‘I had beer thrown on me at Croydon Boxpark’
Watford midfielder Will Hughes tells Sam Wallace about watching World Cup as a fan and why young players at big clubs are mollycoddled
For the summer of 2018, Will Hughes – Premier League footballer, under-21 international, one-time teen prodigy now established at Watford – was like any other fan of England watching with friends as Gareth Southgate’s team carried the nation on a wave of euphoria.
Sitting at Watford’s training ground this week, at the end of another day’s work for Javi Gracia’s high-flying team, an obvious question was where Hughes chose to watch those memorable games of Russia 2018. He will face a few of Southgate’s team tomorrow, when Watford play Tottenham Hotspur at Vicarage Road, and Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Kieran Trippier and Eric Dier provide a stiff test for a home side who have also won their first three games.
I venture that I assume it was not Croydon Boxpark, that venue of beer-flinging, flag-waving World Cup summer joy that looked like a lot of fun on the viral goal celebration videos. “Erm, yes,” says Hughes, “for the Sweden game [quarter-final], I was in Croydon Boxpark. It was unbelievable.”
He had been invited down by a couple of friends who live in Croydon and a table was booked at the front near the big screen to ensure that Watford’s creative 23-year-old midfielder was not, in his words, “trampled in the mixer”.
By the time Hughes arrived there half an hour before kick-off on that Saturday afternoon, he says “the atmosphere was so good it was like we had actually won the World Cup”. It was one of those rare moments of joy and happiness watching football that – even as a top professional who had played with and against many of the England team – he found moving and unforgettable.
“I had not been there before and didn’t know what it was like. But it was well worth it. Plenty of beer chucked all over me. That is what it is about, the fans enjoying it like that. It brought the joy back to England football.
“It was good it makes everyone happy again. The last few tournaments, it has been a transition, trying to find ourselves and the way we play and what we do. I think it is paying dividends now. When the public and the fans start believing, it gives the players belief themselves. That’s a big part of it. It goes underestimated.
“It’s been a new lease of life for a lot of the players. Fresh faces and fresh ideas and reaching a semifinal is a massive improvement. It made me laugh reading people say we only beat Colombia on penalties. How many years had we not won on penalties? Then we do and people are still moaning. It’s a massive step in the right direction, psychologically and ability-wise. We showed we can match very good teams.”
There was a small chance when we spoke on Tuesday that Hughes might be included in Southgate’s squad for the Spain and Switzerland games, although Hughes himself thought it unlikely and so it proved. An under-21 at the age of 17, he played under Southgate at the 2015 Under-21s European Championship, in a squad who produced many first-team players, including Kane, John Stones and Jesse Lingard. Later, he was at the 2017 championship under Aidy Boothroyd, when England reached a semi-final.
His story is that of the Derby County protege of Nigel Clough, who gave him a first-team debut aged 16 and to whom Hughes often refers to as the major influence on his career. Unlike other teenage prodigies, he resisted the temptation to move to a bigger club and accrued a huge number of first-team games at Derby before leaving last year. His run of matches in the Watford team under Gracia at the end of last season took him past the 200 senior club appearances mark.
“A lot of young players get mollycoddled at the big clubs now, I can imagine,” Hughes says. “They don’t really understand real football lower down the leagues and I was taught that at an early age. It’s difficult to put it in a sentence: purely winning, doing everything you can to win. At the big clubs, it’s learning about how to play football and they go down the leagues and they still want to play nice, pretty stuff, but League One, League Two, Conference players need to win to pay the mortgage.
“It’s not a case of looking pretty. It’s about getting the job done and the pressures. When you are at a top club in an academy, it is difficult to understand that until you do it. I was taught by the players I was with who had been to that level. They knew what it was about. Old school, I think. It has gone out of the game a bit.”
Hughes jokes about some of the rumours about his career – especially the one about joining Barcelona. “Maybe Barcelona Under-13s – I would probably still struggle to get in there!” He found it hard to establish himself under Marco Silva last season but has nothing but praise for the way in which the now Everton manager helped him develop. By the time Hughes returned from a hamstring injury in March, Silva was gone. Gracia brought him into the team, where he now plays a right-sided role. With Roberto Pereyra on the left and Etienne Capoue and Abdoulaye Doucoure in the centre, Watford have been impressive.
Hughes scored a fine goal against Burnley and he is mindful that goals are something he had to add to his game. That said, his style of play as a midfielder who conserves possession and passes the ball well does suggest him as a solution for that creative deficit Southgate has in England’s midfield.
“I think there is room for a player who brings what I bring to the team; something a bit different,” Hughes says. “But there are good players out there that do the same thing as me. It’s a battle on. [James] Maddison at Leicester has had a really good start. It is just about who takes their chances. Some sort of pressure is good, it keeps you on your toes and gives you a purpose to do well instead of being in your comfort zone.”
Towards the end of his time at the Under-21s he recalls a team meeting at the championships last summer where the players were explicitly told that Southgate was looking to promote players into the senior team – a promise subsequently borne out by the development of many others.
“You could tell that if you performed and took your chances, there was a pathway to the first
‘You can’t beat it. No one does it better than English fans when we are celebrating. Hopefully we can go a step further’
team. In previous years, there has not been that as much. There have been players who have always been picked. They have gone away from that and given young players hope that if they take their chances, they will be rewarded.”
In the meantime, once the Spurs game is taken care of, Hughes will spend the international break watching England from his home in Hertfordshire – no Croydon Boxpark this time. Like the rest of the country, he is eager to see what England can do in the future – the difference being he might be part of it at some point. He has played international football through the junior ranks, but this summer has opened his eyes to what is possible.
“You can’t beat it,” he says. “No one does it better than English fans when we are celebrating. It makes not only football fans but the whole nation happy and proud of something we achieve. Hopefully we can go one step further.”