In the summer of 2,000, Watford were back in the second tier – Division One as it was called in those days, before the term Championship was coined. It was to be a pivotal season when one era came to an end and another chaotic and near-terminal one commenced.

We did not have an inkling of the events that were about to unfold as we reflected that summer on the brief sojourn in the top flight, which had ended in relegation that May 2000. Manager Graham Taylor had been disappointed by the manner in which Watford had failed: the players had given their all but were not good enough.

Graham had brought in nine players, most of them under pressure and after the season had started, during that Premier League campaign and admitted that his recruitment had not gone anywhere near as well as he would have liked.

“On the way up from the third tier, you can bring in Peter Kennedy, Micah Hyde and Ronnie Rosenthal and everyone forgets about Dai Thomas because the other three made an impact,” said Graham.

Indeed, when you look at his signings, even in the longer term, they were very disappointing.

The list of people making their debut for Watford that season included Neil Cox, Alexandra Bakalli, Xavier Gravelaine, Heidar Helguson, Des Lyttle, Charlie Miller, Nordin Wooter, Mark Williams, and then there was Herwig Walker, while James Panayi and Steve Brooker made their debuts, having come through the youth scheme.

Cox and Helguson were to give Watford great service, but, while Williams sustained a bad injury and Gravelaine blotted his copybook with a dismissal and an injury, there was not much to rescue from that list.

Everything is relative in football.

One hundred years earlier, Watford had won the title, and had won promotion to the first division of the Southern League. So Watford had been battling it out without a manager in what was roughly the 1899/1900 equivalent of the fourth-fifth tier. In other words, Watford had come a long way in 100 years, to be licking their wounds after losing their top-flight status.

When the season ended, Taylor met 36 players, each having a one-to-one with the manager, and, as a result, Williams, Lyttle and Miller were informed they would be kept, by reason of their contracts, but a season in the reserves would not be in their best interests. Similarly the club decided not to take up the option on goalkeeper Chris Day’s contract but Taylor admitted he was prepared to negotiate with the player for a new deal.

In fact Graham had spent money in relatively small amounts as from the then £8m revenue from reaching the Premiership and troughing it with the high and mighty, the manager spent £3.4m on new players, while, as already noted, former chairman Jack Petchey picked up a handsome figure, repaying money that was on the balance sheet, which had been loaned to the club by former chairman Elton John.

So Petchey was out of Watford’s hair and technically those who had purchased the club now owned it as a result of the club’s money-spinning progress to the top flight.

Graham stressed that he had not taken risks, although he had taken punts on the likes of Miller, a former Scottish rising star who had lost his way and was not to find it again.

“I know of a manager who spent £3.5m on a player who he had only seen once on a video. I could not consider doing that. I bought Michel Ngonge on video evidence and I told you after that, never to let me buy a player on video evidence alone,” Graham told me.

“Every transfer is a risk but I will only take what I call sensible risks. Michel was a free transfer.”

The one positive signing Watford made that summer was the new chief executive Tim Shaw, who had been a season-ticket holder for years and had joined the board the previous December, having previously been a club vice president.

Looking back on what Taylor considered an unwieldy board and a succession of directors he did not totally embrace, he had good words for Shaw.

“I got on well with him and we worked well together,” he said. “It is a bit unusual for someone to be a life-long supporter of the club, then come in with a financial commitment before ending up chief executive.”

“I have a lot to learn and I am learning from Graham’s experience,” said the 36-year-old chartered accountant, then unaware the experience of close association with Watford would cost him significant funds and resulted in tearing what remained of his hair out over the years, before becoming one of the strongest critics of the club.

One of Shaw’s first duties in 2000 was to confirm the club was staying at Vicarage Road. We have had a succession of such utterances over the years, but hopes of moving elsewhere had been dashed effectively by Watford Council back in the mid-1970s, when the Town Hall lacked the vision or the belief that Watford FC would become a major player within the town.

Shaw said: “The lack of alternative sites available and where they are a few, the prices that are quoted really make it an easy decision. We have to make a final decision on that, but when we have, we will start to work with people, not just the council, and see what can be developed here.”

Watford were in the process of lining up what was to be their training ground for many years and remains so, at London Colney.

The club was also developing the youth academy so there was something to show for the trip to the Premier Division and back, apart from giving Petchey a profit.

This article was first published in Friday's Watford Observer.