Sir Graham Taylor

[cheltenhamlion]

Anyone wishing they had a ticket for Saturday now? I cannot wait to pay my respects.

[tommy smart]

I've actively supported Aston Villa since the late 60's, but, for a number of reasons, fell out of love during the mid 80's. Sir Graham Taylor's appointment rekindled my passion from which time I've missed very games, also indoctrinating my children and now grandchildren into 'The Villa' which gives me immense pleasure. My family and I owe the gentleman more than words can say.

[four fornicholl]

Anyone wishing they had a ticket for Saturday now? I cannot wait to pay my respects.

Smart arse

[Damo70]

I've told this before but....

We had a bad start to the last relegation season (87?) and hadn't had a win as we travelled to Leicester, we got off the train at around midday and, in those dark days, the Old Bill didn't fancy a load of Villa fans in Leicester City centre and promptly frog marched us to the ground about two and half hours early. We sat down bored and a few Villa players eventually appeared and started to warm up, after a bit SGT popped his head out and was about to go back inside when the 50 or so of us sang 'One Graham Taylor' to him, he looked round and promptly jogged over, hurdled over the hoardings and sat down amongst us for a chat. He was an absolute gent and had a laugh and a joke for 10 mins before concluding with 'right lads, you all behave yourselves today and get behind us, anyone got any final questions?'

'Yeah Graham, when are we going to fucking win?' came an enquiry.

'Today lads, today'

And we did, and kept on winning.

God bless him.

I was there and one of the lads who was in the crowd of six of us was a friend of a friend of mine called Wazzy from Castle Brom. He was the guy who shouted the question. Another one of the gang I was with got thrown out. He had travelled to the game strait from getting on a plane from holiday in Spain and before kick off threw up in his sombrero!

For what it is worth I remember it slightly differently to you. I don't recall Wazzy using the F word. I think he just shouted 'when are we going to win Graham'. Nev was sat with us so maybe he can confirm or deny.

[trevor fisher]

very sad news, but lets remember him as a very positive figure in our club and the football world. And if fools recall the abuse he had from the Sin and other Tabloid newspapers, they are beneath contempt. His record as a club manager is second to none, and talking about second that Is where he left us when he went for the England job.

Had he stayed, our history could have been so different. But he put us back at the top and we were there for years because of him. And he shares with Brian Little and Ron Atkinson a bond with the fans that other managers have neither had nor looked like wanting. He was always friendly and approachable, if only by email in later years.

My fondest memories is off the field, one pre season he held a meet the fans in the Holte Suite and brought along J Lloyd Samuel and Peter Crouch and other players. A lovely evening, and they came round the tables and talked to the fans. It felt that Villa was, while he was there, a real family.

So different to now. Au Revoir Sir Graham. A knight in both the legal sense and the chivalric sense. You were an honourable man.

[Risso]

Harry Harris, still in the gutter.

Why the fuck did R5 have that ****** on?

[kippaxvilla2]

Harry Harris, still in the gutter.

Why the fuck did R5 have that c*** on?

BBC innit.  Going down the pan fast.

[saunders_heroes]

Well what terribly upsetting news to hear of Graham's death, he was an absolute gent, and in my lifetime only Ron Saunders is ahead of him in the all time Villa managers list. He was honest, decent and bloody good in his job. He brought pride back to Aston Villa in '87 when we were rock bottom and I'll never forget that and I doubt any other Villa fan would either.
As an aside, my niece visits a respite centre for disabled people (in Sutton), and every year without fail Graham would turn up to hand out awards and watch the little plays and concerts they'd put on for parents and carers and generally be a good egg to all there. They all loved him because he had time for everyone and always had a good word of encouragement to say to people to give them a gee up.
Lovely man who will be missed. RIP Graham Taylor.

[Desi]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/12/graham-taylor-gordon-cowans

[MillerBall]

Sir Graham Taylor -  A fine and polite man who -was not afraid to make his points in a direct and firm manner
The article below was from the Telegraph.
 
FOOTBALL   
Alpay proves more trouble than he's worthy By Graham Taylor
12:01AM BST 25 Oct 2003
Patience finally ran out at Aston Villa this week when their troublesome Turk, Alpay Ozalan, commonly known in the dressing room as Alfie, was released from his contract. His spat with David Beckham during the Euro 2004 qualifier in Istanbul was, it seems, the final straw.


As his manager during my 15-month reign at Villa Park, I had become accustomed to having to deal with the differing moods of Alfie the person, but could never get to grips with Alfie the player simply because he was so rarely available for selection.

Before that crucial Turkey v England game earlier this month he saw fit to give an interview with a tabloid newspaper in which he was quoted as saying that I told lies about him and that I was too old.

I cannot do anything about the latter accusation, but rather than take legal action, I am going to try to explain what it really was like managing him and how difficult it is these days for a manager to handle a 'problem player'.

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I first saw Alpay play for the Villa in my role as non-executive director, when John Gregory was manager, and must admit to being reasonably impressed at his central-defensive partnership with the Swedish player Oli Mellberg. It was, however, noticeable that on some occasions Mellberg had to rescue Alpay from his poor positional play.

On becoming manager I did a check on the background of those players about whom I felt I needed more information. My Turkish informant advised me that Villa had paid Fenerbahce about £2 million more than was expected for the player. Alpay, he said, was a decent player but would never admit to any mistakes in a match being his fault. Oh, and he was inclined to make a couple of major errors each game.

Was that worrying? Not at the time, because Alfie had not played since being injured some three months previously. I thought I would have the time to assess him as a person, which for me is as crucial as to how good a player I may judge him.

In fact, almost as I took up the managerial reigns I was informed that Alfie had booked himself into a clinic in Munich because he was not satisfied with the treatment or diagnosis of his injury. Subsequently, the club's medical staff presented me with Alpay's day-to-day diagnosis and treatment dossier.

As I was unable to meet Alpay due to his absence I authorised the physiotherpist Jim Walker to go and spend a week with the player at the clinic to observe what type of treatment he was receiving. At the end of the season, Alfie would claim that no one from the club had shown an interest in him when he was in the clinic and that he had paid £25,000 of his own money in medical fees.

In contract negotiations after the World Cup the club agreed to pay his fees, even though he had gone without their authority. Understandably, though, they would like the invoices for the fees. To my knowledge no such invoices or medical reports have been presented to Aston Villa.

There was rumour that the Turkish FA had both paved the way for Alpay to attend the clinic and looked after the expense in their endeavours to have him fit for the World Cup.

Consequently I only saw Alpay on two or three occasions in the latter part of the 2001-02 season. One of those was when he informed the club's press officer that he would be returning to the club for the last home game of the season against Southampton. Please announce that on the club's website, he requested.

He duly turned up. He ran the customary end of season lap of honour with the other players, kissing the club crest on his blazer.

He seemed happy and proclaimed himself fit and so, as we had one remaining away game at Chelsea, we agreed that he would report to the training ground on the following Tuesday to prepare for the possibility of him making an appearance, even if only as a substitute.

The next time I saw him was in Hong Kong where he was playing for Turkey in a mini-tournament in preparation for the World Cup. Through the Turkish officials I arranged a meeting with him and asked him why he had not reported to the club as agreed.

His reply was that he had told Jim Walker he would not be coming, and that I must understand that this World Cup was a of crucial importance to him and that he had not wanted to risk being injured against Chelsea. Jim Walker knew nothing of the so-called conversation.

I watched Turkey play all their World Cup games. I saw Alfie get sent off against Brazil and then listened to the announcement of him being nominated in a best World Cup squad.

Turkey were in the World Cup finals for only the second time and had reached the semi-finals. A magnificient achievement and one where football politics at this level meant there had to be a Turkish player in the World team. There were too many good forward players from other countries. Not too many outstanding centre backs, though I would still put Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell ahead of Alfie, but England had been knocked out at the quarter-final stage.

Now the problems really started. In the World Cup XI and with Pini Zahavi as his agent, who could really blame Alfie for thinking that the next club was Real Madrid, Juventus, Barcelona, or AC Milan? Forget Aston Villa, even though there were still two years left on his contract.

Surprisingly, I did have some sympathy for him. Even though he was 29 at the time and not the most mature person. Who would not be thinking along those lines? Whispers in his ears promising massive financial rewards would indeed be hard to resist.

Where did this leave Aston Villa? With a player who was convinced he was getting a move to a bigger and better club and that this would happen before the August transfer window closed.

I have to say that as his manager I was fervently hoping that a club would come in for him as I had witnessed his attitude before and after the World Cup and was not convinced that he was reliable as a person off the pitch or as a player on it. These are decisions that managers have to take and we do not get them right all of the time, but I was not prepared to tolerate Alpay's lack of commitment to the club.

Understandably the Villa chairman, Doug Ellis, would not make public the asking price, but it was being made abundantly clear by Alpay and his representatives that as the transfer market had collapsed Villa should not expect to get back the £5 million-plus that they had paid Fenerbache. Try explaining that to Doug!

As the days passed and no club came in for him, it was intimated that Alfie would not be averse to considering improved financial terms in a new contract. So Villa were now in a position of either selling Alpay at a reduced fee or giving him a new contract on better terms.

By the time the transfer window had closed there had not been one offer for the player and all my media comments seemed to have revolved around Alpay. This was to continue for pretty well the rest of the season.

I was not prepared to be reliant on Alfie and signed Ronny Johnsen on a free transfer knowing that a fit Ronny and Oli Mellberg would be the best centre-back pairing in the club.

The number of meetings and phone calls with Alpay and his representatives - and the latter changed on numerous occasions as the season went on - did little to persuade me that anything but a move for the player was the right thing for everybody.

But there had to be a buying club for that to happen. The accusation was that Villa were pricing him out of the market. That was not true. As far as I was aware no club had put in a bid for him and I am sure the chairman would have told me if he had received one.

The situation was dragging everyone down and unfortunately Alfie's training began to turn for the worse. In small-sided games he would play in a wide position, showing little real interest and from being at the front in certain training sessions he began to appear at the back. All the signs of a 'problem player'.

When he was away on international duty it was a standard joke with the Villa coaching staff that I would have more calls from the media in the week because he would be sounding off in the belief that what he said abroad would not come back to England. He still does that.

There is one national journalist who sat next to him on a flight, explained who he was and did an interview with him. Later Alfie denied that he had spoken to him.

He would give you the charm offensive and probably then a denial of what he was supposed to have said. Then his story would change two or three times. Hard to follow, believe me.

There was no real problem in the Turkey game until Alpay's reaction to David Beckham's penalty miss. Only those involved know what happened in the tunnel at half-time, but would any of that happened if Alpay had not been so silly?

I gave him one final chance to ressurect his career with the Villa by playing him in an away game at Charlton, but the reaction by a large section of the Villa supporters told me that even they had enough.

My problem was that I could not convince Ellis to move him on for next to nothing, and yet all the time his actions were eating away at the standards and values I was expecting from the other Villa players, especially the younger ones. We needed Alpay and a couple of other players to leave, but Doug found it impossible to cut his losses. The problem of being a public limited company and not just a football club perhaps?

It is extremely difficult for a club when dealing with a 'problem player' because there is little disciplinary action they can take and what they can do has little effect on the player's circumstances.

In Alfie's case he was not prepared to play in the reserve team and to be truthful it would not have been beneficial for the younger players if he had played as his attitude was not right. They deserved better than that.

I have managed hundreds of players throughout my career and it is impossible to get on well with everyone. There will always be problems, but Alfie was a major disappointment to me because he just could not be trusted.

I never knew from one day to another what he was going to say or how he was going to act or indeed whether I would get another message that he was ill and could not report for training. That meant yet another visit by the club doctor.

Alpay is a proud man and, on many occasions, a friendly man and I have not liked what has happened to him. But I feel sorry for Villa and for the chairman. And as is usual it is the supporters who have been let down.

Kissing the badge means nothing. It should not be necessary. Players should show supporters how much they care by how they play and by how they conduct themselves. And if Alfie had come back from the World Cup intent on showing the Villa supporters what a good player he was, then he might just have got the transfer he was after.

Now, in extraordinary circumstances, he has got his wish

[PeterWithe]

I've told this before but....

We had a bad start to the last relegation season (87?) and hadn't had a win as we travelled to Leicester, we got off the train at around midday and, in those dark days, the Old Bill didn't fancy a load of Villa fans in Leicester City centre and promptly frog marched us to the ground about two and half hours early. We sat down bored and a few Villa players eventually appeared and started to warm up, after a bit SGT popped his head out and was about to go back inside when the 50 or so of us sang 'One Graham Taylor' to him, he looked round and promptly jogged over, hurdled over the hoardings and sat down amongst us for a chat. He was an absolute gent and had a laugh and a joke for 10 mins before concluding with 'right lads, you all behave yourselves today and get behind us, anyone got any final questions?'

'Yeah Graham, when are we going to fucking win?' came an enquiry.

'Today lads, today'

And we did, and kept on winning.

God bless him.

I was there and one of the lads who was in the crowd of six of us was a friend of a friend of mine called Wazzy from Castle Brom. He was the guy who shouted the question. Another one of the gang I was with got thrown out. He had travelled to the game strait from getting on a plane from holiday in Spain and before kick off threw up in his sombrero!

For what it is worth I remember it slightly differently to you. I don't recall Wazzy using the F word. I think he just shouted 'when are we going to win Graham'. Nev was sat with us so maybe he can confirm or deny.

Well it was thirty years ago and the basic jist is there. As it happens I was thinking about this earlier and one of the lads I was with was from Castle Brom or Smiths Wood. I didn't really know him well, just from down the match, I can't mind his name but he was an Indian/Pakistani kid a few years older than me who biked everywhere.

[Rigadon]

A genuine, principled man.  RIP

[footyskillz]

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/graham-taylor-aston-villa-letter-12446790

[SoccerHQ]

Had a look on Watford's twitter to see their respect to SGT and noticed they've put a book of condolences at the club for people to leave their messages....Troy Deeney was pictured.

Anyone know if we've got any plans to do this. Would be lovely for the Taylor  family to read given the stories posted on here and elsewhere.

[Broadlee]

It's not often that I contribute with comment here but I do read the pages daily. It seems a long time ago now but I ran a football team in Birmingham, had my coaching badges and through the county FA got involved with professional clubs. Villa was and will always be my team, however I recall with great affection an evening at Villa park, I had my 7 yr old son with me and we were walking back to the car passing the old entrance to the offices via the north stand out strode Mr Taylor, he walked past one of the Clarke brothers who I think was trying to get a move to the Villa, and straight to my lad.
His warmth, enthusiasm and charm flowed from him as he crouched and spoke to my son, "do you want to be a player for this magnificent club son, .". I then remember him saying "work hard and you'll achieve all that you want" after a little while he draped his coat over his arm, shook my hand and walked off to his car. I'll never forget that night, and it summed him up to a tee. A lovely human being with no airs and graces and one who will sadly be missed. RIP
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