To help celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Watford’s move to Vicarage Road, Daily Mirror sports writer Mike Walters recalls his encounters with those who have occupied the Hornets’ hotseat.
Forty-one years ago this month, a provincial club which had spent its entire existence below stairs burst through the skylight.
And on the following Saturday, BBC Match of the Day cameras came to Vicarage Road to capture the promotion after-show party as Watford put Leicester City to the sword.
Reaching the penthouse, only five years after he swept into Hertfordshire with the Hornets in Division Four, was down to a single man. He was such a brilliant manager, and such a spectacular human being, that Sir Elton John even named his album A Single Man in his honour.
Graham Taylor didn’t just build a wonderful team in which four players - Steve Sherwood, Ian Bolton, Ross Jenkins and Luther Blissett - surfed the wave in all four divisions. And he didn’t just build a football club which became the hub of its community and a shining light for safe, inclusive family entertainment in an era of hooligan scourge elsewhere.
As someone who grew up in an era of unimaginable excitement in this neck of the woods, sustained by promotions, cup runs and an intravenous feelgood factor, Taylor changed the outlook of a whole town.
If you didn’t listen to your parents or your teachers, you would always do as Taylor asked because we followed him, we trusted him, we believed in him.
You always remember your first encounter with greatness, and mine was four years before I even learned my first shorthand squiggle and started scribbling notes for a living.
On a Monday lunchtime, Taylor came to address the pupils at Watford Grammar School, and the hall was a lot busier than it ever was for morning assembly.
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When the bell rang, most of us skipped lunch and took our seats to await GT’s sermon. Some of us wore our Watford scarves - against school dress code regulations but in tune with the occasion.
The deputy headmaster, who didn’t seem to know about the imminent visit of football royalty, began to confiscate them until a valiant classmate protested that Graham Taylor was on his way, and (quite rightly) the impounding of yellow, black and red fashion accessories was aborted.
To be honest, I can’t remember much of what Taylor said - but I do remember the French and Latin tutor who provided glorious mid-sermon entertainment by venturing out of the staff room with his cello on the way to chamber orchestra practice.
In truth, I should have been playing the violin that Monday lunchtime, too, but with Graham Taylor in the house? No thanks, I’m listening to GT.
Those of us who lived through Taylor’s decade of rule at Vicarage Road from 1977-87, and the messiah’s second coming from 1996-2001, will always be thankful for his influence on our lives as much as the miracles he procured on the pitch.
Look around the ground now, and his influence is everywhere: Reminders of a golden era when Watford players didn’t just represent their club with distinction - they represented us.
Look at that mural of the great man on the end gable of a house owned by Cornerstone Church as you approach the stadium from the hospital next door.
And look at the artwork on the walls of that subway under the ring road. Golden memories, every one.
There’s only one Graham Taylor.
