Graham Taylor
Graham Taylor OBE (born 15 September 1944, Worksop, Nottinghamshire) is a football manager and a former player. He is best known as the manager of the England national football team, as well as being manager of Watford, a club he took from the Fourth Division to the First in the space of five years.Taylor grew up in the industrial steel town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire. The son of a sports journalist with The Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph, Graham found his love of the beautiful game in the stands of the "Old Showground" watching Scunthorpe United.
The style of football his teams played was often criticised by purists as being focused on the 'long ball' style of getting the ball quickly to physically powerful forwards, although he also liked to play with skillful wingers, who could beat defenders, hit the byline and produce dangerous crosses into the opposition's penalty area. In this respect, John Barnes was perhaps the archetypal Taylor player. Although viewed as being aesthetically unattractive by the often losing opposition, Taylor's style proved incredibly successful in terms of club football, although less so when applied to the more composed pace of international football.
His most recent managerial role was manager of Aston Villa, which he left at the end of the 2002-03 season. Taylor now works as a pundit for BBC Radio Five Live.
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