Chasing Shadows: Kevin Phillips

First featured in last season’s matchday programme, Daily Mirror sports writer Mike Walters recalls some of the best individual displays he has witnessed the Hornets come up against…

Ahead of Wednesday’s Sky Bet Championship fixture against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light (October 4, 7.45pm KO), this piece focuses on a goalscoring Black Cat who kickstarted his career in Watford yellow...

To be fair, he was an absolute steal at £325,000. The Great Train Robbery, Hatton Garden heist and Goldfinger's raid on Fort Knox were all cheap imitations. Yes, Sunderland had our trousers down when they signed Kevin Phillips from Watford for a fee with at least two noughts missing on the cashier's cheque.

The only thing that made it easier to swallow was that the Hornets had plucked Phillips from non-league obscurity at Baldock Town for a pittance themselves, former manager Glenn Roeder maintaining it was the best £10,000 he ever spent.

Roeder went to scout KP at a midweek game, stood behind the goal as Phillips hit the target with every shot during the pre-match warm-up, and left after 10 minutes of the game itself, convinced he had seen enough and without wanting to be recognised beneath his flat cap.

Phillips, who had been recommended to Roeder by former Watford winger Nigel Callaghan, soon banked 21 goals in 12 months at Vicarage Road before a foot injury took the wind from his sails.

When Sunderland came calling in 1997, it looked a good move – and a fair price – for all parties. Little did we know that Phillips and Niall Quinn would form one of the most lethal little-and-large partnerships in the country. Mackems boss Peter Reid confided years later: “At £325,000, I couldn't believe my luck.”

Phillips was nearly 40 by the time he delivered a devastating knockout blow to his first league club in the play-off final at Wembley in 2013 for Crystal Palace, but he had been a regular thorn in Watford's side for years before then.

In his first reunion with the Golden Boys, in August 1999, Phillips scored twice – a dubious penalty, awarded for a negligible foul on Quinn, and a 25-yard rocket – as the Black Cats won 2-0 at the Stadium of Light.

On that occasion, Watford manager Graham Taylor was alarmed by referee Jeff Winter appearing to be on first-name terms with Sunderland players but referring to the newly-promoted visitors mainly by the numbers on their shirts. Taylor was not inferring any favouritism on Winter's part, but he feared his relatively-unknown underdogs would be too easily admonished by officials who were more familiar with Premier League household names.

In the return fixture at Vicarage Road, Phillips was at it again and ran amok on his old stamping ground.

Although Michel Ngonge fired the Hornets ahead early on, the Wearsiders – backed by 5,700 travelling fans filling the whole end – twice as many as Newcastle had brought to Hertfordshire seven days earlier – were ahead by the interval.

Phillips, who had made his England debut earlier that year, was irrepressible and unplayable in the box, again scoring twice, including a brilliant near-post header from Nicky Summerbee's cross, and Sunderland were deserving 3-2 winners.

“I hope Watford fans never took it personally when I scored against them because I will always be grateful that they gave me a chance in league football,” he said.

All sins forgiven, KP. In this hack’s experience, Phillips has never been less than respectful of the Hornets’ role in the tale of a Cinderella striker who went right to the top.