Thank you for the memories Graham Taylor

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The Ides of March

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Oct 21, 2011
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http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/38599231

I have just returned home after walking the dogs to read about the passing of Graham Taylor. Some here will praise his achievements, others might be more critical particularly regarding his period as the England manager. Whatever his shortcomings I really enjoyed listening to his analysis on 5Live football commentaries. Furthermore my father was forever grateful to him for taking Watford from the depths of the football league to become a club in the top division.
 
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I suppose, like so many club managers in the last few decades, stepping up to manage the national team was a step too far for Graham Taylor. He was never comfortable in the role and sadly became a figure of fun, once we had been stopped from qualifying for the 1994 World Cup. Prior to that he took a lot of stick for substituting Gary Lineker during his final game for England at the 1992 Euro's, thus denying him the chance to equal Bibby Charlton's goals tally.

As a club manager it was a different story, and Lincoln, Villa, and, particularly, Watford fans will remember him him with great affection.

RIP Graham Taylor <rose>
 
Very sad news. He had an infectious smile, that's how I'll remember him.
He was treated very badly by the media, I expect quite a few journo's regret the things they wrote about him.
Thoughts are with his family at this time.
 
I've read a lot of nice stuff about Graham Taylor on Lincoln Forums today. From personal things like "he lived 2 doors down from my Grandad while he was at Lincoln and always had time for a knock about" to lots of tales of him being one of the first "community" managers that would take his players into the factories and engineering works regularly to chat to the fans.

I know he came back to Lincoln quite often for charity events and I am sure there will be a tribute at the live game on the Beeb next week. The fans are talking about a 72nd minute round of applause.

Who knows how he would have done for England had Shearer and a couple of others not had injury problems during his tenure.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/p...-that-its-euro-92-all-over-again-7817917.html
 
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I think that had Graham Taylor not taken the England job who would be remembered as one of the great managers of the game in the recent past. What he ahceived at Watford was incredible and he truly put them on the football map.

I was intrigued to see Lawrie McMenemy asked about Taylor on Radio Solent as he was part of Taylor's England set up. Reading Lawrie's book last year it was clear that he didn't have much respect for Taylor and there was a suggestion that he was responsible for his own downfall. This book was a bit of a surprise as the pre-Saints chapters were the most interesting because this element of his story was less familiar and he clearly wanted to settle some old scores. I was taken aback by the latter as I always believed that he was a true gent and somewhat disappointed that he didn't keep some of his opinions to himself. It was therefore interesting to listen to Radio Solent yesterday and compare his comments with those in the book.

Taylor always came across as a nice bloke and I liked to hear him on the football commentaries on Radio 5 where his contributions were always informed. It is a shame that English managers today are unlikely to be given the kind of opportunities that Taylor had these days. I was not really a huge fan of his direct approach to football although I can understand the logic behind it even it the statistics supporting this style of football have largely been discredited. I can't remember the name of the FA coach who mentored Graham Taylor but the origins of the long ball game were thought through in the 1950s I believe.
 
davecg69 said:
"If you love someone, give them a hug and tell them. Right now." (how my friend, Chris, ends his show on US radio every week.
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That reminds me, my restraining order is due to expire in a couple of weeks.

RIP Graham - Didn't agree with his style of play, but always held himself with dignity despite his treatment in the national media. Plus he was an affable fella on the radio.

Don Howe; I believe is the coach being referred too earlier
 
saintlyhero said:
That reminds me, my restraining order is due to expire in a couple of weeks.

RIP Graham - Didn't agree with his style of play, but always held himself with dignity despite his treatment in the national media. Plus he was an affable fella on the radio.

Don Howe; I believe is the coach being referred too earlier
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It was Charles Hughes.
 
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In order to give himself thinking time on the commentaries, GT would start the next sentence "Having said that..." This could be a useful phrase when meeting with your line or senior manager if you don't entirely agree with him or her.
 
Extremely successful with an unfashionable team. If I think about it hard I can still feel the slight dislike I had from back then, because Watford always seemed to have the beating of Saints. Or at least, it felt like it. His teams played exciting, effective football. They'd play it long because one didn't need ball-playing midfielders for that kind of game. Just a big centre-forward and support striker. It worked.
He was never England management material. As Fran often says, he was 'promoted to the point of incompetence'. That wasn't his fault, and the Paper Press treated him disgustingly, like they routinely do today. He certainly didn't deserve that. As a radio pundit, I could never quite agree with what he said. There are radio pundits who seem to be able to hit the nail on the head every time, and he'd often slightly miss it. Nevertheless, one can't deny him his Watford or Aston Villa moments.
 
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..."His teams played exciting, effective football. They'd play it long because one didn't need ball-playing midfielders for that kind of game. Just a big centre-forward and support striker. It worked..."

I have to chip in at this point. If you had seen the number of Watford games that I did in the late 70s and early 80s you would realise that Graham Taylor was never a "long ball" manager. Yes, there would be the occasional devastating 50 yard ball straight out of defence to one of the forwards, but there were also plenty of moves through the midfield. In fact in many of his years at the club it was a midfield player that won Player of the Season. What gets on Watford fans nerves is the fact that a 50 yard pass by Hoddle was greeted with almost orgasmic delight by the commentators, whereas if Ian Bolton did the same (usually with more accuracy I might add), it was labelled "long ball". Why would Watford play "lump it up the middle" when they had John Barnes and Nigel Callaghan as two of the finest ball playing wingers in the top division?

"Exciting, effective football" - yes definitely. "Didn't need ball playing midfielders..." - very wrong. "Just a big centre-forward and support striker" - oh no, midfielders like Lehman, Kenny Jackett, Brian Talbot, Kevin Richardson, Les Taylor, not to mention Barnes and Callaghan.....

Oh and there was a little matter of a 7-1 League Cup win one season - we, of course, just lumped it up the middle for that one.
 
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I was at Vicarage Road when we lost 7-1 in the league cup second leg - Keegan playing and a decent team out. He got them in all out attack mode....
 
rednright said:
I was at Vicarage Road when we lost 7-1 in the league cup second leg - Keegan playing and a decent team out. He got them in all out attack mode....
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You did have a good team out that evening but actually Keegan was out injured - he did play in the first leg which probably accounts for the 4-0 scoreline! To make you feel a little better, we did beat the then European Champions Nottingham Forest in the next round 4-1...
 
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vic-rijrode said:
..."His teams played exciting, effective football. They'd play it long because one didn't need ball-playing midfielders for that kind of game. Just a big centre-forward and support striker. It worked..."

I have to chip in at this point. If you had seen the number of Watford games that I did in the late 70s and early 80s you would realise that Graham Taylor was never a "long ball" manager. Yes, there would be the occasional devastating 50 yard ball straight out of defence to one of the forwards, but there were also plenty of moves through the midfield. In fact in many of his years at the club it was a midfield player that won Player of the Season. What gets on Watford fans nerves is the fact that a 50 yard pass by Hoddle was greeted with almost orgasmic delight by the commentators, whereas if Ian Bolton did the same (usually with more accuracy I might add), it was labelled "long ball". Why would Watford play "lump it up the middle" when they had John Barnes and Nigel Callaghan as two of the finest ball playing wingers in the top division?

"Exciting, effective football" - yes definitely. "Didn't need ball playing midfielders..." - very wrong. "Just a big centre-forward and support striker" - oh no, midfielders like Lehman, Kenny Jackett, Brian Talbot, Kevin Richardson, Les Taylor, not to mention Barnes and Callaghan.....

Oh and there was a little matter of a 7-1 League Cup win one season - we, of course, just lumped it up the middle for that one.
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I didn't want to say anything but his tactics were quite simply that it was easier to score goals if they had less defenders in position. He mixed it up and always had good midfielders. I think there is a bit of snobbery these days about long ball. We would moan about Big Sam yet the stats even under Pochetino at times had us near the top of the league for long balls played.

I never saw Taylor's Lincoln side obviously as I was only born a year before but all I ever hear and read about from older Lincoln fans are about the midfielders and the wingers. Yes there was normally a big man up front to hold the ball up (Saints fans have been saying we need one of those) and the midfielders had to break at pace to support and feed off it. Is that Long ball?

In contrast the John Beck side up here when described by the same fans is described by them as Long ball. That being the aim was to kick it to the corners and the wingers chase it.

Like you say, Gerrard, Morgan, Carrick, Any Chelsea player, Van Dijk hit long passes and they are fawned over.

That Lincoln side of 76 have the record of the highest points total under the 2 point system of 74 points. 32 wins, 10 draws and 4 losses which would these days equate to 106 points. They won 21 out of 23 home games drawing the other 2 scoring a total of 111 goals despite not scoring in 7 games. Lincoln fans rave about fast flowing football. He had the same philosophy as many modern managers in that he wanted to go from defence to attack as quickly as possible, sometimes long up to the centre forward and others by players breaking and running.


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