Chapter 23, part 2 – From a Wine Bar to Villa Park

The audio for this chapter is in part one

by Lionel Birnie. Audio version read by Colin Mace.

On the coach to the stadium, the body language of the two goalkeepers couldn’t have been more different. ‘I didn’t know what to say,’ says Plumley. ‘I think everyone knew I was playing because the rest of the lads could see it was obvious that Steve wasn’t. I don’t know if Steve told anyone but I’d been asked not to say anything so I didn’t.’

Taylor was anxious to keep his final line-up secret from Tottenham until he handed in his teamsheet at 2.30pm. So he asked Nigel Gibbs, who was not even on the bench, to get changed into his kit and go out to warm up with the rest of the team shortly after 2pm. ‘I didn’t want to do it but because I’m a good pro and it’s what the boss wanted, I went out there, warmed up, then went back to the dressing room and got changed back into my suit,’ says Gibbs.

Coton had not been with the squad at Lilleshall in the run-up to the game. Knowing he was going to miss the match, he didn’t want to hang around and transmit his feelings of disappointment to the rest of the squad. So he spent a couple of days in Tamworth with his dad, then got dropped off at Villa Park. He put a brave face on it and was determined to gee up the lads and give them some last-minute encouragement. But he found it hard. ‘I was in the changing rooms and I was not able to believe that Gary Plumley was going to be in goal. I felt terrible because it should have been me playing. The lads were asking me “Who is he T?” and I had to say I didn’t know him. I knew he’d played a bit and he was the son of Eddie but I didn’t know his game so there wasn’t anything I could say to them.’

The rest of the players were concentrating on their own game. When the draw had been made, most of them were honest enough to admit they’d been hoping for Coventry City or Second Division Leeds rather than Tottenham but they remained confident. ‘I couldn’t see any problem beating Tottenham,’ says Blissett. ‘But we lost Tony, then we lost Sherwood. It was unbelievable really. Steve had got a lot of stick after the cup final and he’d taken a lot of criticism when he came back into the team after Tony got injured. Maybe the manager was looking at that too. But even with the problems with the goalkeeper, I still thought we could beat them.’

John McClelland had missed much of the build-up and joined the squad late because his mother-in-law had recently died. ‘I had been given a few days off and when I came back, Steve was out and Gary was in. On the day of the game, Graham spoke to Steve Sims and I in the corridor at the hotel and asked us what we thought. I said “Well, if there’s no one else, there’s no one else. We’ll have to get on with it.” Perhaps he thought, well, as good a side as Tottenham are, they don’t have too many shots, so even if they dominate you they’re not going to batter you. A bit of me was thinking Graham was trying to be a God as such. Maybe he thought “Well, if I can pull this one off...” but in truth I don’t think there were any options.’

Taylor did not dwell on things in the team talk and he didn’t draw any extra attention to Gary Plumley. There was no point in wrapping him in cotton wool. He had to go out there and play in goal against one of the best sides in the country, and Taylor knew it would do him no good if he was telling the rest of the team to take Plumley into account. Instead he reinforced the importance of sticking to the plan they had worked on in training.

For Gary Porter, it was the biggest game of his career. ‘I was just thinking about my own game. I was running through in my own mind what I had to. I was so totally focused on getting out there and getting on with it.’

David Bardsley adds: ‘I thought, we’ve got this goalkeeper and I’ll respect he can do the job, and if he can’t, there’s nothing I can do about it other than keep doing my best. The only thing I thought was that if we could get him a touch of the ball early on it’d settle him down and I do remember playing it back to him in the first couple of minutes.’

Plumley was surprised how low-key the atmosphere in the Watford dressing was. He’d played for Cardiff City at Vicarage Road and could well remember the commotion coming from the home dressing room. ‘They used to sound like a room of caged tigers,’ he says. ‘You’d hear them in their boots jogging on the spot, then they would sprint and roar and you’d wonder what on earth was going on. Perhaps they’d stopped doing that by the time the 1987 semi-final came round but I do remember it being a very quiet dressing room. Everyone wished me luck and shook my hand or patted me on the back before we went out but it didn’t seem a confident dressing room, which perhaps in the circumstances was not surprising.’

Coton offered a few words of support. ‘I wished him all the best. There was nothing I could say to him before the game. He was going to go out and do what he was going to do, there was no point me giving him pointers. I didn’t know his game, so there was nothing I could say that would help him.’

Wilf Rostron was happy Plumley was up to the job. ‘He had come in and trained with us, and he looked good to be honest. Perhaps if Plumley hadn’t done so well in training we’d have gone with Shirley [Sherwood]. It was a bit unsettling having a new keeper but the main thing I was worried about was that he wasn’t particularly big, so I thought we might be vulnerable on crosses. We knew it would be hard but we still felt we had a chance.’ McClelland was initially reassured by Plumley’s confidence in the dressing room. ‘I thought ‘this fella loves himself’. He seemed very confident, so I thought he’d be all right. But the guy froze. He completely froze. He goes out and shits himself for ninety minutes.’

The first many of Watford’s fans knew about the situation was when the team was read out at Villa Park. Sherwood’s injury had happened too late on Thursday afternoon to make The Watford Observer. ‘I walked out onto the edge of the pitch in my suit about half an hour before the kick-off and the fans were chanting my name,’ Sherwood says. ‘They didn’t know I wasn’t playing.’

The name was familiar and as Plumley warmed up, word spread across the terraces that this was the chief executive’s son. Realising the severity of the situation facing them, the majority of Watford’s fans were supportive, chanting the name of the stand-in goalkeeper. As they took their seats in the directors’ box, Eddie and Fran Plumley were handed a copy of the teamsheet. ‘I remember looking at Fran and she just welled up and started crying,’ says Eddie Plumley.

Down on the pitch, Gary Plumley was experiencing a surreal range of emotions. As he walked towards the tunnel after his warm-up, he picked out his wife, Debbie, in the stand. She was heavily pregnant, due to give birth to their first child within a couple of weeks. ‘I knew what she was going through as well,’ says Plumley. ‘I had visions of her giving birth in the executive box.’

In the corridor near the dressing room, Steve Harrison bumped into Sherwood, looking forlorn in his suit. ‘Harry said to me “Well, I hope he plays better than he’s warmed up,”’ says Sherwood.

Nigel Gibbs, who was having a bizarre day of his own, had changed back into his suit and shortly before kick-off made his way up the stairs into the stand, where he would be sitting among the players’ families and also a good number of Watford supporters. ‘The fans were looking at me and saying “Aren’t you playing?” They’d seen me down on the pitch about 40 minutes earlier and couldn’t work out why I was now taking a seat in the stand.’

Coton walked along the touchline to take his seat just behind the manager’s benches. He still had his hand in plaster.

A Watford fan shouted ‘You fucking wanker, Coton.’

It nearly sparked an incident. Coton, hurt enough by the fact he was missing the match, was about to let rip when Taylor stepped in.

The manager turned round, barely able to suppress his anger. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

The fan said ‘You’ve let us all down.’

‘Oh, I did it on purpose did I?’ said Coton.

‘Graham waved the fan away and called him an idiot but I was really angry about that,’ says Coton, who was still seething as the game got underway.

***

The joy and optimism that had surrounded Watford’s cup semi-final in 1984 had been strangely absent this time round. The newspapers had been full of stories suggesting that Elton John was planning to sell the club and that John Barnes was on his way. There were other stories that were completely without foundation too, such as the tabloid tale that said Graham Taylor had been lined up to take over at Everton. Injuries to the two goalkeepers meant the mood in the camp was uncertain. The match had not captured the imagination in quite the same way either. Unlike the previous semi-final, which had sold out in hours, Watford had sent back 1,500 unsold tickets for the Tottenham match. Taylor was particularly upset and annoyed that the club had failed to shift its entire allocation.

The supporters still clung to the belief they could beat Tottenham and reach Wembley. It was bright but blustery at Villa Park that afternoon and, like many semi-final matches, the pace was frenetic from the start. As soon as the game kicked off, the tension in Gary Plumley’s shoulders eased and he relaxed slightly. The crowd and the importance of the occasion ebbed away and he felt like a goalkeeper again. Even the ironic cheers from the Tottenham fans every time he touched the ball could not unsettle him. He wasn’t called upon to do anything spectacular but what he did was neat and tidy.

Watford wanted to score first and, if that was not possible, keep Tottenham at bay for as long as possible. David Pleat had sent Spurs out with simple instructions. Test the goalkeeper early and keep testing him often. Put him under pressure, force him to make saves and hope for a mistake.

After 11 scrappy minutes of play, their tactic yielded a goal. ‘Before the game, Graham and Wardy both said “You’ve got to follow the shots in, just in case he spills one,” but the first shot Spurs had never got followed in,’ says McClelland. Clive Allen, an opportunistic poacher who usually preyed on the six-yard box, decided to shoot from the corner of the penalty area on Tottenham’s right-hand side. The ball dipped and swerved and although Plumley got his hands on it, he couldn’t hold onto the shot. The ball squirmed free. Paul Allen beat Bardsley to the rebound. A poor goal to concede but more than that, it was a dreadful early blow.

Within two minutes, Watford were 2-0 down. Clive Allen shot from outside the penalty area again, this time from a more central position, the ball clipped off McClelland’s ankles and wrong-footed Plumley. ‘The opponents must have thought, let’s get it forward, let’s get it in the box, and make it uncomfortable for them,’ says Kevin Richardson. ‘We knew they were going to play like that, because that’s what we’d have done if it was the other way round. They shot when perhaps they wouldn’t have in normal circumstances just to test the goalkeeper. Unfortunately, once one went in, that was it. It’s easy to blame him but he was asked to go in goal and he did his best. If he’d pulled off a couple of saves and we’d won 1-0, he’d have been the hero.’

Plumley knew the first goal was crucial. ‘Had I stopped the first one the lads in front would have gone “Okay, let’s not worry about him, he’s going to be fine,” but after that they protected me a little bit more instead of pushing up.’

The second goal was not Plumley’s fault but being beaten by a deflected shot from outside the penalty area did nothing to change the impression that he was out of his depths.

‘I felt I could do the job. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been there,’ he says. ‘But I was in the team and I was a goalkeeper, I wasn’t a wine waiter. If Graham had felt I couldn’t do it, Steve Sherwood would have played.’

In the stand, Eddie Plumley found he could barely watch. It was disappointing enough as chief executive to see Watford go 2-0 behind so early. But as a father it was agonising. ‘The second goal looked a terrible one sitting on the side of the pitch,’ he says. ‘It was only afterwards that John McClelland told me that it’d taken a deflection. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a stomach-churning experience as watching that match. Seeing your son play in the side, when it was totally unexpected. Then the way the match turned out, well, it was an awful game to watch.’

Despite going two behind so early on, Watford stuck resolutely to their plan but they were chasing shadows. Had it stayed 2-0 until half- time there might have been a chance. Possibly. But once Spurs grabbed a third 11 minutes before the break it was over.

‘After that they could close the game down completely,’ says Blissett.

‘They didn’t have to do anything once they were three ahead. The way the goals went in was very deflating for everyone and it was asking a lot for us to get back into it.’

‘When the third went in, Glenn Hoddle patted me on the back and told me keep my head up,’ says Barnes. ‘He felt sorry for us and recognised the fact that we didn’t have our goalkeeper. I don’t think it was Gary’s fault but it did knock our confidence. We didn’t know how he was going to cope but regardless of the goalkeeper we should have put on a better performance.’

Even though they were 3-0 down, Rostron stuck resolutely to his job marking Hoddle. ‘I thought “Well, until he [Taylor] tells us to change...” Hoddle said to me “Wilf, man, leave us alone. Just go and play,” but I said “I’m doing me job, and I’m sticking with you.”’

Before the break, Plumley asked McClelland to take the goal kicks. ‘He said he was getting cramp,’ says McClelland. ‘I said to him “It’s okay, I’ll take the kick, just calm down a bit,” but by then he’d bottled it, he’d totally bottled it.’ Plumley says he asked McClelland to take one free kick because he’d jumped for a ball and been winded by Paul Allen as he caught it. ‘Momentarily I was knocked out, so John took the kick for me.’ However, he admits having cramp at half-time. ‘I ran in from the Holte End to the tunnel, which was in the far corner and I got cramp in both my calves. I limped up the tunnel and had to have a rub on the calves at half-time.’

Coton and Sherwood felt sympathy for Plumley but the over-riding emotion was helplessness. ‘It was hard to watch. I was still thinking if we managed to get through I might get back in time for the final, so it was horrible to watch,’ says Coton. Sherwood was still reeling from being left out. ‘That was the most difficult game I’ve ever had to watch, I just didn’t want to be there.’

As Coton walked back down the touchline towards the dressing rooms at half- time, the supporters who’d shouted abuse at him before the game ran down to the front. ‘Tony, Tony,’ they called. ‘Sorry mate. We didn’t mean it.’

The atmosphere in the dressing room was subdued. They knew there was no way back from 3-0 down. Taylor asked the players what they wanted to do. Rostron spoke up. He wanted to ditch the man-marking formation. ‘Let’s just play our own way and see what happens.’

Things got worse for Watford. Steve Sims was carried off with a serious injury. It would turn out to be his final appearance in a Watford shirt. ‘I went for a sliding tackle, put my arm down and someone fell on me. All I can remember is that I went to push myself up and my arm was pointing the other way. The elbow was dislocated. I panicked and I passed out. I can’t remember much about it but I do remember moaning away at the hospital and they said “Well, you were lucky, you could have lost your arm.”’

Tottenham added a fourth and Malcolm Allen scored a consolation goal for Watford. Long before the final whistle, the Spurs fans were celebrating. The chants of ‘You should have stayed in your wine bar,’ just seemed cruel.

After the game, Graham Taylor told the press: ‘I’m a football manager, not a magician. There were no more rabbits I could pull out of the hat.’ It was a comment that was loaded with significance as it not only reflected the difficulties leading up to the match but perhaps also a subtle reference to his job as Watford manager.

In the dressing room there were tears. ‘Mark Falco was crying his eyes out,’ says Coton. ‘He’d been at Tottenham just a few months before and it must have made him sick hearing his old team-mates singing. It was tough to take seeing Gary after the game, giving interviews, saying what a great experience it was. Of course he was the story but it was all right for him, he was going back to his wine bar.’

McClelland feels Plumley failed to recognise the hurt being felt by the men who were his team-mates for a day. ‘Nobody moved. Nobody got changed for ages, and there he was, singing in the shower. He said “What’s up lads? It’s only a game.” In a sense it was his day. If it had gone right, he’d have got all the headlines.’

Plumley refutes McClelland’s version of events. ‘Everyone’s head was down. I was as sick as a pig, absolutely devastated. I was there to do a job, which was to get to the final. I did as much as I could, I did the best I could. All right, things didn’t go our way but I don’t think we’d have won if we were still playing now. Things weren’t going for us. But I was last to go in the shower. I just sat there and hung my head. The players were great, they patted me on the head and said “never mind, mate.” There wasn’t much they could have said. I didn’t want to go and do the press conference but I can understand why they [the media] wanted me. Yes, you play in a cup semi-final and that is a once in a lifetime thing, but I was devastated, not just for me but for the rest of the team.’

Plumley and his wife drove back to Newport. ‘I didn’t want to go back to Watford with the lads but I didn’t want to go to the wine bar either.’

The FA Cup semi-final was the last game Plumley played, apart from the odd charity match. He gave his semi-final boots away but Watford sent him the grey goalkeeper’s shirt he’d worn in the match. The only money he received were travelling expenses and a small fee for playing in the match. ‘It was enough to buy a fridge. We’ve still got that fridge today, we call it ‘the Watford fridge’. I have got a few photos and the shirt but I wasn’t there for mementoes, believe me. A few weeks later Graham wrote me a letter. It said, if you work out how many goalkeepers have played in an FA Cup semi-final, it is a very select band of people and I was one of them. He said it was a shame the result didn’t go well, but thank you and well done. It was a nice thing for Graham to do.’

***

In the weeks that followed the match, the burden of that decision weighed heavily on the manager, according to John Ward. ‘It had been very difficult down there on the bench,’ he says. ‘Because it was largely out of our hands. After the game there was a very strange atmosphere in the dressing room. It was very quiet. I would never have a go at the players but perhaps there was a ready-made reason for not winning. I am not saying they didn’t try, of course I’m not, but it was a very difficult situation for them to find themselves in. Graham was very down afterwards. No matter how many friends you have, you do feel very lonely at times like that. There was nothing anyone could say to make him feel better. He was the manager and he knew it was his responsibility because people question the manager in situations like that. I can imagine him turning himself inside out, going through everything and wondering if he made the right decision.’

As the supporters debated the wisdom of his decision, no one was more analytical or self-critical than Taylor. ‘I went for Eddie’s lad and we saw what happened. Perhaps I got that one wrong and people will say “yes, you did get it wrong,” but it was a strange situation. People can say we had other options but we really didn’t. It’s very easy for people who are not in possession of all the facts to say “well, you could have got someone else.” But who could we have got? With the restrictions we had, there was not a list of people we could call in.’

If anything, the most Taylor could be accused of was believing he could create another fairy story. ‘Graham dropped a bollock but he didn’t drop many,’ says McClelland. ‘I felt he thought “I’m Graham Taylor, it’ll work out whatever I do.” That was the confidence of the guy, but this one didn’t work.’

Sims says: ‘In hindsight Steve should have played. But that was one of Graham’s. He’d do that every now and then, he’d throw one at you.’

Sherwood was the definition of a gentle giant and he still carries the hurt with him to this day. ‘He was the softest man at the club,’ says Sims with affection. ‘He used to have a great booming laugh and he never got angry. He was as strong as an ox and he could lift more weights than anyone. If he felt he had a point to prove he could summon all that strength.’ Three days after the semi- final, Sherwood was back in the team as Watford beat Chelsea 3-1.

‘I know I hadn’t been in the team for a while but I should have played in the semi-final,’ he says. ‘I was angry about it. It takes a lot for me to lose my temper because I am a pretty placid person but I am determined, I do have an inner strength. Against Chelsea I was so determined to prove him wrong, and I think I did.’

Sensing a story, some journalists from the national papers contacted Sherwood. ‘I don’t know how I got through watching the semi-final,’ he says. ‘It was one of the worst experiences I’ve had. At the end of the game people were coming up to me blaming me for not playing and I thought, well, it’s not like I wanted to be sat in stands. That is why I felt I had to say something. I had to make sure people knew that I felt I was fit. It’s the only time I’ve ever had a go at Graham Taylor. I spoke to one or two in the press and I criticised him for that and at the time I wasn’t bothered because, if I’m honest, I felt he should have been criticised.

‘But they wanted me to run Graham down and there was no way I would do that. I felt he was wrong on that decision and I wanted to say that but as far as I am concerned that was the only mistake he made in ten years. And I am bound to think it was a mistake. Looking back I am sure he accepts it was a mistake.

‘It was my testimonial season and he had said that if I had a bad game it would have ruined my testimonial and ruined how Watford supporters thought of me but to me that isn’t a reason. I proved my point against Chelsea and that was it. There were times when he’d left me out and I deserved it but the semi-final was unfair and unjust in my view. I owed a lot to Graham Taylor but at that particular time I hated him. But I didn’t say more to the press because I’ve got that much respect for him.’

After the match a Challis cartoon tried to make light of the crisis, depicting Coton and Sherwood, each with their arm in a sling, being told by Taylor: ‘It’s okay. The FA say you can both play as long as you only use one arm each.’ The supporters were horribly deflated but that was nothing compared to the dark clouds that had rolled in and settled over the manager.

A week before the FA Cup final, with Tottenham due to play Coventry City at Wembley, Watford rounded off their league season with a home game against Spurs. Sherwood played and kept a clean sheet as Watford won 1-0. He was the only man on the pitch who had played in both the first and last league matches of Graham Taylor’s ten-year reign as Watford manager. Everything was about to change.

Next time: The unthinkable happens. The end of an era

Enjoy the Game, the story of Watford Football Club in the 1980s was written by Lionel Birnie and published as a hardback book in 2010. The audio series was recorded by Colin Mace and produced by Jon Moonie.