Back to the fold
By Chris Salter
Scully was not the only departure. He was soon followed by
manager Furphy, finally broken by the lack of investment in the team by
"The Powers that Were". No Scullion, no Furphy, no Division II! George
Kirby moved into the manager's office, presided over the club's
demotion, and went. Stewart was joined at Sheffield Utd by Keith Eddy,
but this is not the place to review his years in Yorkshire, though one
happy event was the arrival there of his younger son.
By 1973, Mike Keen, signed from Luton, had taken over as player
manager. Among his early actions were to bring back Dennis Bond from
Charlton, and ..... Stewart Scullion from Sheffield, both costing the
club 15,000 pounds. Things finally seemed to be turning around for the
club as they finished a respectable 7th place in Div III for 1973-74.
However, the return to the Vic was not ultimately to have a happy
ending for Scully. Finance was again rearing its ugly head and before
the 1974-75 campaign was half-a-dozen games old, the club had sold both
John Farley and Billy Jennings to balance the books. Things did not
look too dire even a quarter of the way through the season, but a
meager 5 points from the final 11 games saw Watford finish in
penultimate place and drop into the league basement of Division IV for
the next season.
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