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Watford Forever: How Graham Taylor and Elton John Saved a Football Club, a Town and Each Other Audiobook
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The unforgettable story of Watford Football Club’s seemingly impossible rise from the Fourth to the First Division, led by the unlikely duo of Hornet’s manager Graham Taylor and rock star–turned-owner, Elton John.
Long before English soccer became an American passion, Watford Football Club—a team located in a working-class industrial town that time and prosperity had passed by—languished at the bottom of the English Football League. Despite their pitiful record, the club enthralled a local boy by the name of Reginald Dwight, who began attending games with his father, an avid fan, in 1953.
More than twenty years later, having shed his given name, Elton John had become the most successful rock star in the world. With his six-inch platforms, spangled jumpsuits, and peroxide-colored hair, Elton was glamorous, gay, and seemingly a universe away from the village where he had supported Watford FC, yet his boyhood love of Watford and its dogged players remained. When tempted to buy the sputtering team in 1976, everyone begged Elton not to invest, but they were his team, as they were his father’s, and he refused to believe that Watford was beyond redemption.
Watford Forever, then, is the remarkable account of Elton John’s ownership of Watford FC, and its transformational journey to the top of the First Division under iconic manager Graham Taylor, who was, in the words of award-winning journalist John Preston, “as traditional as Elton was unconventional.” Inspiring, funny, and ultimately heartrending, this is a tribute to soccer’s unlikeliest duo as Elton and Taylor—a straight-talking former fullback with literally no interest in rock music—both beat the odds and their personal demons to save a club and a community.
Immersed in the grit of Seventies Britain, Watford Forever tells the story of this “indissoluble bond,” revealing how the power of sports and respect for the “other” brought about a reclamation whose reverberations can be felt to this day.
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About the Authors
John Preston was a pioneer in the early gay rights movement and publishing initiatives and the author or editor of more than twenty-five acclaimed books. Along with the Black Berets series, he wrote numerous entries in Gold Eagle’s Soldiers of Barrabas series under the pseudonym Jack Hild. As Preston McAdam, he wrote the three books in the Michael Sheriff: The Shield series.
Sir Elton John, CBE, is a multiaward winning solo artist who has achieved thirty-eight gold and thirty-one platinum or multiplatinum albums, has sold more than 300 million records worldwide, and holds the record for the biggest-selling single of all time, “Candle in the Wind 1997.” In 2018 he was named the most successful male solo artist in the Billboard Hot 100 chart history, having logged sixty-seven entries, including nine #1s and twenty-seven top 10s. He launched his first tour in 1970 and since then has performed over 4,000 times in more than eighty countries. When not recording or touring, he devotes his time to a number of charities, including his own Elton John AIDS Foundation, which has raised over $300 million and funded programs across four continents in the twenty-four years of its existence. He is married to David Furnish, and they have two sons. Me is his first and only official autobiography.
About Alex Jennings
Alex Jennings is an award-winning narrator and actor of stage and screen. He has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. He is also known for his role as Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, in the Netflix series The Crown, along with his roles in The Queen, Lady in the Van, and The Wings of the Dove. He is a three-time Olivier Award winner and has been nominated for a BAFTA.