Graham Taylor dies: Watford and Aston Villa legend the last of a breed we may never see again in English football

PRECIOUS few have achieved feats in English football as remarkable as Graham Taylor’s.

We called him ‘The Turnip’. But he had no issue with that in an era when managers didn’t thrown their toys out of the pram every time a jibe came their way.

Taylor was tough enough to manage the seemingly impossible. Twice with Watford.

It was the Hornets who felt the fullest force of him at his brilliant best.

Unquestionably the greatest manager in history history, he took the unfashionable club with low attendances through all four leagues… in just five seasons.

Maybe best remembered for his rants in ‘An Impossible Job’, Taylor’s style was all his own.

Dividing his playing career between Grimsby and Lincoln, Taylor was named boss of the latter at just 28 – a year after becoming the youngest man to become and FA coach.

Four years after being given his first job, Taylor led the Imps out of the old Fourth Division in 1978.

West Brom came calling, but it was Watford owner Elton John fortunate enough to get Taylor a year after his maiden promotion.

As the pop super star once put it: “I had been a lifelong Watford fan and Graham truly made whatever dreams I had for my team come true.

“In only four seasons Graham took Watford from the fourth division to the first, and of course to the FA Cup Final in 1984.”

With the likes of John Barnes, Nigel Callaghan and Luther Blissett in the Hornets’ ranks, Watford challenged to become champions of England, only to finish runners-up to Liverpool in 1982-83.

Following their first full season in England’s top flight, John shed tears of pride as Watford played in their first FA Cup final, losing to Howard Kendall’s Everton.

By 1987 he needed a new challenge and made the move to Aston Villa.

Villa had been champions of Europe just five years earlier but were in disarray and Taylor was tasked with repeated his Watford feats.

He achieved it at the first attempt, guiding Villa to safety the following season and then to second in the country in his third campaign.

After England’s exit from Italia ’90, Taylor got the best job of the lot and succeeded Sir Bobby Robson.

The chastening exit sticks in the mind. The utterances, ‘do I not like that’.

But Taylor lost just once from his opening 23 matches in charge, silencing critics who had claimed he wasn’t up to the job because he didn’t have the medals.

Scraping through qualification for Euro ’92 at the expense of the Irish thanks to a late Gary Lineker winner against Poland, things were about as good as they got for Taylor.

But he had used a staggering 59 players going into the tournament and came under fire for not appearing to know his best team.

After 0-0 draws against Denmark and France, Taylor’s England needed to beat Sweden to progress to the knockout stages.

They took the lead through David Platt, before being pegged back by a Jan Eriksson equaliser.

With striker Gary Lineker set to retire from internationals when at the end of the tournament, Taylor subbed off the striker – just one goal shy of Bobby Charlton’s record of 48.

Thomas Brolin netted a late winner and ‘Swedes 2 Turnips 1’ was our headline that followed.

As the son of a sports journalist in Scunthorpe, Taylor dealt with the press respectfully, always returning calls.

But things had become strained and what was later depicted as ‘An Impossible Job’ began to spiral out of his control.

Qualification for the USA’94 World Cup hinged on a home clash with Netherlands in October 1993.

Taylor’s England had one key refereeing decision go their way when Frank Rijkaard’s goal was wrongly ruled offside.

But they fell foul of the failure to send off Ronald Koeman for hauling down Platt when the midfielder was through on goal.

Koeman went on to curl in a free-kick, before Dennis Bergkamp secured a 2-0 Wembley win having controlled with his arm.

Taylor went berserk, slamming officials in TV footage that created the lasting memories of his reign.

Maybe his footballing career, unfairly.

After his team conceded the fastest ever World Cup goal to minnows San Marino just eight seconds into a qualification dead rubber, Taylor resigned.

He took a fresh challenge at Wolves the following season, finishing fourth in the second tier but failing to clinch promotion through the play-offs.

A poor start to his second season at Molyneux cleared the path for an emotional return to Vicarage Road after John had agreed to buy the club for a second time.

Succeeding his former player Kenny Jackett as boss, after an initial spell as ‘general manager’, Taylor was back in the swing, winning the old Division 2 in 1998.

He followed that up by securing promotion back to the Premier League via the play-offs, although Taylor missed two months of that campaign with a serious abscess blocked his windpipe.

Taylor next suffered relegation for the first time in his career, admitting he had lost his ability to motivate players in the same season that he clocked up his 1000th game in management, beaten to the achievement only by Brian Clough and Jim Smith.

Taylor retired in 2001, only to come back when Villa came calling in 2002.

However, a 16th-place finish and disagreements with Villa chairman Doug Ellis saw him leave the dugout for good.

Not able to fully step away from football, he became vice-president of Scunthorpe and spent three years on the board at Watford between 2009 and 2012, remaining an honoury life president at the club which renamed a stand after him in 2014.

Taylor also worked as a pundit for BBC and BT Sport.

He is survived by his wife Rita and his two daughters Joanne and Karen.