Pre-season friendly, 30/7/98
Bristol Rovers 0(0)
Watford 2(2)
Team: Day, Gibbs, Kennedy, Page, Palmer, Robinson, Hazan, Hyde, Lee, Easton, Ngonge
Team: Noel-Williams (for Ngonge) , Gudmundsson (for Hyde) , Pluck (for Robinson)
Team: Lee, Hazan
 
On the moon
Report by Rupert Licht

Setting off at three, Adrian Spender and I arrived at the Memorial Ground at the ridiculously early time of half past four - more than three hours before kick-off. Accusations that this was done because I was nervous of missing out on a match programme are completely unfounded! Still we went to the pub and various assorted South-West Hornets turned up and we played guess the attendance. For the stattos, hold on to your groins - on the 25th July for Rovers' first friendly against Port Vale the attendance was 1,500. On Tuesday night against West Ham the crowd was 8,000. Surely for the mighty Horns there would be people locked out banging to be let in...

...or not. When we got in the ground about 10 people were there. A few more turned up but the atmosphere was quieter than a reserve game. Most of the Bristol Rovers fans appeared to be scarecrows.

Onto the game, well, it was quite an impressive performance in my book. The defence contained the pacy Barry Hayles very well and limited Rovers to a minimum of chances. In midfield, Hyde and Hazan combined to form a very effective duo. For the first goal, Gibbsy put in a great cross and Jason Lee scored with a good header. The second goal was a great cross from Michel Ngonge put away with a thumping header from Alon Hazan.

In the second half, Michel Ngonge was ordered to be substituted by the referee for a rather innocuous foul and Gifton Noel-Williams replaced him. Gifton was quite effective, causing quite a bit of havoc - if he had had his shooting boots on he could well have scored a couple of goals. Gudmundsson went close and all in all this was another good workout with the right attitude. The match really told us what we already knew - we are light years above Second Division standard.

It was a fun night, being part of only 806 people at a match is rather unsettling and is a bit like watching a match on the moon, I suppose. There are more trips on the Watford spaceship to come, who knows what strange planets we will visit?