Graham Taylor

The architect and builder of Watford's golden era. Graham Taylor's career as a lower-divisions full-back was ended by injury, and at the age of 31 he led Lincoln City to the Football League Division 4 championship with a record haul of points. Drawn to Watford (who paid Lincoln £20,000 as compensation) by a persuasively ambitious chairman, Elton John, he took Vicarage Road by storm. Nobody can match his feat of taking a club from Division 4 to be runners-up both in the top flight and in the FA Cup, which he achieved within seven years. The exhilarating, direct style of his teams, which performed to high standards of conduct, was subjected to some fatuous carping (not by those who attended Vicarage Road in unprecedented numbers), but little else about the first Taylor era was negative, and he generated a pioneering ethos of family and community involvement with the club which attracted widespread admiration. In 1987, sensing that his chairman's enthusiasm had waned, he left to revive Second Division Aston Villa, and within three years they were runners-up to League champions Liverpool. The success story ended (temporarily) with his appointment as manager of England and subsequently Wolverhampton Wanderers. He left both posts in the face of intense criticism, but there were few reservations at Watford about his return in 1996 to oversee efforts aimed at reversing nine years of decline both on and off the field. Arriving too late in the 1995/96 season to prevent the club dropping into the third tier, he then stepped aside while team-management responsibilities were handed over to Kenny Jackett for one season. Taking charge of playing matters once more, Taylor took the club back to the top flight within two years, thus recording a unique achievement of five Football League promotions with the same club. Relegation from the FA Premier League was followed by a season which began successfully but fell away dramatically, and he went back to Aston Villa as a club director and then in a second Villa Park spell of team management. He returned to Vicarage Road as a director in January 2009 and became chairman a year later. He stood down from the latter position in May 2012.

League Managerial Career With Watford: Overview