Our big FA Cup tie Watford is on Saturday, with a 3pm kick off. You’ll find Vicarage road just to the west of Watford town centre.
If you’re coming by car you need to leave the M1 at junction 5 and take third exit off the roundabout, A4008 (Stephenson Way), signposted Watford Town Centre. At the next roundabout follow signs to Town Centre, and immediately in front of you is the Harlequin Centre. Stay in the middle lane of the three lane carriageway on ring road, and after the second set of traffic lights (Watford Springs on your left), move into the left lane and take the turning signposted Hospital and West Watford.
Then follow signs to Rickmansworth / West Watford A4145, take left hand lane and bear left at traffic lights and you’ll get to the ground. The floodlights are visible from some way off, but if you get lost you can look for signs to Watford General hospital.
There is virtually no street parking around Vicarage Road, as local streets are blocked by the police, and side streets fill up very quickly with home traffic. There are also some private match day car parks available at some industrial units near the ground, as well as the Vicarage Road Girls School, which is close to the stadium and charges a whopping £8 per car. As the ground is close to the centre of town, then there are a number of car parks in walking distance, The Church multi storey car park on the inner ring road costs £2.70 for 4 hours
The main railway station is Watford Junction, on the main line from Euston, which is about a 20 minute walk. From here you take the main road straight opposite (Clarendon Road) all the up to the High Street. Turn left and go past Wetherspoons (Moon under Water) on your right and then take the first right after 100 yards into Market Street. Continue along again crossing Ring Road to the next T junction. Turn left here, then take the next right into Vicarage Road. If you can’t raise the energy to walk this far you can get a local train one stop to Watford High Street, a ten minute walk away from the ground.
Watford underground station (on the Metropolitan line) is about a mile away, but take note that it is outside the one-day travelcard zones and you'll get a £10 fine if you don't buy an extension before you get to the station. There used to be a separate ‘Watford Stadium Halt’ on the Croxley Green branch, which is currently disused, although part of is due to be brought back into use as the ‘Croxley Rail Link’, which will include a new station on Vicarage Road.
There are a couple of decent pubs in the town centre, including the ‘Moon Under Water’ (see above) and the ‘Hogs Head’ in the High Street. Also recommended are three real ale pubs near Watford Junction station, the ‘Estcourt Arms’, which you can find by turning left outside the station and taking the first left into St. John’s Road, the ‘Southern Cross’ in Langley Road and the ‘Nascot Arms’ in Stamford Road.
The best option near the ground is 'Oddfellows' in Fearnley Street, which is small but welcoming. One to avoid is the Red Lion, which is strictly for home fans only. If you need to get some scoff, there is a food court in the Harlequin centre, but I’m told the best option in the town centre is Dominic's Snack Bar in Merton Road, which offers decent food at moderate prices. Next to the ground you can find the excellent Fry-days Fish and Chips on Vicarage Road.
To comply with the Taylor Report, Watford had to re-build both ends of the ground during the 1990's. Away supporters used to have a long walk to the away end as you had to walk around some allotments, but this is no longer the case, as we now have the Vicarage Road Stand at the opposite end of the ground.
This stand is usually shared with home supporters, but thanks to the FA Cup rules we’ve got the whole end this time and an allocation of 4,100 seats, out of a total capacity of 21,977. As you probably know, this was sold out on the morning the tickets went on sale to members, with many Leeds fans unable to get tickets.
Generous as the increased allocation is, I’ve seen a posting on Facebook claiming that end would hold over 5,000, but the police insisted we didn’t get that many tickets. I’ve not been able to verify that claim, but if it’s true it will be galling for those who missed out as a result, especially as we managed to take over 6,000 to Bolton in the last round without any trouble.
Watford are only selling tickets for the home stands to those who were on their customer database by January 30th, which by no coincidence was the day before the 5th round draw was made. Ticket prices for our members for this game are £20 for Adults, £10 for Over 65 & 16-19 years, and £5 for Under-16s, though in all these categories they are 10% cheaper for season ticket holders.
With the away section being a new stand, the view from here is pretty good, but unlike home fans, we don’t have the privilege of being able to buy alcohol in our section, while the narrow concourse makes it hard to get to the serving hatches to buy any food. And the small roof means that the front rows get wet if it rains and the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.
Finally, for the first time ever I saw someone complaining on Facebook that you can’t get WiFi in the away end. It’s a sign of the times I suppose, but if you find yourself similarly troubled by this issue, by all means feel free to keep it to yourself.
Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com .