Watford 2, Crystal Palace 1

Watford 2, Crystal Palace 1

The Hornets storm back after halftime thanks to a header from Craig Cathcart and a wondrous side volley from Tom Cleverley

LONDON, England — Watford F.C. squandered several clear chances before storming back in the last half-hour to snatch all three points from Crystal Palace during a gloriously ugly Saturday afternoon in January at Selhurst Park.

The Hornets dominated the early action, hitting the post twice in quick succession just minutes into the game, but Watford was unable to find a breakthrough for more than an hour. Palace instead took the lead in the 38th minute, after a corner and resulting scramble saw Abdoulaye Doucoure’s slapdash clearance carom off Cathcart’s calf and over the line for an own goal.

Things didn’t improve for away supporters in the second half, with the Eagles looking likely to extend their lead thanks to dynamic winger Wilfried Zaha. The Ivorian provided most of the Palace threat in the game, and looked to have a different gear than anyone else. If Palace had a halfway decent striker, they would have probably seized one of the many chances Zaha created at the back post.

But Watford persevered, thanks to earnest defending from Adrian Mariappa and Kiko Femenia, plus some excellent saves from keeper Ben Foster, particularly his stop of a long range effort from Palace captain Luka Milivojević. Watford manager Javi Gracia, forced to replace Will Hughes with Ken Sema early on due to what appeared to be a possible concussion, later made the hard choice to yank the poorly performing Sema in turn, bringing on Tom Cleverley to add some steel to the midfield.

As Cleverley waited to enter the game, Jose Holebas finally delivered a corner of quality and Cathcart sailed majestically over James Tomkins at the back post, delivering an inch-perfect header to beat Wayne Hennessey into the side-netting right in front of the erupting away supporters.

The sheer joy of the moment was heightened when Cleverley put Watford ahead a few minutes later thanks to the best goal of his latest spell at Vicarage Road. Following a long throw by Holebas, the ball bounced around the box without touching the ground before finding its way to Cleverley, who hooked it from eye-level into the top corner with a superb side volley that lifted his standing foot off the ground.

I traveled from Los Angeles to London ostensibly to reunite with my parents and meet the latest addition to the family, a nephew. But I’ll admit this game was the main reason I made the journey to the UK, given the January weather and the stench of Brexit. One hour into the game, there was a moment, with my sore ankle throbbing and the game mired in the doldrums, when I wondered if I had really come all this way just to see Watford lose on an ugly own goal.

Then captain Troy Deeney rallied his troops, Gracia made the key substitution and the Hornets came roaring back. Your correspondent has been present for many incredible sporting events, from seeing Magglio Ordonez win the AL pennant and with a walkoff home run to covering Miguel Cotto’s ritual destruction of Antonio Margarito in front of a rapturous Madison Square Garden, but no regular season game I’ve witnessed has produced such unadulterated delight among fans as the second goal, not even Michigan-Ohio State.

Men I’ve never met hugged me and grabbed my face in their hands, one fan behind snatched my hat off in emotion, only to thrust it back in my face moments later with a huge smile on his face. Supporters tumbled and held each other up, screamed until their throats were hoarse, and everywhere voices were raised in songs that drowned out the four-fifths of the ground filled with seated Palace supporters.

My companion for the day Pavan, a Man United supporter, was just as caught up in the emotion. Had I sliced him with a knife I have no doubt his blood would have flowed yellow, if only for the afternoon.

Every moment of the day, from our meeting at London Bridge station to the journey home was pitch perfect. Barred from a pub outside the train station by a pair of burly bouncers in wool coats with the words “no colors,” I was forced to wait elsewhere for Pavan. Fortunately, directly next door was Borough market, where I wove my way through the Saturday crowd to secure scotch eggs and pints before his arrival. I was considerably hung over from the night before, so the beer was welcome, the water and food even more so.

Soon after we took the train and walked through the quiet South London neighborhood surrounding Selhurst Park, which has produced many of England’s brightest young footballing talents of late, including Zaha. American stadiums can inspire awe, and some fit seamlessly into their surroundings, like Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. But the sheer scale of professional sports on our side of the ocean mean no major league stadium can ever fit as unobtrusively into its community as Vicarage Road or Selhurst Park.

There is something about turning around the corner of what appears to be just another quiet residential street and seeing that corrugated metal roof rise, just high enough for you to know that the team that plays here draws supporters from all over the country, or in my case, the globe. Given this was a London derby, the stadium was packed to the gills, and we were sent to a separate queue well away from the Palace supporters.

Pavan and I enjoyed one more beer at the away supporters bar before slipping into the stands before kickoff and squeezing into our row, where seats were an afterthought, along with comfort and silence. No one in the away end sat down the entire match, and there was real venom expelled by frustrated fans at the halftime whistle, as they raced for libations to fuel the comeback.

“There’s a lot of weekday anger being worked out in these stands,” I observed to Pavan regarding our overwhelmingly male fellow supporters. But the camaraderie was genuine. Fans left the game singing in honor of the late Graham Taylor, whose passing exactly two years prior was honored at the 72nd minute as if we were at Vicarage Road. It is clear that something remains special about Watford because even in the Premier League, it still feels more like a family than a fanbase.

Having made the pilgrimage and re-taken my place in the stands after 20 years, I feel empowered at last to rediscover my voice and share my thoughts on the football club I have supported for two decades. Abandoned drafts linger in my laptop of the FA Cup win over Arsenal and other highlights of our return to the Premier League, but for whatever reason I didn’t feel like I was ready to write about the team publicly just yet. Who is this American, and why does he think he has the right to weigh in on our football club?

So how does a Michigander transplanted to California become a Watford fan anyhow? It’s a question I have gotten a lot since the Hornets were promoted back to the Premier League, on social media and in real life. The short answer is, the same way as most: before Saturday, the only English football match I’ve ever attended was at Watford.

When your parents move from Chennai to Michigan, seeing family over the holidays takes a lot more effort. Occasionally that would mean India, but we could go there at most once a year, so a summer trip meant none in the winter, and vice versa. That left another option: England.

Numerous family and friends had settled in and around London, and my dad’s best friend lived in Watford, so it became home base almost every summer or Christmas season. I spent many happy vacations there from childhood until I grew old enough to insist we stay closer to London, which somehow allowed teenagers in bars and clubs.

In Watford I went from another American kid that played soccer to a hardcore fan, briefly of Manchester United thanks to propaganda from my host’s son, later of the formidable AC Milan side of the mid-90s and its impeccable defense led by the likes of Maldini, Desailly, and Albertini.

Of course there was no chance of popping into the San Siro or Old Trafford to see a match. The only realistic options was Vicarage Road, where the Hornets had sunk as low as League Two before calling in the legendary Taylor to rescue them from irrelevance. And he delivered as usual, two promotions in a row to send the club back to the Premier League. But that was yet to come.

I remember very few details from my first Watford match aside from the fact we won and sat on the broad side of the pitch; the opposite side was empty since Vicarage Road at the time was a three-sided ground. My favorite Watford player at the time was striker Gifton Noel-Williams, though I’m not sure if it was how he played that day or his formidable goal-scoring record in Championship Manager.

Regardless, from that point on, when anyone asked me what team I supported, I said Watford. After all I’d been to a game, I always chose them on video games, and I bought their shirts. Detroit had no professional soccer team and still doesn’t have an MLS team, so Watford felt like my home team, the only team I had the right to support.

For years mostly meant reading about them online or during trips to London, or maybe the occasional FA cup game on TV in the states. There were high points, like the 2006 playoff final, when American center back Jay DeMerit scored to send Watford back to the Premier League. But those moments were brief, and my support for Watford was mostly trivial because no one over here had any idea who they were.

That was until 2015, when Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo helped the Hornets back to the top flight, and NBC started offering American fans better TV coverage than English fans receive at home. Now I rarely watch the other football on the weekends, unless Michigan is playing a rival. Saturday mornings are spent on the NBC Sports Gold app, watching Watford struggle with mediocre opposition or play above their heads against the best in the world.

I’ve watched almost all of Watford league matches during their latest stint in the Premier League, and even during the bad spells, I’ve enjoyed every moment. So there’s a good chance that you will see me writing about the Hornets in this space going forward, for no other reason than to celebrate the joy of supporting this team, and vent about when it doesn’t go so well, since Hornets fans are in short supply in Los Angeles.

Many thanks to the club, especially Dave Messenger who helped me secure tickets and the crew at From The Rookery End podcast, who have always been a source of information, comfort, and help fans marooned across the globe feel like they belong to a larger community in Watford and beyond.

It is an honor to be counted among the Watford faithful. Come On You ‘Horns!