In the heart of Hertfordshire, Watford Football Club commands a devoted following that extends far beyond the stadium. While the Vicarage Road stands witness to the team’s triumphs and challenges, the digital realm also plays a pivotal role in fostering a sense of community among fans. Watford’s online forums serve as virtual meeting places where passionate Hornets supporters converge to share the highs and lows of being part of the Yellow Army. To discuss all things Watford, and potentially other assorted topics (both football and non-football) with fellow Hornets supporters, there are three main options.
WFC Forums
With over 7,000 members and two million messages, WFC Forums is the most obvious choice for any Watford fan who wants to discuss the club online. The forum itself sticks with the traditional red and yellow of Watford. While an appropriate scheme for the content, it is not the best visual combination on a computer screen. Slightly unappealing aesthetics to one side though and WFC is a well-run place with committed moderators and a friendly community.
As well as the main Hornets’ Nest – Watford Chat forum there are other subsections within the main forum for match threads, transfer talk, and individual player conversations. As you would imagine, the Watford-related content sees the most activity but the non-WFC subforums ‘Taylor’s Tittle-Tattle – General Banter’ and ‘General Football & Other Sport’ are busy too. So, if you do like the idea of chatting with fellow Watford supporters about other interests, this is a good place for it.
In terms of activity levels, this is the Watford Forum that sees the highest number of daily posts, by a comfortable margin. They call themselves the number one Watford FC fan forum and it is very hard to argue with it. It is a place full of regular and casual posters who can easily find relevant topics and ‘like’ posts they particularly agree with.
Not606
Unlike WFC, Not606 does not solely operate as a dedicated Watford forum. Instead, it is a much broader forum that has an individual page for each team across the top five leagues of English football and others across the continent. The site generally, which takes its name from the BBC football forum ‘606’, which closed in 2011, enjoys an impressive amount of activity. It boasts 25,000 members and 20,000 unique visitors per day (including non-members).
The activity is not evenly distributed though with some club pages an absolute hive of activity and some very much a ghost town. The Watford page sits somewhere in the middle as there is a steady trickle of comments on most days, rather than a flurry. Days with Watford in action are different though as the match day threads will usually attract in the region of 100 comments.
Unlike some other footballing forums, there are no sub-forums accessible from within the main page. This means that Watford-related talk is mixed in with other footballing chatter plus threads unrelated to sport. With the site not extremely busy though, this does not cause any issues as it takes a long time for threads to be nudged away from the front page.
The Hornets Nest – The Watford FC Fan Forum (Facebook)
With over 6,000 members, the Hornets Nest is the biggest Facebook group for Watford fans. Averaging around 200 posts per month, it is relatively busy and has been on the go since 2013. You need a Facebook account to take part, but it doesn’t need to be an active one. You just need to answer the two introductory questions of who is your favourite Watford manager and how long you have supported the club to be let in. You will not get rejected for naming an unpopular choice so feel free to be honest!
Having the forum on Facebook has its pros and cons. For some who use Facebook for other purposes, it is convenient to have the Watford chat in the same place. There is no registration required (other than the two questions mentioned above) and with it not being anonymous, people do tend to be respectful.
A Facebook group, does, however, lack the same kinds of features you would expect from a typical internet forum. For one, it does not have the tidy layout of individual threads, ordered neatly by the most recent post first. There is no tagging of different post types either, nor various sub-forums. Lastly, some people may not enjoy the non-anonymous nature of a Facebook forum (although you could also register with an alternate account).
Other Options
Fan forums rely on engagement and activity, something you will get with the three options above, particularly WFC. There are other forums out there but ones we did not individually highlight due to the low number of posts. On Reddit for example, there is the Watford_FC subreddit. Despite having 5,000 members though, there is often just one post per day, if that. Even on match days, the match threads may only attract three or four comments.
The Watford Mad forum (hosted by FootyMad) is still seemingly alive although it has not had a post since December 2019 so this is not worthy of any consideration. Popular website Transfermarkt also has a forum on its Watford page but it’s had merely two unique posts since opening.
In terms of viable alternatives, your only option currently is Facebook as there are a couple of moderately active options. The best of the bunch is the group called ‘TAYLOR MADE ARMY – Watford FC Fans Banter Forum’ which has over 2,000 members and averages around 10 posts per day.
