Tribute: Vince McNeice (1938-2022)

By: Watford FC Staff

All at Watford FC were saddened to hear of former defender Vincent McNeice’s recent death, aged 83.

Very much part of the success of the first Watford team ever to win promotion for our club in 1959/60, McNeice was one of those names supporters would rattle off as they proudly named the most common XI to feature during a breakthrough year at Vicarage Road.

Born in Cricklewood, Middlesex, on October 25, 1938, he made the first of 231 league appearances for Watford in the 1957/58 campaign, having joined from Brentford in March 1957.

Debuting on December 7 of that year in a 5-4 win over Exeter City, McNeice was a mainstay at centre-back for the rest of the season. In fact, he would end up only playing league football for just the one club – and the last of those appearances at the age of 25.

But there’s no doubting he’ll be best remembered for the campaign which saw Ron Burgess’s team - decked out in old gold shirts for the first time in the club’s history - finish fourth and achieve promotion from the recently-created Division Four into Division Three come May 1960.

Cliff Holton broke the club’s goalscoring record for a single season and there were other maybe more notable names around him going forward, but McNeice’s solidity in defence played an understated but vital role.

Appearing 135 times in the four seasons following Watford’s promotion, McNeice’s calming influence in defence allowed the club to be looking more up than down in third-tier football.

His final game in the Football League didn’t spell the end of his career in the game; playing for Bexley United, Hillingdon Borough, and Canadian sides Montreal Concordia and Hamilton Primos.

All this preceded a move to Copenhagen to take up coaching roles at Danish sides Aalborg BK and AGF Aarhus after firstly BK 1903 – whose chairman paid as warm a tribute as we will be on Tuesday evening* to McNeice’s tireless work in the pursuit of football excellence.

*VR100 match v Middlesbrough, 8pm KO – please take your seats by 7.45pm to ensure you don’t miss some special centenary celebrations. We will also be holding a minute’s applause before kick-off in memory of Vince McNeice and Tommy Carpenter.

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