Taylor tribute steals show on emotional day
The headline on the cover of the matchday programme at Vicarage Road was unequivocal. “Graham Taylor: the greatest Watford manager of all time”.
In front of the club shop, as fans gathered to leave floral tributes, shirts and scarves on a memorial shrine that was rapidly spreading out across the pavement, nobody was arguing with that assessment.
“He meant everything,” said Colin Prichett, who had just laid down the red, yellow and black striped curly wig he wore to the 1984 FA Cup final.
“To do what he achieved here in six years, getting us from the bottom division to runners-up in the top, it’s a feat never to be bettered. Not just here. Anywhere.”
Alongside him, another fan had Taylor’s remarkable Watford record printed on the back of a T-shirt, listed like gigs on a rock tour. It marked the giddy six-year spell in the early Eighties when the manager from Lincolnshire formed an unlikely partnership with his pop star chairman Elton John to propel Watford through the divisions. That period made Taylor’s name. Except at Vicarage Road, they do not refer to him as Taylor. Here they prefer to remember him by his Christian name.
“Everybody’s got a tale to tell about Graham,” said Phil Williams, the club steward who was supervising the shrine. “I was here for his first home game in charge, 1977. We lost 3-1 to York City. To my eternal shame I remember joining in the chant ‘Bring back Ken Furphy’, who was the previous manager but one. He started winning immediately after that and within about a month it was all, hang on, there’s something going on here.”
After that wobbly start, Taylor soon established himself in the affection of the faithful. “I met him once and he was like your dad,” added Colin Mace, a lifelong Watford follower. “He was hugely familiar, but somehow in his presence you felt you ought to be on your best behaviour.”
All around the shrine, memories of Taylor’s kindness peppered the conversation. The way he would get tea at half-time for his radio commentary colleagues, the thoughtfulness towards disabled supporters, the time he ran the London Marathon to raise funds to build a family enclosure at Vicarage Road. Plus a remarkable story about his treatment of a young apprentice called Gifton Noel-Williams. The youngster had just fathered a baby and on hearing the news Taylor called him into his office. A nervous Noel-Williams thought he was going to get the sack. Instead Taylor was full of concern, asking him how he was coping, financially. Not well, came the reply. The manager wrote him a cheque for £1,000. “Don’t tell anyone about this,” he instructed.
Inside the ground, the response to the man was just as effusive.
As Taylor’s Buddy Holly’s favourite, played just before kick-off, the fans in the Rookery Stand held up a montage of cards to spell out the initials G and T, flanking a heart. After a minute’s applause, a chant of “There’s only one Graham Taylor” rang out across the stadium. As one, the 2,000 Middlesbrough supporters joined in, demonstrating the affection with which he was held throughout the game, despite his humiliation with England.
“I was very upset and disappointed for him with what happened at England,” said Colin Mace. “I think it’s unfair to say he was promoted above the level of his competence. He was unlucky with injuries. But it hurt us all to see how much it hurt him. With hindsight I think we all wish he’d said no to England.”
The way to mark Taylor’s passing would surely have been in a whirlwind of high-speed action, a flurry of longball hoicks and getting it in the mixer. Instead, Watford and Middlesbrough played out a dull 90 minutes almost entirely bereft of incident.
“It was all very emotional, for all of us. This was due to the passing away of this great person who made the history of Watford,” said Taylor’s latest successor, Walter Mazzari. “When there was the whole minute of applause, I was very emotional. It made everybody come together. It was incredible.”
Indeed, the best of the entertainment came at half-time, in front of the stand that bears Taylor’s name, when the club’s erstwhile hero, Luther Blissett, was interviewed. “I owe everything to Graham Taylor,” he said. “He was like a father to me. He was not just a great football manager, he was the greatest man I ever met.”
When he had finished, a home fan stationed alongside the press box stood up and yelled in his direction. “Get him on.” That would have surely been the most fitting way to mark the great man’s passing.