), Anthony McNamee (103) and Doyley (443).
In the 20 years since Mariappa made his debut, there hasn’t been a single Academy centurion.
Since the summer of 2012 a total of 25 different Academy graduates have made at least one appearance for the first team – Andrews has registered more than the other 24 added together.
The trend is, of late, heading in the right direction though, as since summer 2022 a total of nine players from the Hornets Academy have played for the first team.
It may only be a couple of games for some, but it’s nine Academy debutants in two and a half years.
It was nine in the previous five years, so the pathway is becoming more regularly trodden.
Now it may be coincidence, but the regularity and quality of players coming through the ranks at Watford has increased since Richard Johnson became Academy Director and Jimmy Gilligan was appointed Head of Technical Development alongside him.
Two former players, who developed at the club, worked under its greatest manager, and went on to have successful careers in the game.
Look at the people they have surrounded themselves with: Doyley, a club legend, was on the touchline for last night’s win alongside Under-18s head coach Bevans, himself a product of the Academy whose own playing career was cut short by injury.
When Dan Gosling retired, he was kept at the club to help assist Charlie Daniels with the Under-21s, while Mariappa is combining playing for Wealdstone with doing his coaching badges at London Colney.
Then, of course, there’s Tom Cleverley who is every bit a man of Watford apart from his accent.
The head coach totally ‘gets’ Watford, and sees beyond the first team to understand the value of the Academy, the supporters, the town and how they all combine and intertwine.
His brief stint as Under-18’s coach means he knows the players in the club’s Under-21 team and those who are doing Watford proud in the FA Youth Cup.
It was, by his own admission, a decision made by the chairman Scott Duxbury to give Cleverley the job during his interim spell.
And while the owner may have had different ideas, that he ceded authority on this one when he could easily have ridden roughshod over the appointment means that both Duxbury and Gino Pozzo have bought into the idea – to differing degrees – that home may well be where the heart is.
Whatever views we may have on the ownership and stewardship of the club, any positives must be highlighted just as much as perceived negatives.
Watford appointed Cleverley, they’ve stuck by him (if more in terms of time than finances), and in turn he has taken a thin squad that was weaker than the one which finished 15th the season before and got it inside the Championship top 10 with a dozen games to go.
The head coach kept Doumbia in the team for the derby on Saturday when he had the more experienced Vakoun Bayo available – he’s clearly a manager happy to give youth it’s chance.
While injuries may have played a part, Cleverley has had the likes of Ramirez-Espain and Nabizada in and around the first-team squad this season.
If Ramirez-Espain can spend his days shadowing Imran Louza, and Nabizada gets time to work alongside Giorgi Chakvetadze, then we have two sorcerer’s apprentices in our midst.
It was impossible not to leave Vicarage Road last night without a spring in the step and a warm feeling despite the cold February temperatures.
Watford are mixing it, and utterly deservedly so, with the very best of British football at Under-18 level, and have already seen off two Premier League teams.
The draw for the semi-finals have yet to be made, but it will be a tougher test still, given the last four is not a two-legged affair as in the past – the Hornets could be heading to a venue like Old Trafford, the Etihad or the Emirates before April 5 to play for a place in the final with extra-time and penalties on the night.
But wherever they go and whoever they face, Watford have a team capable of beating anyone.
When we know who they will play, where and when, please try to get there.
Not just to support the club’s young talent and coaches in this prestigious competition, but because you will see for yourself that the Watford Academy is punching well above its financial weight to produce players that could go on to be first-team stars of the future.
Who wouldn’t want to be able to say ‘I was there’ on the night the next Blissett, Doyley or Gibbs came of footballing age?
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