Watford Forever by John Preston with Elton John, review: Shows us a different side to the pop star

They were a most unlikely pair. Elton John, the flamboyant, gay, drug and drink addicted multi-millionaire, who happened to be earth’s best-selling pop star. And Graham Taylor, the Vera Lynn fan whose idea of a good time was to take his wife Rita and their daughters on caravanning holidays.

They bonded over one thing: Watford FC. In 1977, Watford were marooned in the basement of English football when John, the childhood fan who had become chairman, enticed Taylor – whose undistinguished playing career was ended by injury, before his remarkable work at Lincoln City transformed him into a coveted manager – to a crumbling club whose scouting department consisted of one man. A 95-year-old man.

Entwining sport, music and social history, the absorbing Watford Forever is masterfully judged, saccharine-free, true-life fairy tale, which showcases another side of Elton John: tender, practical and as eager to please as he is willing to learn.

The book is written as “a collaboration with Elton John”, so his children can “learn more about a comparatively little-known side of Elton’s life”, according to author John Preston, writer of A Very English Scandal and the Robert Maxwell biography, Fall. With Preston’s access to the star, Watford Forever could have been John-centric, but as befits a partnership of equals, he and Taylor are accorded equal weight.

It details how, in just five giddy years, rocket man and football man guided Watford to the highest level, for the first time in the club’s hitherto mundane history. But it’s really about the relationship between the two men.

Taylor had never knowingly met a gay man before his chairman, but even back then, when homophobia was rampant, homosexuality was never an issue. “We never talked about it, not once,” insists John.

For all his naivety, Taylor had instinctive sympathy for the underdog and couldn’t grasp how anyone could be abused for their sexuality, as John was, openly by fans across the land and, more covertly, by other clubs’ board members. John laughed. Taylor didn’t.

Away from Watford, John was surrounded by yes-men and sycophants. But, while John was a football maven and a hands-on owner, he deferred to Taylor, a man with no interest in John’s day job. “I always felt Graham loved me for who I was,” says John, explaining the key to their partnership, which was strained only twice.

The first time involved John forging Vera Lynn’s autograph and presenting it to Taylor – a childish prank. The second, when Taylor caught John having brandy for breakfast before a board meeting, was altogether more serious. Taylor’s lengthy rant (“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”) and acute sense of disappointment changed John forever. “He saved my life. I had to become the person that Graham thought I was capable of being”.

These two men, so very different, delighted in each other’s company. John would pop round to the Taylors’ suburban house where Rita would cook them shepherd’s pie and rhubarb crumble. Rita unsuccessfully attempted to ban them from talking shop, but they shared a vision of football as a game to thrill and delight.

They both revelled in their incognito scouting trips and they were both desperate to bond their football club with the community from which John came.

For all its merits, Preston’s CV is light on football and his lack of football knowledge betrays him occasionally (he misspells Denis Law and seems unaware only one substitute was allowed in the Taylor/John era), but he’s the ideal narrator: empathetic, witty and unsentimental.

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And he’s a master of detail, such as the fan who sent Taylor a letter of complaint. Taylor invited him for a drink. The men became such firm friends that when the fan married a few months later, Taylor was best man.

It ended without rancour. In 1987 Taylor moved to Aston Villa, but he would still regularly drive back to Watford and “just sit in my car outside the ground”. Without Taylor, John sold up, although there was a brief, surprisingly successful reunion at Watford around the turn of the century.

Taylor died in 2017, but he lived to see one side of Watford’s Vicarage Road stadium named The Graham Taylor Stand. It faces the Sir Elton John Stand. This lovely book is an equally fitting tribute.

Published by Viking, £22