In light of the recent Vicarage Road centenary celebrations, writers from The Watford Treasury magazine look back at players who performed great feats on home soil.
Today, Neil Dunham writes about the man who scored ‘The Goal That Never Was’ in 1950, in Watford’s biggest game to date.
It’s hard to imagine the magnitude. Think Watford playing Barcelona in the Champions League, or Sao Paulo in the World Club Cup. So it was in 1950, when little old Watford, having beaten ‘Proud Preston’, drew the plum tie in the FA Cup against Matt Busby’s world-famous Manchester United. Watford had only been in the Football League for 30 years and never above the third tier, so a game against the ‘Heathens’ was of monumental significance.
For Bill ‘Taffy’ Davies, Watford’s popular veteran forward, the match would be one last hurrah and the culmination of a 20-year journey of struggle, dedication and sterling service at Vicarage Road.
Davies was one of five early 1930s Watford players from the tiny Welsh mining village of Troedyrhiwfuwch (population circa 800). ‘Troedy’ had been nationally famous for sending more soldiers per capita to the Great War than any settlement in Britain, so Watford were gaining tough characters. Sadly, the village is no more: just two houses remain today.
Davies came to Watford on amateur terms and supplemented his wages with handyman work around Vicarage Road. He continued this during summers through much of his career, helping to build new terracing among other jobs. In his own time he also led training sessions with local youths at Watford Fields.
His first-team place didn’t come easy, making only one appearance in his first two years. However he gained excellent reviews in the Reserves, with pinpoint crossing, a good eye for goal and equal skill with both feet. Early in 1932/33 Watford’s star, Tommy Barnett, was eased back to fitness in the Reserves, where he would seed a fine partnership with Taffy that later flourished to great effect.
After three further seasons in and out of the team, Taffy became integral in the later 1930s, his interplay with Barnett supplying a steady flow of goals and his big personality lifting dressing room morale. These were Watford’s halcyon days, operating high in Division 3 South, but sadly the heady heights of Division 2 weren’t attained, and war in 1939 halted progress.
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The conflict robbed Taffy of what could have been his best years, but he continued scoring regularly in the war league, while serving searchlight battery duty. He also guested for Grimsby, where, as he told Oliver Phillips in later interviews, he was paid £8 a game, over five times his fee at Watford.
He re-established himself after the war, but Watford’s star had waned and there followed three seasons of disappointing bottom-half finishes. By 1950 Taffy had, again, fallen to Reserve duties and at the age of 39 was looking to retire. Fate would have one final twist for him.
Injury to new star Johnny Hartburn left a hole in the front line that Taffy was called upon to fill. The veteran showed he still had the magic touch with a solo goal against Notts County, where he “intercepted a pass and coolly lobbed the ball over the advancing ‘keeper’s head”.
Then came the Manchester United cup tie. The 32,384 attendance set a new Watford record by a clear margin. United were at full strength, confident of victory with five internationals in the front line.
Watford’s injury-hit side were determined to give the First Division giants a bloody nose. The game started at a frenetic pace, the Blues matching and even outplaying their senior rivals. Then, the moment that could and should have changed Watford’s history: Taffy gained the ball, took a few steps and shot – the ball crossed the line (thousands of fans swore it was two feet over!) and everyone in the stadium knew that the Blues had scored… except two men. Both in black.
The referee waved play on and Matt Busby breathed a sigh of relief. Watford pushed and United struggled, but a cruel turn of events near the close led to United legend Jack Rowley taking his only real chance of the game to break Watford hearts. The match was discussed and dissected for years; bitter resentment of the referee lasted into the next decade. Taffy’s ‘Goal That Never Was’ would have been a fitting cap to a wonderful career, but it wasn’t to be.
Taffy only played five more times. Even in his penultimate game, rapidly approaching 40 years old, he was leading the charge: one national newspaper headlining ‘Davies Provided The Sparkle’ after he starred, scoring “a spectacular first-time rising shot”.
He was rewarded for his service to the club with the licence to run the Red Lion pub on Vicarage Road, where he remained as the popular landlord until 1976. Described by one regular customer as ‘a man who just loved life’, Taffy remained a Watford man until his dying day, always hard working, always joking, always popular. A man who deserves to be remembered as a ‘Home Ground Hero’.
