This was game 5 in Watford’s season so far – with wins over Plymouth Argyle, Charlton Athletic and AFC Wimbledon and a draw against Lewes FC they sit in 3rd in their league. The home team were always favourites to win this game comfortably! Chesham used the fixture as an opportunity to give minutes to some of our Under 23 players and to get some valuable experience as we focus our effort on what will undoubtedly be a really tough League season.
For the first 30 minutes we were well in the tie, holding the hosts at 0-0. To be honest it was a performance way above what we were expecting against a team that for one season (2023/24) played their football in the Women’s Championship. However, as the game progressed the quality of the Watford forward line began to tell and in the end we were well beaten – 9-0 on the day. However, it was a great experience and despite the scoreline there were some performances to be proud of. The gulf in quality between the squads like Chesham and teams like Watford is evident. In our league alone there are 4 teams with turnovers in excess of £50m (2 well above £100m) and so a club like ours is having to swim very hard to stay in the fight!
This Sunday we face another challenge as we travel to QPR in the League. QPR are another team that is getting significant support from their big brother club and the quality of their players has improved a lot over the summer. We lost to them earlier this season in the Cup (again fielding an U23 squad) but will be heading to Hanwell Town’s ground trying to get at least a point on the road.
As you can see from the table this season is already beginning to shape up and inevitably what we will see is a table of two halves. London Bees and Fulham are the early leaders and will be joined in the top half battle by QPR, Cambridge United, Chatham Town and Norwich City. Our challenge is to win the battle of the bottom 6 clubs – ourselves, AFC Sudbury, MK Dons, Luton Town, Dulwich Hamlet and Actonians. Our tier 4 status depends on us getting our unfair share of the points in those games!
