GRAHAM TAYLOR (1944-2017)
The former England manager Graham Taylor has died aged 72 following a suspected heart attack.
Taylor, whose playing career took him to Grimsby Town and Lincoln City, managed England during a turbulent spell from 1990 until 1993 and also had two spells in charge at Aston Villa and Watford, as well as managerial tenures at Wolves and Lincoln. In recent years he had worked as a pundit on the BBC and BT Sport. “With the greatest sadness, we have to announce that Graham passed away at his home early this morning of a suspected heart attack,” read a family statement. “The family are devastated by this sudden and totally unexpected loss.”
Taylor had a difficult time in charge of the national team, with criticism about his perceived long-ball game. Under his leadership England qualified for Euro 92 in Sweden, although the tournament was a tough one. His side failed to get out of their group after losing to the hosts, although Taylor kept his job. However, failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup led to his resignation in November 1993. Taylor, the subject of An Impossible Job, one of the most famous and most loved British sport documentaries of all time, was subjected to vicious ridicule while England boss, specifically after the Sweden defeat, something he discussed years later. “I thought ‘Swedes 2 Turnips 1’ was a great headline, though I didn’t see the pictures the next day,” he later recalled. “But that did upset my parents. Some people who read the Sun feel they can address you in any manner they see fit. I think the majority of the public thought it was unfair. What helped me is I didn’t run away from management, but resurrected my career. I take pride in that.”
This had all followed his achievements while in charge at Vicarage Road. After taking over in 1977, he led the club from the Fourth Division to the top tier, where they finished second in 1983, qualifying for the Uefa Cup and reaching the FA Cup final the following year. Sir Elton John, the former Watford owner and honorary life president, paid tribute to Taylor. “He was like a brother to me,” he said. “We shared an unbreakable bond since we first met. We went on an incredible journey together and it will stay with me forever.” Taylor then took charge at Villa after their relegation from the First Division in 1987 and restored them at the first attempt; two years later, in 1990, they finished runners-up to Liverpool. He later came out of managerial retirement to take charge of Villa for a second spell in 2002, having already returned for a second time in charge of Watford from 1996 to 2001.
Speaking in 2002, Taylor reflected on the pressures of management. “People think they know me, they think they know what my background is, and they’ll ha-ha me for it,” he said. “But they don’t know. They don’t really know what I’ve come through and what I’ve had to do to achieve what I have.”
- ‘Elton and I were almost like brothers’: Taylor’s football firsts and lasts (2006)
- ‘People think they know me, but they don’t’ – Graham Taylor interview (2002)
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Graham was one of the nicest, kindest, most honest and honourable men I ever met in football in more than 30 years of making TV programming about the game. When we suggested the original film he was very keen for everyone to see exactly what the England job was all about. Obviously he hoped it would end with qualification for the World Cup, but it wasn’t to be. He handled the fallout from that and the film that followed with utter fairness, complete candour and total dignity. When he saw the final version he simply said ‘Well, that’s how it was. But my mother isn’t going to like the swearing.’ He could have bailed out at any point and he could even have stopped the film going out, but he didn’t. He was a complete gentleman and a massive loss to the game” – Neil Duncanson, producer of An Impossible Job.
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AC Jimbo and co are back for the latest instalment of Football Weekly Extra.
A CONTINUING CULTURAL OVERHAUL?
The year is 2052. The planet is still recovering from 2017 when the world became scorched by fire after a mild misunderstanding on social media disgrace Twitter. As the USA! USA!! USA!!!’s first five-term head of state, President Trump’s likeness is being added to the side of Mount Rushmore. Jetpacks are still not commercially available to the general public. England have just been eliminated from the World Cup at the last-128 stage, and veteran FA chairman Theo Walcott has promised a root and branch review of how the game is structured in this country. And football managers are still surprised when good players at bad clubs want to move somewhere better.
On Thursday morning Slaven Bilic was being asked the usual questions a manager is asked during the transfer window. But after one poser too many about Scott Hogan or Robert Snodgrass or whoever the hell Taxpayers FC’s transfer bid randomiser has settled on, Bilic snapped. “Let’s get serious. I have something to tell you,” he said, which presumably made the reporters think Bilic was about to tell them he still loved them very much, but he and mummy were going to live in different houses for a while. But no: “We have a situation with a player, Dimitri Payet. He wants to leave.”
Given that his team are currently 13th in the table, furtively glancing over their collective shoulder at the abyss below, were binned out of Europe by Astra Giurgiu and play in a stadium that feels like it should be hosting Justin Bieber concerts rather than football matches, it shouldn’t be a colossal surprise that Payet wants out. Particularly as the Frenchman was his country’s star at Euro 2016, was one of the stand-out performers in last season’s Premier League and Real Madrid were supposedly chasing his signature last summer.
Bilic, though, was surprised. Shocked! Stunned! Stupefied! “Of course I feel angry,” he smouldered. “This team, the boys and the staff, gave him everything, they were always there for him. I am feeling let down and angry. “The club, as I have said so many times, don’t want to sell him. We have said hundreds of times we don’t want to sell our best players. He’s definitely our best player,” Bilic continued, causing Havard Nordtveit’s lip to wobble. “That’s why we gave him a long contract, and then a new contract a few months after he joined. He’s probably been tapped up by some clubs or whatever. That is usual at this time of year. But until he changes his attitude he is out of the team and he’s not going to train with us.”
There is a certain curiosity in a player telling his team he doesn’t want to play for them, then being punished by being told he won’t be playing for them. And, if the rumours that Marseille are the team to have turned Payet’s head are true, that’s particularly weird. But if genuine, Bilic’s reaction to the whole thing is equally odd. It’s as if managers like him don’t remember being players, who by and large, since the dawn of time, have always done their very best to better themselves, be that in terms of status, cash or both. Smaller clubs generally take players when they are either unknown or a little down on their luck, with the tacit understanding that should they perform well, they’ll try to go somewhere they actually want to play. Players like Payet, for example. Or players like the Croatian central defender who signed for the Hammers in 1996, excelled, then wasn’t backward in coming forwards in heading for the exit when Everton came calling 18 months later.
Still, we’re sure the circumstances were very different for Slaven Bilic 20 years ago.
FIVER LETTERS
“Here’s an idea for a new theme for the letters page: 101 great stadium fittings. I’ll start us off …” – Ian Sergeant.
“Surely one-legged ducks swim in a circular pattern, not spherical (yesterday’s Fiver)? I expect better from a CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE!” – Bob Young (and 1,056 failing, fake others).
“Please can I suggest that we run an experiment on the 1,057 pedants who write in to suggest that one-legged ducks swim in a circular pattern? Please can we tie their limbs together, throw them in with the ducks, and see whether they corkscrew or simply sink to the bottom. I claim exemption as it’s my ball, etc” – Andy Neill.
“With reference to Jason Steger (yesterday’s Fiver letters), I once played for a team called Inland Revenue in Yorkshire, so named because the captain worked for said institution. Pre-game warm-ups were largely occupied by fruitless b@nter with the other team, insisting that no one but the captain was remotely involved in tax affairs, etc. We lost most games, with our team reduced by two, possibly three, players stretchered off during the opening 20 minutes …” – Brian Chadbourne.
“Re: inane commentary. Jack Skelly’s observation regarding ‘naturally two-footed players’ (yesterday’s letters) fails to take into account that other commentators’ standby: ‘His or her favourite left foot.’ Players possessing a favourite left foot must presumably also possess another left foot which is not their favourite, as well as the customary right foot. This would therefore make them three-footed players. It is interesting to note that players with a favourite left foot are never described as ‘naturally two-footed players’” – Rob McPheely.
“‘Player X clears the ball but only as far as Player Y,’ is an old chestnut that I always felt was a bit of a contradiction in terms. If it reached Player Y, then Player X didn’t really clear the ball, did they?” – Justin Kavanagh.
“Surely ‘week-in, week-out’ has to be one of the most annoying phrases that only really exists in football punditry. Do you just mean constantly, all the time, every week? The vocabulary of these pundits is ‘weak-in, weak-out’. I’m sorry. So very, sorry. I’ve learned my lesson” – Bobby Rintoul.
“Can we turn our attention to garbage spewed in post-match interviews? I’ll start with the use of ‘kick on’ instead of ‘progress’ – I don’t know the exact conception of the phrase, but like to think it came from football’s equivalent of Father Jack, spouting game-related nonsense into a microphone from which some poor hack had to make a semblance of sense” – Anthony Probert.
“With regards to the inane commentary theme, Fiver readers could do worse than check this out for a pretty decent exploration of them” – Dan Ashley.
“I was invited to play for a team in the Middle$ex county league called Canada Villa in the late seventies. Being an expat Scot, O’Rangers fan, Aston Villa follower and recently returned from Canada, I jumped at the chance. Pre-match, in the dressing room, the coach arrived with the kit bag, rummaged through it and threw a green-and-white-hooped shirt and a pair of white shorts at me. I believe the present-day phrase is ‘gobsmacked’. I played a couple of seasons with them and never told my mates back in Glasgow. I guess the point is, have any other readers been put in a similar situation?” – Doug Anderson.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Brian Chadbourne.
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NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Investigators have passed files on 23 people and organisations suspected of involvement in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and its aftermath to the CPS to decide whether charges should be brought.
Liverpool boss Jürgen Klopp has explained what was written on a note handed to Daniel Sturridge during the 1-0 Carling Cup semi-final first-leg defeat at Southampton. “We thought it makes sense to have real wingers, high, make it more difficult for them to defend the wing, to have to play someone in the centre,” he tooted. “Two strikers. Roberto [Firmino] with Daniel [Sturridge]. That’s all, it’s not because we’re frustrated.”
B@nter accounts and media organisations that should know better will be cheering the news that Marouane Fellaini has landed a new one-year contract extension at Manchester United.
B@nter accounts and media organisations that should know better will be cheering the news that Olivier Giroud has landed a long-term contract extension at Arsenal. Francis Coquelin and defender Laurent Koscielny have also landed similar deals.
Chelsea have got the go-ahead to rebuild Stamford Bridge in plans to expand the ground’s capacity to 60,000.
League One strugglers think going back to the John Sheridan managerial well for a fifth time is a good idea, after telling Stephen Robinson to do one. “John is obviously someone we know well,” cheered Latics chairman Simon Corney.
And André Villas-Boas is giving it some big chat after Shanghai SIPG dropped a cool £52m on Oscar. “He’s a player that joins the Chinese Super League at the age of 25. It means he’s at his full potential and had options to go to big clubs,” he cooed. “The Chinese market normally attracts star players from the age of 27 or 28. Chinese football should be grateful that we’ve been able to attract him to Shanghai.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Transfer window watch! Get all the latest news and moves from the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. And you can also sign up to get updates via FaceSpace MessageApp, or whatever.
The essential group-by-group guide to the Africa Cup of Nations, by Paul Doyle.
Barcelona, Juventus and PSG are forming an orderly queue for Adam Lallana, according to today’s Mill.
From Israel to Indonesia, fans from 48 countries put forward their two pennies’ worth on Gianni Infantino’s bright idea for the World Cup.
Farewell to Kelly Smith, the once in a lifetime forward, writes Tony Leighton.
Manchester United are still paying the price for Louis van Gaal’s erratic spending, so says Paul Wilson.
Southampton – and Claude Puel in particular – came up trumps against Liverpool, writes Ben Fisher.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And Instachat, too!
