While Watford were dealing with almost daily questions about players who may or may not be on the move during last summer's August transfer window, one of their more famous fans was going through a transfer window of his own.
Chris Stark left BBC Radio 1 after a decade of hosting the afternoon show with his great friend Scott Mills, and moved to present the Capital Breakfast Show alongside Roman Kemp and Sian Welby.
It was quite a transfer for Stark, who not so long ago was broadcasting on hospital radio, a common route into a career in mainstream radio.
Indeed, when I went to meet him outside Global Radio’s headquarters in London’s Leicester Square, he was running late due to an interview with pop band Busted overrunning!
“It’s been a very odd time for me,” said the 36-year-old Hornets fan who was born and raised in Pinner, just like another notable Watford supporter.
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“In football terms, starting out at Radio 1 was a bit like just playing Sunday League initially and desperately wanting to work up through the ranks. Radio was always something I’ve wanted to do from a very young age, and when I started out it was just a case of being at the bottom and trying to progress myself.
“All these years later to have had the experience of being at Radio 1 all that time and then to do a final show, it’s been very mixed. I’d been there a long time and leaving was sad, and when you make change you often feel that way. But then I’m also so very proud to have been in a position where Scott Mills and I could do that final show on Radio 1.”
There was a lot of media coverage of that final show, with both Stark and Mills reminiscing, sharing emotions and being joined by celebrity guests to hail 10 years.
“That final show meant so much,” said Stark. “I had so many lovely messages from people. And it also marks the fact that the thing I set out to do all those years ago has happened, working at the highest level in radio and getting to do it every day.
“I’ve left Radio 1, which was a huge part of my life. I grew up there. But now I’m part of another great family and I’m so excited about what the future holds, and all the amazing plans we have for Capital and Global.
“But yeah, in a transfer window sense, I moved to Capital and I’m doing the breakfast show with Roman and Sian.
“It’s hugely exciting for me because not many people get to go from one massive job to another.
“I’ve been here a few months now and I’m really enjoying it. I have to make early starts – I leave the house about 4.15am to get to the studio for 5 – but it’s worth it, particularly because I now have weekends with my family.
“If someone could have told 15-year-old Watford-supporting Chris how things were going to play out, I don’t think I could have been any happier.”
So, was it a bit like when John Barnes, who had started at the bottom and rose to become a Watford star, left to join Liverpool?!
“Ha ha – this is just radio! And radio does mean so much to me. But I don’t think, in the grand scheme of things, I can really compare it to John Barnes! However, there is a similarity I suppose in that all of us are doing our best to be the best we can personally.
“So yeah, in football terms, I am really happy to have been able to be a one-club man for so many years, and then have the chance to make a really big move to another big club, and still feel as excited as I did when I made my debut.
“Capital is a station that, like Radio 1, I grew up listening to. I’m excited to be here.”
Along with his mate Mills, Stark not only presented on Radio 1 but also on Radio 5 Live, where he was part of the programming that built up to the day’s live sport each Saturday.
“I really enjoyed that Saturday morning show, and being part of a really great line-up on Radio 5 Live,” he said.
“Like many football fans, Radio 5 Live was part of a routine when I was going to watch Watford. My best mate’s Dad would drive us to the game and we’d have 5 Live on the radio on the drive to and from the ground. You know it’s about 5pm when you hear the theme to Sports Report.
“So to have been part of that Saturday line-up has been an unbelievable experience, and as a football fan I feel lucky to have been able to do it.”
However, as much as radio has given Stark some tremendous opportunities and memories, it has also robbed him of the chance to watch the Hornets as much as he wants to.
“Radio work means a lot of travelling to DJ as well each weekend, so most Fridays and Saturdays I’ll be out somewhere DJing. The two combined means it’s hard for me to see as many games as I’d like.
“There was a time when I was seeing more away games than home games because it just worked out that way based upon where my work took me.
“It’s the one thing I really want to change in my life, to be at more Watford games.
“I do work a lot, and Vicarage Road is the one place where I just feel life is the same as when I first started going as a 12 or 13-year-old. It’s the one place I feel so comfortable. It is a cliché but Vicarage Road feels like home to me, and I need that in my life.
“I’ve got a bit carried away with work and I’m lucky that I’m in a position where I do the job I do. But going to football is something I miss. A lot of my friends go every week and I would like to get back into that routine. Certainly more home games would be a start.
“I was at the Elton John concert last summer, and it was another reminder of how every time I’m at Vicarage Road I just love the place. Watford as a town, as a club, as a fanbase – it’s very special.
“I want to be part of it again and I don’t feel I’m doing my duty as a fan at the moment!”
However, Stark is underplaying just how much exposure and airtime he manages to give the Golden Boys, particularly via the hugely successful ‘That Peter Crouch Podcast’.
Now more than five years old, the podcast has become so popular it spawned ‘Crouchfest’, a live version of the show that has played at major venues like Wembley Arena.
Prince William was even a guest on the podcast, and Stark admitted: “We did end up talking a lot about Watford, even though we had the future King on the podcast! I can’t help it, no matter who the guests are, I just love talking about Watford.”
A new series of That Peter Crouch Podcast started last month (available from all the places you usually find your podcasts), and Watford fans can expect to hear the Hornets get more than their fair share of airtime.
However, Stark admits that given Crouch is now 42, he’s finally given up on one thing he was very keen to do.
“I wanted to try and get Crouchy to sign for Watford, but I accept that’s not going to happen now. I’m sure he’d have done a great job for us, and I could have brokered the deal for the Hornets!”
So how did he become a passionate Golden Boy?
“I went to a couple of Watford games when I was about five or six-years-old and my neighbour took me. It was around about the time I started playing Sunday football too. I played for a team called Pinn Stars, and I believe they had some sort of affiliation with Watford.
“So I always felt that Watford was in my life from a very early age. But I didn’t really start going to games properly until I started at Watford Boys Grammar School, so when I was about 12 or 13.
“I lived in Pinner and managed to pass the 11-plus – still not sure how I did that! My Mum was so good, she bought all the workbooks to help me and we spent so long working through it together. I felt lucky to go to that school, because it is a wonderful school.
“My parents weren’t really into football, but going to that school meant I was in Watford a lot more and my best mate went to every home game with his Dad. I remember meeting my mate one day in town, and I walked down with him after that and went to the game.
“It was that feeling of being a young lad and being able to take myself off to the football that I fell in love with straight away. From then on, it was every home game.”
However, it wasn’t a straightforward case of ‘every home game’ as the pricing structure at the club at the time meant Stark had to juggle his finances.
“It was back in the day when there were Category A, B and C home games,” he explained.
“I had a little job as an assistant tennis coach, and that paid me enough for a Category B game. If it was a Category A game then I’d have to go in debt to my best mate’s Dad to be able to afford it. If it was a Category C game then it meant I could afford to buy a ticket and get some food in the ground!
“I think back now to those days, the click of the turnstiles and walking into the ground. We can romanticise everything, but I genuinely loved it. We were very much a Championship club who had some good cup runs. The stadium was what it was, but it was nothing like it is now.
“It was the early 2000s and I just loved being a fan of the club. On the day of GCSE results coming out my Mum bought me a Watford shirt and I thought it was the best thing ever. I remember her opening the boot of the car and there was the shirt, and it felt brilliant.
“I have so many special memories from that time, and part of it was as simple as the matchday routine. I’d meet my mate at Pinner war memorial, and we’d go and get a Wenzels to eat before his Dad came to pick us up and take us to the game.”
In terms of a main memory, Stark pointed to the 2002/2003 season when Watford, under Ray Lewington, made it all the way to the FA Cup semi-final.
“That FA Cup run in 2003 stands out in my mind,” he said.
“I remember the quarter-final against Burnley at Vicarage Road, and particularly the Stephen Glass free-kick that put us 2-0 up. I was just behind the goal in the Rookery, and I had the most perfect angle as that goal went in. It’s not the greatest Watford goal ever, but it’s one of my favourites because of the memories. I can remember just how mad people around me went! Back then, that FA Cup run was so special for us.
“We were such a typical Championship club, we’d been through some really bad times financially and here we were going to the FA Cup semi-final.”
Ironically for someone who has interviewed royalty, global pop superstars and celebrities from all walks of life, Stark’s first interviewee was someone much closer to home.
“Ray Lewington was the first person I ever interviewed. I managed to blag the interview because me and some school friends were writing a school newspaper. It was only a one-page thing and I can’t even really remember why we did it.
“But I wrote to Ray Lewington and he said yes, and somewhere there’s a tape of my first-ever interview and it’s with Ray. I saw him at a Watford game years later and I was telling him all about it, and I still have a picture of me doing the interview. I’ve been so lucky to interview some of the world’s biggest stars, but I love the fact my first interview was with Ray Lewington.
“Thing is, it showed a lot about Ray and the club. He didn’t have to do it – it was a little school newspaper. But he sat down with me for about 45 minutes at the training ground, and that is a very special memory for me as a Watford fan. Also, it’s little moments like that which have helped lead to what I do now.”
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