WHEN superstar singer Sir Elton John bought struggling Watford FC he needed a foil to his pop-star flamboyancy.
He chose straight-talking, tracksuit-wearing Graham Taylor as his manager — and football’s odd couple became lifelong friends.
Last night Sir Elton, who credited the ex-England boss with saving his life, led tributes to his “brother” who died yesterday aged 72, saying: “We shared an unbreakable bond since we first met.
“We went on an incredible journey together and it will stay with me for ever.
“He took my beloved Watford from the depths of the lower leagues to unchartered territory and into Europe. We have become a leading English club because of his managerial wisdom and genius.
“This is a sad and dark day for Watford. The club and the town. We will cherish Graham and drown our sorrows in the many brilliant memories he gave us.
“I love you Graham. I will miss you very much.”
Among his achievements on the pitch, Graham took Sir Elton’s boyhood team from the old Division Four to second in Division One in six seasons after the singer became chairman in 1976.
He worked wonders off the pitch as well, forcing his boss to quit alcohol and drugs. The two would often play board games and have dinner at Graham’s home. On one occasion, after hearing Sir
Elton was drinking heavily, Graham asked his wife, Rita, not to put a plate out for the singer and to serve him a bottle of brandy instead. To get his point across, Graham told his guest: “That’s all you need nowadays.”
Even when he was at his peak of taking cocaine every four minutes, Sir Elton never took the drug at Watford’s Vicarage Road stadium, knowing Graham would disapprove.
The singer once said: “He tried to save my life — and succeeded. He was one of the few people with the courage to tell me what he thought of me.
“Graham would sit me down and say, ‘You’re drinking too much’. I was doing drugs but I never took my habit to the football ground. Never. If I hadn’t had Watford, I really don’t know what would have happened to me.”
Graham was a devoted family man. Rita, 75, was his childhood sweetheart from his days at Scunthorpe Grammar School. The couple married in 1965 and had two daughters, Joanne, now 50, and Karen, 48.
His family said last night: “With the greatest sadness, we have to announce that Graham passed away at his home early this morning of a suspected heart attack. The family are devastated by this sudden and totally unexpected loss.”
Born in Worksop, Notts, and brought up in a council house in Scunthorpe, North Lincs, Graham never earned big bucks as a player for Grimsby and Lincoln City and often criticised the inflated wages paid to modern footballers.
Lincoln paid £4,500 for him in 1968 — more than the price of his and Rita’s first home.
He recalled: “We bought a semi-detached house on the outskirts of Lincoln for £3,200. It goes to show that transfer fees for professional footballers have always been way out of proportion to what is anything called sense.”
Graham got his first chance in management, aged 28, after a hip injury ended his playing career at Lincoln and the club’s boss was given the boot.
He was the youngest manager in the Football League.
When Sir Elton came knocking in 1977, he was taken aback by his ambition for unfashionable Watford, who had a greyhound track around their pitch.
He remembered asking him: “What do you expect from me?” Sir Elton said: “I want to be playing in Europe.”
Graham admitted: “I thought, ‘blimey, this bloke is not right in the head’.”
But he turned down a job at First Division West Brom to accept Sir Elton’s five-year deal — and did as the chairman asked.
He won four promotions in five seasons and finished second behind Liverpool in the top flight in 1983, earning a place in the UEFA Cup. He also guided them to the 1984 FA Cup final, where they lost to Everton.
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Graham, who was not a fan of his boss’s music, was grateful he was left to get on with the job, once joking: “We had an agreement that if he didn’t tell me which team to pick, I wouldn’t tell him which songs to sing. It worked well.”
It was that kind of honest humour which endeared Graham to football fans and helped him cope with the pressures of the English game’s top job.
Having left Watford in 1987 and leading Aston Villa back to the top division the following year, he was handed the England job in 1990. He had a tough act to follow in Sir Bobby Robson, who took England to that year’s World Cup semis.
His reign started well, with his side unbeaten in their first 13 games. But things quickly turned sour after England failed to make it out of their group at Euro 1992, losing 2-1 to hosts Sweden in the final game.
He later said of The Sun’s cheeky coverage the day after: “I thought ‘Swedes 2 Turnips 1’ was a great headline.”
As the son of sports reporter Tommy Taylor, who worked on the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph, he had a love-hate relationship with the media.
During the qualifying stages for the 1994 World Cup, Graham invited a documentary team to follow him round.
The camera crew captured plenty of choice swearing and his famous “Do I not like that” line. When Holland beat England in October 1993 to end their dream of making the finals, he told a linesman: “The referee just got me the sack.”
That summer, Peter Newman had stood as the Sack Graham Taylor candidate in the Christchurch by-election in Dorset.
Graham did not wait to be fired, choosing instead to resign that November.
The vicious reaction from fans — including one jumping on the car he was driving in with Rita and spitting at the windscreen — sent him into a deep depression.
A few days after his departure, Graham told Rita: “Without you and the family I’d have been a suicide job by now.”
One of the reasons he quit as England boss was because he could not put her through any more stress. He said at the time: “She’d had enough of watching me suffer unnecessary agony. Our failure to qualify and the personal anguish my family has suffered has left me emotionally drained.”
After being reviled for his time at England, he had a brief stint at the helm of Wolverhampton Wanderers before returning to Watford in 1996 and guiding them into the Premier League in 1999.
However, a life-threatening illness put him out of action for two months of that promotion campaign.
In 1998 he ignored a raging sore throat until he started coughing up blood. An abscess on his vocal cord was blocking his windpipe and if Rita had not forced him to call the doctor he would have been dead.
Graham said afterwards: “The consultant sat down with Rita and myself and told us that if we had waited another couple of hours to make the call to the doctor, he wouldn’t have got to us in time.”
He retired from management in 2001 with Watford back in the second tier, before briefly returning to boss Aston Villa again in 2002.
A year later he became vice-president of Scunthorpe United, the team he supported as a boy and where he had been an apprentice.
Graham had never been flash and was happy sitting in the stands watching football on a Saturday. His knowledge and love of the game made him a respected TV and radio pundit and his services to football were recognised in 2001, when he was awarded an OBE.
With subsequent England managers struggling as Graham did in the national hot seat, the appreciation for his talents has grown.
But Graham was a modest man who refused to overplay his huge club achievements.
Last night, former England winger John Barnes, who was given his professional debut at Watford by Graham, said: “If there ever was a manager who had no reason to be humble, doing what he did in bringing Watford up to the top division, it was Graham. But he maintained humility throughout.”
Sir Elton’s tribute to Graham Taylor
I am deeply saddened and shocked to hear about Graham’s passing.
He was like a brother to me. We shared an unbreakable bond since we first met. We went on an incredible journey together and it will stay with me for ever. He took my beloved Watford from the depths of the lower leagues to uncharted territory and into Europe.
We have become a leading English club because of his managerial wisdom and genius. This is a sad and dark day for Watford. The club and the town. We will cherish Graham and drown our sorrows in the many brilliant memories he gave us.
I love you Graham. I will miss you very much. My thoughts go out to Rita, Joanne, Karen and the whole Taylor family.
SIR ELTON JOHN
A true gent of the game
His enthusiasm for life and football was incredible.
– PAUL GASCOIGNE, former England and Spurs ace
“I will be forever grateful. He was a very honest man. What he did at Watford will never be done again in my opinion.”
– PAUL MERSON, called up to England squad in 1991
“He had his own style, of course, but he really knew and loved the game and I enjoyed working with him. He was a true football man.”
– PETER SHILTON, former England goalie who coached in Taylor’s England backroom staff
“All else in my football world fades into insignificance now. RIP great man from one who owes you so much #ThankyouGT YOU were the true star.”
– LUTHER BLISSETT, former Watford striker
“Completely shocked by news of Graham Taylor. Always held him in the highest regard – the man gave me my first England cap. So sad.”
– ALAN SHEARER
“He was a hugely popular and respected figure in the game, not just in English football but in international circles as well. I know Graham was very proud of his time as England manager and it was always great to see him at football grounds across the country.
“He had an exceptional knowledge and a love for the game that never diminished over the years. He will be much missed by us all at Wembley and St George’s Park.”
– GREG CLARKE, FA chairman
“It’s a real shock. He was a real gentleman. It was sad the way the England job turned out for him, but that’s happened to a lot of England managers. He was a real quality human being.”
– GORDON TAYLOR, playing contemporary and chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association