England boss who tackled Elton over his drinking - and joked he kept Diana off the front pages: As Graham Taylor dies suddenly, how he rose from Grimsby Town to football's top job

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All through his life, Graham Taylor retained a profound love of football. But never was it more sorely tested than when he reached the pinnacle of the English game as manager of the national team. 

Taylor, who died of a suspected heart attack yesterday aged 72, spent three years in charge of the England team during the early 1990s – but they could hardly have been more fraught.

They were characterised by inept performances by his players and led to England's humiliating failure to qualify for the World Cup Finals – and personal vilification of Taylor.

Taylor's incongruous but trusted companion on that miraculous odyssey with Watford was Elton John, who as the club's owner appointed Taylor to the managerial position in 1977

This inherently decent man was viciously caricatured in headlines that likened him to a root vegetable after his team lost to the Swedes. It was 'Turnip Taylor' (with a picture of his face superimposed on a turnip), 'Taylor's Dummies' and 'Norse Manure' (after defeat to Norway).

His reputation plunged so low that during a by-election in 1993, one fringe candidate stood on a 'Sack Graham Taylor' ticket.

At one point, the put-upon Taylor joked: 'I get letters from Princess Diana now and again, thanking me for taking her out of the headlines.'

His woes were compounded by his utterly misguided decision to allow a fly-on-the-wall television crew unprecedented access to him at work for a documentary.

The subsequent programme made riveting viewing as it graphically revealed the tremendous strain that he had to endure.

But by capturing Taylor's frustrations and foibles, particularly his repetitive, vacuous catchphrase, 'Do I not like that,' the film also demonstrated his unsuitability for the England job.

This inherently decent man was viciously caricatured in headlines that likened him to a root vegetable after his team lost to the Swedes

This was The Sun's front page after Taylor resigned as England boss after a disastrous spell in charge of the national team 

That negative verdict was confirmed by England's failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the US, prompting Taylor's departure amid a hurricane of abuse from fans and media criticism.

Yet it would be a gross injustice to define Taylor by that episode alone.

For he was also one of the greatest club managers that this country has produced, a brilliant motivator of men and a revolutionary thinker about football strategy.

During almost 30 years in the dugout, he proved that he could turn the most meagre resources into sporting riches. His alchemy was most clearly on display at Watford FC, when he took the lowly Hertfordshire club from the then Fourth Division to the dizzying heights of the First in just five years.

His incongruous but trusted companion on that miraculous odyssey was Elton John, who as the club's owner appointed Taylor to the managerial position in 1977.

The two men formed a remarkable bond over the next ten years, reflected in Taylor's comment: 'Elton and I were almost like brothers. I helped him because, whereas there were people around him who never spoke the truth, I told him what I thought.'

Once, he had the guts to confront Elton about his drinking.

He put a pint of beer on the table in front of the pop star and rebuked him by saying: 'You had better have that for your breakfast because you need alcohol to get going every day, don't you?'

It would be a gross injustice to define Taylor by that episode in charge of England alone

Taylor later recalled: 'Elton was a bit stunned and looked at me so seriously that I wondered if we were about to have a major falling out, but it seemed to register with him. If it wasn't a turning point, I think it made him address that aspect of his lifestyle.'

Such integrity and honesty were central to Taylor's personality, which was why he remained such a cherished figure in football, as shown by the flood of genuinely heartfelt tributes at his passing.

He was a true gentleman, imbued with compassion, restraint and decency – qualities forged by his modest Lincolnshire upbringing.

Whereas today's footballing world is dominated by stupendous wealth and has become a byword for self-serving greed, Taylor's life was a reminder of a very different set of values.

When he first played as a professional for Grimsby Town in the early 1960s, he was paid £10 a week, with a bonus of £4 for a win.

In later years – still with a boyish enthusiasm for the game – he sometimes uttered regret at the way cash had transformed the sport.

In 2010, he said: 'The fun has gone. It is all too serious now.

'There is too much money at stake to have a laugh.

'The link between the fans and the players is a thing of the past.'

His integrity shone through other aspects of his life.

His alchemy was most clearly on display at Watford FC, when he took the lowly Hertfordshire club from the then Fourth Division to the dizzying heights of the First in just five years

He stayed married to his childhood sweetheart Rita and showed the same devotion to his family as he did to the sport he adored.

Tellingly, he was also a stalwart worker for charities, including the British Legion, the National Deafblind and Rubella Association, and Lincolnshire House, which cared for people with cerebral palsy.

A grammar school boy, his playing career was cut short by injury. Famously, a referee in charge of a Grimsby Town reserve match involving a protesting young Graham Taylor reprimanded him and said: 'If you could play as well as you talk, you'd be an effing international.'

That spirit led to more than 1,000 matches as a manager – during which his attitude to life was: 'It's right and proper that you face people eyeball to eyeball.'

Despite challenging Elton John about his drink problem, Taylor was no moraliser.

He was an earthy, engaging, humorous figure, whose footballing passion was infectious and whose gift for communication was natural. This was why, latterly, he became such a popular pundit, especially on BBC Radio 5 Live.

It was perhaps natural that he should end up in that role, for football journalism was in his blood.

Born in Worksop in 1944, Graham Taylor was the son of a sports writer for the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph who penned his match reports under the pseudonym 'Poacher'.

When Graham was three, the family moved to a council house in Scunthorpe, and soon afterwards he became a pupil at the Henderson Avenue Junior School in the town. From the age of six, his dad took him with him into the Press box for games at Scunthorpe's Old Show Ground, where he acted as a timekeeper with a stopwatch to record the moment any goal was scored.

At school, not only did his instinctive authority lead him to be appointed head boy but his intelligence enabled him to pass his 11-plus and win a place at Scunthorpe Grammar.

The same pattern continued. He became a prefect, did well in his exams and was selected to play football for England's under-15s team. Taylor's ability at football meant that he left school before he sat his A-levels, much to the fury of his headmaster Mr McKay.

Taylor later remembered: 'He gave me the biggest b******ing I ever had. He said, 'Grammar schoolboys don't become footballers'.'

But the right decision was made. Taylor went on to play 300 times for Grimsby Town and Lincoln City before a hip injury forced him to retire in 1972.

His loquacity and fascination with tactics meant that a move into management was inevitable. At 28 years old, he became the youngest boss in the Football League, though he struggled at first.

Typically honest, after he had been sacked, Taylor spoke philosophically about the way that the England football team was no longer considered by fans to be their priority as their loyalty to clubs was stronger

His team, Lincoln City, went 11 matches without a win.

The experience, he later said, was worse than that as England manager, with chants of 'Taylor out' echoing around his home ground. 'I was 28, I had a mortgage and two kids under four. Now that is pressure.'

But he turned Lincoln's form around and soon won them promotion, an achievement which brought him to the attention of Elton John.

Watford had been considering the appointment of World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore as manager, but England boss Don Revie, a shrewd if morally flawed assessor, said that Graham Taylor would be the wiser bet.

Elton John followed this advice and Graham Taylor's journey to footballing greatness began.

Apart from his good man-management skills and his strong relationship with the chairman, the other secret of Taylor's success at Watford was his pioneering use of the 'route one' style, whereby his team aimed to get the football into the opposition goalmouth as quickly as possible – rather than indulging in intricate midfield passing. Purists loathed this approach, condemning it as primitive and graceless, but it served Watford brilliantly.

Taylor also subsequently deployed the method at his next club, Aston Villa, from 1987 to 1990 before taking on the England job.

As his critics predicted, Taylor's long-ball style did not work nearly so well on the more sophisticated international stage.

His tenure lurched from one disaster to another – from rows with referees to an infamous defeat by the unheralded US team in 1993.

Typically honest, after he had been sacked, Taylor spoke philosophically about the way that the England football team was no longer considered by fans to be their priority as their loyalty to clubs was stronger.

'I went into that job with some naivete. Because I come from Scunthorpe and followed them as a lad, the big club to me was always England, they were the most important team in the country. I can't understand why any English people don't see it like that.'

Looking back at those turnip jibes, he said that they became a licence for abuse.

'If somebody puts a turnip on your head, it gives an impression to people of a certain intellect that they can treat you like anything.

'And there were a couple of incidents where that's happened, by people who've had too much to drink, want to eff and blind, spit at you or throw beer over you, because The Sun newspaper's given the impression they can do that to this fella.

'Don't tell me that's just a joke. Then when the sub-editor who had the idea of Turnip Taylor retired, I was invited to present him with a mock-up newspaper at his farewell party. What? I declined.'

After he left the England job, he had further spells in management at Wolves, Watford and Villa. His eagerness was undimmed.

'I can't give football up and I don't want to,' he said in 2002 on his return to Villa.

Tragically, though, he'll always be remembered for the TV documentary, so accurately titled An Impossible Job, and his expletive-littered despair on the touchline.

The fires of devotion were never extinguished while he was alive. But sport yesterday lost one of its keenest champions.