Sir Graham Taylor

[eamonn]

Football is not really a game (not really a game anymore full-stop) - industry, marked by tales of altruism.
No doubt SGT would shake-off all the kind words for his multiple acts of decency to strangers as him just being a human-being but I think Pat Murphy put it nicely last night. ''He was always in danger of bringing the game into repute''. 

He must have had a bellyfull of it all when he decided to quit in 2003.
Makes me angrier thinking about that horrible podcast of Jimmy ''Bantz'' Bullard and one interview he did with Lee Hendrie (who I've always defended on here) and the pair of thick pricks laughing about a story of Hendrie acting the dick at a London hotel while SGT was in charge and a journalist, who was at the same hotel and witnessing the drunken larking-about in question, rang Graham (instead of printing a story falling in his lap, which in itself may have been because of the respect with which he held Graham) to tell him what his players were up to.

[ironmaidenmania]

Everything has already been said. Such sad news. RIP SGT.

[West Derby Villan]

Football is not really a game (not really a game anymore full-stop) - industry, marked by tales of altruism.
No doubt SGT would shake-off all the kind words for his multiple acts of decency to strangers as him just being a human-being but I think Pat Murphy put it nicely last night. ''He was always in danger of bringing the game into repute''. 

He must have had a bellyfull of it all when he decided to quit in 2003.
Makes me angrier thinking about that horrible podcast of Jimmy ''Bantz'' Bullard and one interview he did with Lee Hendrie (who I've always defended on here) and the pair of thick pricks laughing about a story of Hendrie acting the dick at a London hotel while SGT was in charge and a journalist, who was at the same hotel and witnessing the drunken larking-about in question, rang Graham (instead of printing a story falling in his lap, which in itself may have been because of the respect with which he held Graham) to tell him what his players were up to.

Pat Murphy put it nicely last night. ''He was always in danger of bringing the game into repute" - Fantastic quote

[Bottom Right 89]

1 day on still can't quite believe it but reading the stories on here gives me comfort. That one from Axl is fantastic, he was so generous with his time with supporters its amazing.

He had an impact on so many of us we really need to think how we can honour him appropriately. For me a statue or stand doesn't do him justice would like something more innovative, alive and in keeping with Grahams enthusiasm for the game and it's people. I'm sure with the right idea presented Dr Tony and the club would get behind it financially.

[joe_c]

It's weird, but far from the news sinking in and coming to terms with it, the more I read, the more upset I'm getting. And I was pretty upset to begin with.

As referred to by Bren'd earlier, this is the incident with Alan Green, copied and pasted from the Daily Heil to save you generating any clicks for them. I could swear Green's hissy fit was on air but I could be wrong.

Charles Sale: Home truths from Taylor anger Green

By Charles Sale for the Daily Mail23:02, 08 Sep 2009, updated 19:37, 09 Sep 2009

There has been yet another fall-out between 5 Live's maverick football commentator Alan Green and one of his colleagues - this time former England manager Graham Taylor.

The bust-up occurred during the Kazakhstan World Cup qualifier when Taylor, who has become a popular and respected member of the England media corps, was working alongside Green on the match coverage.

Green made an outlandish comment about wanting 'to shoot' those taking part in a Mexican wave in the stadium to which Taylor retorted, understandably: 'Sometimes you do say stupid things.' Afterwards Green admonished Taylor: 'Never, never call me stupid on air again.'

This provoked Taylor to tell Green - not before time - a few home truths about the way he treats fellow 5 Live team members. But having got that off his chest, Taylor offered a hand of friendship the following day, which was not accepted - sparking another Taylor managerial hairdryer in Green's direction.

Since then Taylor and his agent have had words with the 5 Live management about the former Watford and Aston Villa boss greatly enjoying his 5 Live work but just not needing the sort of confrontation he had had with Green, who last season refused to travel on the same plane as 5 Live presenter Mark Saggers - now working for talkSPORT.

Both Taylor and Green will be part of the 5 Live team at Wembley tonight for the World Cup qualifier against Croatia - but it's guaranteed any dialogue between them on air will be minimal.

A spokesperson for 5 Live, who have consistently turned a blind eye to Green controversies because he's always been an outstanding commentator, said: 'There is no problem between Alan Green and Graham Taylor, who work regularly and happily together.'

If you have any more tears to shed, Paul McGrath's reaction on Twitter yesterday may just the care of that.

https://twitter.com/Paulmcgrath5/status/819547959398432768

[Hookeysmith]

The tributes from all across football shows the esteem he was held in and bloody right too.

Has Platt said anything?  If ever a player was created by a manager it was Platty - he owed SGT for his career

[Small Rodent]

My first game of football was watching Lincoln City get promoted from the 4th Division. I was too young to know or even care who the manager was at the time. The start of a big journey for him.

[mattjpa]

For any H&V'ers that may still buy the Sun from time to time I thought it would be worthwhile posting this here. Taken from football365.com's mediawatch feature;

Is that an apology, then?
‘Golden Graham’ reads The Sun’s headline after the tragic passing of former England manager Graham Taylor at the age of 72.

‘He never bore grudge… even after this’ reads the secondary headline, pointing to The Sun’s own infamous headline of ‘Swedes 2 Turnips 1’ from 1993.

‘YOU HAD to admire Graham Taylor for his ever-so-English ability to look his tormentors, myself included, full on and never bear a grudge,’ writes former football chief Alex Montgomery, brought back for a special column.

‘It would have been so easy for him as England manager to snub papers like The Sun. Instead he chose to ignore what was a campaign to get him out of the job when his challenge for the 1992 European Championships failed so badly. That resulted in our classic headline above my match report.

‘As it turned out, Taylor always admired the headline that summed up his failure as England manager. It was penned by the great SunSport production journalist Dave Clement, an absolute master of the tabloid headline.’
Taylor did indeed admire that headline, but what Montgomery fails to mention is just how much The Sun’s subsequent coverage hurt Taylor. He was belittled, vilified and humiliated, mocked up as a root vegetable and given a moniker that would haunt him for the rest of his life. This was the worst strand of tabloid journalism: personal attacks to sell copy.

“The operation on my knee, goodness it hurt. It was the sort of pain people say they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies. I’m different, I would,” Taylor said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2013.

“I remember I met Kelvin McKenzie, who was the editor of The Sun at the time, and he told me I was being over-sensitive to complain about his paper calling me a turnip. He said it was a bit of fun. Well, I was at a match in Brentford several years later, making my way to my car after the game when I saw out of corner of my eye two yobbish-looking people coming out of the pub with a pint in each hand.

“They were shouting ‘there’s the effin turnip’ and they chucked the pints over me. If it wasn’t for the swift action of the Brentford security people, I reckon it would have been worse. Was that just a bit of fun, Kelvin?”

As for the ‘master of the tabloid headline’ Clement, Taylor wasn’t exactly enamoured. When Clement retired, The Sun crassly invited Taylor to present him with a special leaving present: an autographed copy of that headline. It was an invitation that Taylor rejected out of hand.

To not accept the paper’s guilt in Taylor’s struggles is one thing, but to turn the first paragraphs of your tribute to a kind, humble man into a self-celebration of your newspaper’s work really is quite another. Still, not the like The Sun to fail to reveal the full truth, is it?"

They really are the lowest of the low. absolute shithouses

[PeterWithe]

They've got some front, Classic headline my arse.

If that rag had only a shred of the dignity SGT had then a lot of families might have been saved a lot of heartache over the years.

[el león Benidorm]

For any H&V'ers that may still buy the Sun from time to time I thought it would be worthwhile posting this here. Taken from football365.com's mediawatch feature;

Is that an apology, then?
‘Golden Graham’ reads The Sun’s headline after the tragic passing of former England manager Graham Taylor at the age of 72.

‘He never bore grudge… even after this’ reads the secondary headline, pointing to The Sun’s own infamous headline of ‘Swedes 2 Turnips 1’ from 1993.

‘YOU HAD to admire Graham Taylor for his ever-so-English ability to look his tormentors, myself included, full on and never bear a grudge,’ writes former football chief Alex Montgomery, brought back for a special column.

‘It would have been so easy for him as England manager to snub papers like The Sun. Instead he chose to ignore what was a campaign to get him out of the job when his challenge for the 1992 European Championships failed so badly. That resulted in our classic headline above my match report.

‘As it turned out, Taylor always admired the headline that summed up his failure as England manager. It was penned by the great SunSport production journalist Dave Clement, an absolute master of the tabloid headline.’
Taylor did indeed admire that headline, but what Montgomery fails to mention is just how much The Sun’s subsequent coverage hurt Taylor. He was belittled, vilified and humiliated, mocked up as a root vegetable and given a moniker that would haunt him for the rest of his life. This was the worst strand of tabloid journalism: personal attacks to sell copy.

“The operation on my knee, goodness it hurt. It was the sort of pain people say they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies. I’m different, I would,” Taylor said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2013.

“I remember I met Kelvin McKenzie, who was the editor of The Sun at the time, and he told me I was being over-sensitive to complain about his paper calling me a turnip. He said it was a bit of fun. Well, I was at a match in Brentford several years later, making my way to my car after the game when I saw out of corner of my eye two yobbish-looking people coming out of the pub with a pint in each hand.

“They were shouting ‘there’s the effin turnip’ and they chucked the pints over me. If it wasn’t for the swift action of the Brentford security people, I reckon it would have been worse. Was that just a bit of fun, Kelvin?”

As for the ‘master of the tabloid headline’ Clement, Taylor wasn’t exactly enamoured. When Clement retired, The Sun crassly invited Taylor to present him with a special leaving present: an autographed copy of that headline. It was an invitation that Taylor rejected out of hand.

To not accept the paper’s guilt in Taylor’s struggles is one thing, but to turn the first paragraphs of your tribute to a kind, humble man into a self-celebration of your newspaper’s work really is quite another. Still, not the like The Sun to fail to reveal the full truth, is it?"

They really are the lowest of the low. absolute shithouses

Excuse of a newspaper. Read by Luddites and knuckledraggers without a shred of dignity between them.

[Chris Jameson]

My Dad just rang me to see if I'd heard the news and he reminded me of this story of great kindness and humility from SGT.

Ian, a friend had cystic fibrosis which meant although he was an avid Villa fan his condition wouldn't allow him to get to a game.  My Dad wrote to Villa, Steve Stride if he remembers rightly, to see if Ian could get along to Bodymoor Heath one day for a bit of a behind the scenes visit. Ian had several complications with his CF and wasn't expected to live into his 30s.

Graham Taylor replied personally to my old man (I'm now hoping somewhere at their home he's kept that letter, I did ask him!) promising to fulfil Ian's dream of meeting some players and watching them play & train.  Well, I can't even begin to describe what SGT ended up doing with Ian.  I know he spent the day at BH and was put up at The Belfry by Villa for a couple of nights with his family.  They were picked up on the Saturday and travelled with the team on a Flights coach to an away game, memory is failing, can't remember which one but we think it was Middlesborough.  Ian sat next to SGT all the way there and back, I've seen some old Polaroids of him playing cards with some of the players.  This meant Ian was away from his family for about 24 hours, CF sufferers need to be massaged and helped with dealing with the mucus build up in the respiratory tract & lungs.  Ian's Mum usually helped with this but SGT said if she showed him how to do it he'd make sure him and the physios dealt with it, she can have the day off.

Ian died about 6 months after that amazing experience.

SGT came to Ian's funeral, no mean feat considering it was in Surrey.  On Ian's coffin was a picture of him laughing and smiling with SGT.

Love this story and says all you need to know about the man.

Hope you don't mind Jon but put this on Twitter and people love the story. Notice one of the usual suspects who don't source where it's lifted from have picked up on it and it's going sort of 'viral'.

[olaftab]

Pat Murphy put it nicely last night. ''He was always in danger of bringing the game into repute" - Fantastic quote

And that would have meant a life time ban from football by FIFA.

[Lobsterboy]

I was too upset at hearing the news to post anything yesterday and having read 24 pages of tributes to the great man on here over my lunch break today can feel tears welling in my eyes again.

A lovely man, a great manager, a bloody decent human being - thank you for everything you did for Aston Villa

Rest In Peace Sir Graham Taylor x

[kippaxvilla2]

https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2017/01/13/bruce-on-taylor

Here is Brucie's tribute to SGT.  I started to fill up.  Even though he does that usual finishing off the journalists sentence habit.

[kippaxvilla2]

It's weird, but far from the news sinking in and coming to terms with it, the more I read, the more upset I'm getting. And I was pretty upset to begin with.

As referred to by Bren'd earlier, this is the incident with Alan Green, copied and pasted from the Daily Heil to save you generating any clicks for them. I could swear Green's hissy fit was on air but I could be wrong.

Charles Sale: Home truths from Taylor anger Green

By Charles Sale for the Daily Mail23:02, 08 Sep 2009, updated 19:37, 09 Sep 2009

There has been yet another fall-out between 5 Live's maverick football commentator Alan Green and one of his colleagues - this time former England manager Graham Taylor.

The bust-up occurred during the Kazakhstan World Cup qualifier when Taylor, who has become a popular and respected member of the England media corps, was working alongside Green on the match coverage.

Green made an outlandish comment about wanting 'to shoot' those taking part in a Mexican wave in the stadium to which Taylor retorted, understandably: 'Sometimes you do say stupid things.' Afterwards Green admonished Taylor: 'Never, never call me stupid on air again.'

This provoked Taylor to tell Green - not before time - a few home truths about the way he treats fellow 5 Live team members. But having got that off his chest, Taylor offered a hand of friendship the following day, which was not accepted - sparking another Taylor managerial hairdryer in Green's direction.

Since then Taylor and his agent have had words with the 5 Live management about the former Watford and Aston Villa boss greatly enjoying his 5 Live work but just not needing the sort of confrontation he had had with Green, who last season refused to travel on the same plane as 5 Live presenter Mark Saggers - now working for talkSPORT.

Both Taylor and Green will be part of the 5 Live team at Wembley tonight for the World Cup qualifier against Croatia - but it's guaranteed any dialogue between them on air will be minimal.

A spokesperson for 5 Live, who have consistently turned a blind eye to Green controversies because he's always been an outstanding commentator, said: 'There is no problem between Alan Green and Graham Taylor, who work regularly and happily together.'

If you have any more tears to shed, Paul McGrath's reaction on Twitter yesterday may just the care of that.

https://twitter.com/Paulmcgrath5/status/819547959398432768

In my opiniong Green is another despicable oaf.  And I don't get this fawning over his commentaries.  They are ok, that is all.