I have to ask hilly, do you get a text or email from a website or something when somebody dies?
just curious.
mike
Ex England manager has died aged 72 I think he still lived just up the road from me in Little Aston
Last edited by hilly10; 12th January 2017 at 15:53.
I have to ask hilly, do you get a text or email from a website or something when somebody dies?
just curious.
mike
Its good to know , because will never find out these people have died otherwise !!
Genuinely heartbroken at this. As a Watford fan, and as a child getting into football during his first stint in charge of the Hornets, he really was a great influence on my early years. He performed wonders at Watford, developing so much youth talent and building such a great community club. Harshly treated by the media as England manager when he did his best with what was available to him at the time. He then returned to Watford and performed miracles again. To top it all off he was also one of the most charming, down to earth and inspirational people you could ever hope to meet.
"Hit Les over the top. Faaacking Hell.You tell em Les"
Good character and good manager thrown to the wolves by the press who will now deify him.
Do I not like that.
Never England manager material, but a trier and good honest professional that the game needs more of. RIP Graham.
Time to plant the Turnip in the ground. Never rated him as a manager, but I did rather enjoy his punditry.
Plus 72 is no real age these days. Shame RIP.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
RIP- great loss to his family of course.
No great loss to football IMHO
Many didnt rate him as a manager
He promoted Watford through several divisions and then as a small boy I watched his Villa side promoted back to division one and then mount a title charge eventually finishing runners up to Liverpool, obviously after this very successful period he took the England job
The CV of a terrible football manager obviously
I met him a few years ago and what a genuine and friendly guy
RIP
RIP Graham. I remember his Watford team storming up the leagues, Luther Blissett & Ross Jenkins they were a handful and scored goals for fun, very route one but worked for them.
Didn't realise there were fellow Horns on here. Glad to know I'm not the only one truly gutted by this news. People who think he wasn't a good manager (or "no real loss to football" as one poster said above), go look at what he did. Div 4 to 2nd in the 1st division (behind THAT Liverpool side), in 5 years. FA Cup final the following year. Promotion with Villa and then 2nd in the top flight the following year. Then came back to Watford and repeated the promotion trick - twice. Not to mention his punditry, which was clear, concise, witty and understood the role. As for England he freely admitted he made mistakes - the least of which being THAT substitution. But a football manager can only do so much with the hand he is dealt. Graham Taylor was given the hand from hell. Carlton Palmer, Andy Sinton. Dorigo, Ripley, Thomas. To name a few. If you've nothing good to say - espcially when you're clearly uneducated on the topic...
I met Graham twice. Once when he came to my school to give a talk, the other in a professional capacity when I spent the day working with him closely. He was kind, funny, intelligent and, as can clearly be seen by the tributes, nobody has a bad word to say about him.
RIP Graham.
The Watford World just got a lot less fun to be in. Thank you for the memories.
I think he was very underrated as a manager by many people but that is because they haven't really looked at what he did as a club manager. His achievements are nicely summed up by tobywatches above. He always came across as a gentleman and I think he was interesting as a pundit. Not enough good guys around in football any more.
Chris
Jeezz......he was really 72 !?!?
Would have had him down as much younger than that ......reading a bit more about him , it would appear that (other than England) he was an excellent and successful coach.
RIP
Sad loss, 72 not that old now.
Good club manager, treated like sh*t by the media when in charge of England. Did really well in the 2 main club jobs he held.
RIP
Holte ender in the sky.God bless Sir Graham.RIP.
Top quality manager who performed miracles at club level. Badly let down by his players at international level.
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Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Yes indeed a good club manager. RIP Graham.
Most England managers get savaged by the press...and he was no exception..disgusting treatment by the press.
Felt very sorry for him on that fateful WC qualifier against the Dutch, with Koeman cheating (IMO)
Indeed. Koeman pulled down David Platt in the penalty, as the last man.
Never got a penalty, and Koeman escaped with a yellow card.
Minutes later he takes a free kick on the edge of the England 18 yard box, fluffs the attempt, ref blows for a retake and curls it over for a goal.
I am not a football fan, but a couple of decades or so , ago for reasons not relevant, I found myself a top table guest at at a football black-tie dinner.
I engaged the diner to my right in small-talk and asked him what he did for a living. He said he was the English manager and later gave the main after-dinner speech.
He didn't hold it against me - quite the reverse in fact
Nice guy - RIP
( true story... I got ribbed for years for that gaff)
Another hornets fan here, and I was in school when he took them storming up the league for the first time.
RIP Graham
Brilliant story. I'm yet to hear a bad word said about the guy.
A couple of tweets I've seen sum him up...
https://twitter.com/talkSPORTDrive/s...49988644679680
https://twitter.com/danohagan/status/819551965361348608
One of the few you could actually call a Gentleman of the game, which is somewhat lacking in todays modern football. Aside from the England job of which he will be forever slaughtered, I don't think he got the respect he deserved as a Manager.
A fitting game tomorrow Wolves v Villa I think he will get a good send off