I am quite a selfish chap, by and large. If I were to, say, be caught up in the volcanic eruptions of Pompeii and encountered a man covered in lava, I'd be more likely to steal his - ooh I don't know, something Roman, his toga perhaps? - than pour water over the slowly melting carcass. To quote Edmund Blackadder^*, "The most important person in my life is me."

So, yes. This is an appeal to Watford's staff, players, fans, ball boys - WE MUST STAY UP! This is not, you must understand, due to the fact that relegation would be hugely costly to the club, that the standard of entertainment for the fans would be considerably lower or indeed that several people could lose their livelihoods. No. This is because I have bet my Dad one English pound that Watford will stay up.

Think what I could do with a pound! If I were to buy a lottery ticket there's a one in thirteen million chance I would win. I could invest my winnings in the club, become Chairman and then, on match days you could point me out and say, "That's Mike Peter, I read his articles before he became the stunningly handsome millionaire that he now is."

If that's not inspiration, I don't know what is.

The month started with Stoke away, the Bradford game earlier that week was cancelled due to a frozen pitch. A 3-1 defeat seemed hugely disappointing. However, when you consider it...it's not. Stoke were/are on top form and are a far cry from the team that we beat 2-1 at the Britannia nearly eighteen months ago. They also have a massive forward line. Watford can't cope with anyone bigger than five foot ten. It's a fact. So despite the fact we were on a roll, a defeat against Stoke, in retrospect, can't be considered a major failure.

Bradford next. We all know we don't win at Bradford. Never have, never will. In fact, I have a strange capacity to remember away defeats at Valley Parade. Despite the fact I've never been, I can see in my mind's eye the red kits and Xavier Gravelaine's (currently table topping in France) goggling eyes. If you examine the front of that week's WO, you'll see Heidar jump out the way in the wall, allowing the ball to fly through into the net. And we thought he was hard.... Yes, so despite our recent good form we lost to the shower of shite that is Bradford. Again, hardly a surprise when you look at it in retrospect.

Sheffield United, then. We're their bogey team, although we lost 3-0 in this fixture two years ago, so we're not a bogey that can't be picked. That day we were well and truly picked. I'll pull no punches, we were bloody terrible. Interestingly enough, though, despite our awful passing Watford were actually the dominant side, we created a fair amount of chances too! Sheffield United, for all their star players, produced very little apart from their two goals. Despite the general awfulness of the match, I have pulled some hilarious/dreary points from it.

• Audley Harrison turning up at half time and, having received a ball from one of the United subs, displaying a decent footballing touch. He was pleasantly surprised when he was presented with the Man of the Match award after the game.
• A huge round of boos when Fitzgerald was taken off. A huge amount of Watford fans obviously not noticing that Fitzgerald hadn't done anything all game, apart from miss a sitter.
• Robert Page being called a "dirty Northern bastard" having sliced down Hyde - there were obviously a large amount of stupid people in the Watford crowd. Either that or Johnny-Come-Lately glory hunters, who only started coming this season.
• Every player being literally assaulted with thousands of balls from the Watford ball boys.^**
• Paddy Kenny giving us both the V sign and pointing out United were 2-0 up in one simple gesture. Some idiot complained about this, an extremely twatish thing to do. I suppose Kenny is perfectly within his rights to get the police to have a word with every single fan who called him a "fat bastard." Apparently, Warnock in response to this told Kenny, "Well, you are a bit fat..."