Watford Forever: How Graham Taylor and Elton John Saved a Football Club, a Town, and Each Other
By John Preston; in collaboration with Elton John
Liveright; hardcover, 320 pages; $28.99
John Preston was the Sunday Telegraph's television critic and one of its chief feature writers for years. Elton John is one of the world's most famous musicians, and at one time was the owner of his hometown soccer club.
Watford Forever is one of the most entertaining books you will read, especially with how soccer has become so popular in the United States, not just with the games, but with television shows like "Welcome to Wrexham," on actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, known soccer fans, taking a chance on a low-division Welsh club and transforming it.
The only difference with this one is that Watford FC is the hometown club of one Reginald Dwight, who was known as Reggie but then became Elton John to all the world.
From the time Reggie attended a game with his father when he was just six years old, he was hooked. This was significant for many reasons because not only did he like football, but it was a bonding experience for him and his stern father, Stanley, a squadron leader in the RAF. when he was invited to join him for the match, it felt like he was being allowed to share in one of his favorite things.
"In years to come," Preston writes, "Reggie would come to look back on that Saturday afternoon as the day when his life changed for ever. From that moment, he would be as passionate about football - and Watford Football Club - as his father. Throughout his boyhood, whenever there was a home fixture, the two of them would go off to Vicarage Road. And every time they went, Stanley would fish into his pocket for some pennies and buy his son a programme...
"The moment they came back to Pinner Hills Road, Reggie would run up the stairs to his bedroom where his new programme would join his growing collection - all of them in pristine condition and meticulously filed away. No matter how badly Watford did, no matter how many disbelieving looks people gave him when he told them which team he supported, Reggie never questioned his loyalty. Ever since he could remember, he had always had a natural affinity with the underdog - for the no-hopers, the laughing stocks, the perennial underachievers."
When Reggie was eleven years old, the family moved to Northwood, a couple of miles away, but "after another three years of pitching into one another" (the book is full of English slang), his parents, Stanley and Sheila, divorced. Sheila remarried soon after, to Fred, who was a builder, and they, along with Reggie, moved to Croxley Green and then to Northwood Hills. With his father out of the picture, Reggie attended Watford games by himself, and stood in the same area they always would.
Interesting to note is the history of Elton in this book, besides soccer, such as that Stanley was anything but supportive of his musical ambitions, even though he was in Royal Academy of Music Classes. Fred, on the other hand, was very supportive, and by 1962, when Reggie was fifteen years old, he arranged to have him perform at one of the known pubs in town, the Public Bar at the Northwood Hills Hotel.
Meanwhile Watford FC was languishing, unable to stay out of Division Four, with any promotion lasting only a season or two. One fan group, the Watford Football Supporters Club, became increasingly vocal, and the owner, Jim Bonser, banned the from the team's matches by 1965. He instead gave access to a group of fans supportive of him, the Watford Football Club Supporters Club. This would be like, on the occasions the Jets have banned Fireman Ed, the replaced him with Officer Bill.
The attitude of the club had also not changed since the 1950s, with club directors reluctant to bring their wives to the matches, and women were never allowed into the boardroom. They also decided to build a race track around the field, known as the pitch, to add revenue. This became a nuisance to the team, as they couldn't access the field if there was race match going on. There weren't any pictures of it, but the closest thing now are former Olympic stadiums in England and Italy that have a running track on the perimeter.
The stagnation at the club hit a breaking point in 1973, when a representative of Watford FC's Minority Shareholders Association wrote a letter to the Watford Observer headlined, "What's Wrong With Watford Football Club?"
This was a year or so after a 1971-72 campaign, in which Watford won just two of their first sixteen games, and then even though they won their next two, would go winless the 19 matches after. The club also was in massive debt, leading Bowser to announce, "The bottomless pit has come to an end. I would willingly take a back seat if benefactors came forward.' Could anyone imagine Woody Johnson doing that?
Around this time, Elton John was a meteor in the music world. On September 7, 1973, he played in front of 18,000 at the Hollywood Bowl, and his new album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, his third straight number one album in the United States, and it also topped the charts across the pond.
Soon after, Elton told his agent, Vic Lewis that he wanted nothing more than to be a member of Watford's board of directors. With no idea how to make this happen, Lewis called Oli Phillips, the Watford Observer's football correspondent.
Despite Phillips counseling Lewis that Elton should be wary about dealing with Bonser, eventually he arranged a meeting between them.
"Braced for a chilly reception, he found that Bonser and his fellow directors couldn't have been friendlier," Preston writes. "'Although I had huge eight-inch platforms on and green hair, everyone was very warm and welcoming. That really gook me aback.'
"A watching Oli Phillips noted how polite Elton was - 'I think he might even have called Bonser 'Sir' - and also how polite Bonser was back to him. 'Given the state Watford were in, I think even Bonser could see that it made sense having a world-famous rock star on board.'
"By the time the meeting ended, Elton John had been made a vice-president of Watford FC, with all the attendant benefits: a ticket to every home game and unrestricted access to the cold buffet.
"On 5 May 1974, he played a concert in aid of Watford FC at Vicarage Road, topping a bill that included his friend and fellow football fanatic Rod Stewart."
Six months later, Elton became vice-chairman of Watford, and by the spring of 1976, Bonser decided he was "too old, tired, and fed up to continue" running the club.
Bonser "offered to sell Elton the club outright - or rather give it to him if Elton agreed to settle the club's debts." It didn't take Elton long to think about accepting it, and at 19 years old, he was running a football club.
Just two weeks before buying Watford, Elton sold out seven straight nights at Madison Square Garden. In 1975, he was responsible for two percent of the world's album sales, essentially meaning one of every fifty albums people bought were by him.
Eight months into Elton's tenure, little had changed, and fans were starting to get vocal. In response, longtime Manager Mike Keen was sacked, and Elton faced his first big test as owner in finding his replacement.
The initial name he wanted was an England star from their 1966 World Cup winner, Bobby Moore. The two issues that became apparent were that he likely would have little interest running a Fourth Division club, and another was that he was just too nice.
Preston quotes Elton as saying, "You need to have a thick skin to be a manager, and you've also got to be a bastard. What I wanted above all was someone young and hungry and inspirational. Someone who wasn't just going to splash my money about. You can't just go out and buy a team - that's always a disaster. You have to build it from the ground upwards."
In meetings with the Watford board, Muir Stratford remembered how impressed he was with Graham Taylor. Elton responded by making a call to England's Manager, Don Revie, and asking him who he thought was the best young manager in the game, and without flinching, he said Taylor.
Graham, who was working for Lincoln and just signed a new contract, was informed by Revie of Elton's interest in him to run Watford. He also was surprised Revie would want him to take a step down from a team he had at the top of the Third Division.
Within a few days, Elton John called him up, and he was impressed with his knowledge of football, that he wasn't just a pop star. However, he turned him down.
Three days after that, Elton called him again, asking him to let him give him a complete picture of the club, with a tour of the grounds and a meeting at his estate at Windsor.
Elton said there was "something magical" about their meeting, that the only other time he felt such a connection before was with his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin.
It was an immediate success, as Watford won the Fourth Division in the 1977-78 season, and another immediate promotion the following season. Within five years, Watford FC was a First Division club.
In any future conversation on the great owners in sports history, after reading Watford Forever, you can now include Elton John.
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