By Colin Payne
This became an all too common scene at Vicarage Road because of the pandemic. Picture: Action Images
The Watford Observer has again teamed up with its friends at The Watford Treasury to share stories from its new book, Coming Home.
In this piece titled Space - The Final Frontier, Colin Payne explains why a half-empty stadium is a wonderful thing. If the current ‘situation’ has taught me something, and of course it has, it is that I am quite an unsociable person. Although that is probably a fact most people who know me would already have deduced. It’s not that I don’t like company, I just prefer my own! This simple fact would no doubt go a long way in explaining why I would rather watch my football in sparsely populated stadiums. Watching games played out in front of empty stands has reinforced that. How I would love to be in one of those seats, not just to exclusively see the proceedings first-hand,
Glenn Roeder back at Vicarage Road as Newcastle United manager in 2006. Photo: Action Images Numerous tributes have been paid to Glenn Roeder following his death at the age of 65 yesterday, but what has been a constant throughout is the recognition of his qualities as a person as well as a classy defender who became one of the top coaches of his generation. Roeder, who managed Watford from 1993 to 1996 having previously spent two seasons at Vicarage Road as a player, passed away following a long battle with a brain tumour. The Watford Observer’s long-serving Hornets correspondent Oliver Phillips has paid tribute to “a lovely man, a gentleman, a devotee of the beautiful game, knowing Glenn was an uplifting experience”, while another media colleague and friend Mike Vince described Roeder as “one of the most decent people I have ever worked with”.