Just as you cannot let victories go to your head, neither can you let defeats break your heart. What you have to do is take a long hard look at football reality.
That is what Graham Taylor did and that is what I always try to do. You have to keep a perspective on where you truly sit in all that.
More than occasionally, especially these days when everyone has an opinion, fans and players can forget that.
When I read people saying that the legacy that we created back in those golden days is being broken, I cannot agree.
That legacy is always there, it is the benchmark for people to aim for and live up to. They cannot erase it.
What’s more, that legacy was so much more than just results, it was everything we did from our performance on the pitch to our conduct off it. A way of being, of life.
We rose up because we were kept down to earth. It ran through all of us. We did not expect to be more than we were – ordinary - and by keeping it simple we created something extraordinary. But we never forgot who we were.
“Winning Division Two is the beginning of a long road. Don’t let’s kid ourselves. The six years we had in the top-flight in the 1980s does not mean we are a big club. We spent six years there and 111 outside the top-flight.” Graham Taylor (1998)
This last week I had the honour of meeting Jon Robyns, star of Phantom and Les Miserables. I asked him how he copes with critics. How do you cope with playing roles that people put such high expectation on?
His answer was: “It is a balance between performance and perception. One audience will have seen another star and loved it, so perhaps they automatically compare you less favourably. They have an expectation. Or a new audience will see you first and to them you are the greatest. In reality it is all about what they saw, not just what you did! Praise is not real nor is criticism as it is an individual experience."
Losses are indeed hard to take. Criticism flows, especially with all the internet experts. But are they? Experts? They are still just the bloke in the pub who moans in his beer week in and out. Then there are those whose week really is broken by the result.
Contrary to some opinions, it is not only fans who feel their week is ruined. When someone told our captain that after a loss recently he answered “mine too”.
So yes, players do have the same feeling as supporters. But, they can get over it a lot quicker, when they ‘go again’ training next day and focussing on the next game.
Perhaps guaranteeing accuracy of opinion is really not possible. Let us consider that we have just witnessed how VAR the very thing in football that is supposed to ensure a correct response to a situation, has failed spectacularly.
Perception was also challenged when our manager had his contract extended this week.
I was talking to supporters at the end of the Middlesborough game, they had noticed that Gino had yet to depart and suddenly the idea was that a crisis meeting was in place.
Far from it, I spoke to our owner when he eventually left and his view was quite the opposite. Yes, the team were making mistakes but generally small changes would need to be made to get the team to winning form.
My belief is that we are in the position where we have to earn the right to start winning again. We need to remember how simple it can be to win.
We are just 10 games in with work to do but all to play for. That is not new. We are simply in that 111-strong place where we have spent most of our time.
To feel entitled to anything more without challenges, well, we would be simply kidding ourselves.
• Luther Blissett is Watford’s record all-time goalscorer and appearance maker, Club Ambassador and founder of the Former Players Club
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