Entertainment loses out at family reunion

Matthew Norman
4 Dec 2008

If this Carling Cup derby was a family affair, with brothers-in-law Harry Redknapp and Frank Lampard the Elder joined in fraternal combat, it was one of those sedate bashes during which you're driven mad by the suspicion that there's a far livelier party you'd rather be at down the road.

As it happens there was, albeit 200 miles down the road.

While Watford and Spurs chuntered sweatily through 95 undistinguished minutes, Man United were beating Blackburn 5-3 at Old Trafford.

So if you bump into the genius who picks the live games for Sky Sports, give him a gentle kick in the orchestras from me.

But that's too harsh. With a semi-final berth at stake, he had every right to anticipate a vibrant ding-dong between clubs standing two places above their respective relegation zones, and in need of whatever distraction this devalued competition can provide.

In the event it never ignited, despite Watford taking an early lead through Hungarian international Tamas Priskin, and most of the interest lay away from the pitch.

Certainly it was a delight to see the likable Lampard Pere, whom we old duffers fondly remember as an unlikely cup hero of 30 years ago when his bearded self steered in a late header to take West Ham to an FA Cup final, back in football as "senior consultant" to Watford's Brendan Rodgers.

Harry has overseen more than a thousand games as gaffer while this was Rodgers's second, so small surprise that Honest H ultimately did to him what grizzled roues will do to coy ingenues given half a chance.

The highlight for me was another chance to play Where's Wally?

Ordinarily Sky's cameras pick out the cute, pointy head of Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy, but not last night.

If he was an absentee, we musn't blame him for that. The prospect of being entertained by a club from which Graham Simpson recently resigned as chairman for no more solid reason than abject failure, and with the words "If I have made mistakes, I sincerely apologise", cannot have appealed to White Hart Lane's master of disaster.

What Dan missed, if miss it he did, was very little.

In each half Watford started brightly but swiftly faded while Spurs began lethargically before flickering into sporadic life, thanks primarily to Aaron Lennon, creating enough chances to imbue the outcome with a tinge of inevitability even before Roman Pavlyuchenko squeezed home a weak penalty equalizer.

Nothing captured the mediocrity like Tottenham's haphazard winner.

A flukey ricochet released Darren Bent, on for the ineffective Frazier Campbell (Niles would have been more dangerous), whose mishit the unfortunate Scott Loach feebly missed at his near post in apparent homage to counterpart Heurelho Gomes.

So Spurs did just enough to reach yet another Carling Cup semi, the regret being that there can be no third successive two-part episode of Meet The Neighbours.

There's no doubting Arsenal's excuse for crashing out at Turf Moor (fielding a team obliged to eschew the traditional orange in favour of the half time Farley's Rusk), but damn Arsene Wenger to hell for bringing joy into the barren life of Burnley stalwart Alastair Campbell.

As for Watford, that sweetest and most endearing of family-oriented clubs, this was a family affair to forget.

Then again, what other kind is there? Unless you're in Norfolk or Alabama, of course, where the police and social services won't always let you forget.