# and i think it's gonna be along, long time. elton, lovely to see you. lovely to talk to you. congratulations on the book — i've thoroughly enjoyed it. there's something that's not in it. i came to watford with leicester city a long time ago, around �*79—80, and one of our players got a terrible gash in his leg and was carried off and had to have stitches in the dressing room and you went down to comfort him. do you have any memory of that? i don't. that was me. really? i don't. that was me. it was you? it was me. and you came down in the second half to see if i was all right, and that's something that's always stuck with me. and it was a very special moment, yeah. you've got the book, watford forever. why now? why are you doing that book now? i was approached byjohn preston, who wrote the book,

and said, "it's a really interesting subject" and i thought, "yeah, it has — i haven't really "talked about it" and i wanted to get my side of the story out because i think we weren't given enough credit for what we did. and also, i think when you read the book, it's about the sense of community that's not really in football any more — not in the top six or anything like that. it's gone from football a bit, but not with the lower clubs. but i just love that sense of community, and that's what football must never lose. you started your interest in football when you were very young. very young. your dad brought you here. yeah, my dad brought me here when i was about six, five or six. but i also used to sit on the touchline at craven cottage because my cousin, roy dwight, played for fulham in the same team asjimmy hill, bedford jezzard, johnny haynes, tony macedo. so, i grew up watching fulham a lot as well but this was my local team

and then, when roy went to nottingham forest, i just concentrated on this — this place. yeah. do you think that was the best decision? yeah, ido. chuckles i can't tell you how much this club has given me, so much pleasure. i get very emotional when i think about it because, you know, it was something i really don't think i've been, we've been given enough credit for. just apart from my career, this really sorted me out. i used to come here and it brought me back down to earth. and it was — it was an amazing achievement. but it was also, for me, it was a communal effort. and i find some of that missing a bit now in football. it wasjust, you know, you knew the names of everybody — the tea lady, the pitch, the guy who did the pitch, the groundsman — and people would say to me, "i'm not sure "about your new record. "i don't think it's as good as daniel" and they weren't being nasty, but it was — it was what i needed at the time. and i, you know, i lucked out by getting graham here. and in six years, we'd achieved what we wanted to achieve.

but i don't know if we actually thought we could achieve it. tell me about — i mean, graham taylor, obviously, he's a man that i played for, made me england captain — i'll be eternally grateful for him for that. how did you get him in the first place? how did that happen? um, well, there was talk of us getting bobby moore and i think i spoke to bobby, but the board of directors weren't keen on it. and muir stratford, who was one of our directors, he said, "there's a chap at lincoln city called graham "taylor and i think he's the best young manager" — and he was 28, i think, graham. you're getting somebody to close him down and then your other fellow that's coming is coming in there to support and make the angle. were you not put off by the fact that he was so young? not really. but i mean, he — i phoned him up and he was being chased by west brom and he was the name on people's lips and i said, "i'm eltonjohn. laughter. "i'm chairman of watford. "i would like you to be our manager". that's all it needs, surely! someone calls you and says, "i'm eltonjohn". basically! laughter

and to his credit, he came down and with rita, his wife, and sat down with me in my house in windsor, and i convinced him to be manager. but then, i think the thing that really convinced him was that bert millichip, of west bromwich albion, said, "what are you going there for? "you know, you're turning us down to go to that club." and i can see bert�*s point of view, absolutely. how did you sell the idea to him, then? because, obviously, he had other people that wanted him to go to their club. i don't know. we just clicked. it was like — i've had two great relationships in my life in football and music. bernie taupin came from lincoln. graham came from lincoln. it's weird. and it was one of the greatest moments of my life when he said yes because i really felt as if i'd done something outside of music that i never thought i could do. i convinced him that we would be in europe in six years. you convinced him ? yeah. cos normally, it has to be the other way round — the manager needs to convince the chairman. isaid, "listen, we've got to be in europe.

"you've got to be..." he sort of looked at me as if i was stark raving mad but we went on this great adventure. i remember first meeting him and saying to him, "what do you want?" and they'd finished seventh for two successive years in the fourth division. he said, "i want to go into the first division and europe". and what a stupid thing! but you see, the thing about it — that's what i wanted when i was at lincoln. now, perhaps i'd been stupid, but was i stupid? i couldn't get it at lincoln because i didn't have the financial backing. and i'm not saying i would have done but i didn't have the financial backing. but all of a sudden, i met a fellow who got the same stupid idea as i did as i had — that wanted to come from the fourth division into europe _ john motson: the fourth i division championship in 1978 was followed by promotion from the third a year later. three years after that, - watford became a first division club, runners—up. in their first season. in their second,| fa cup finalists.

commentator: ..coming in. this is quite miraculous what you did, wasn't it? there's a point where you're absolutely bottom of the football league... 92nd — yeah, 92nd. ..four divisions. and then, five years later, you were top. mmm, i know. second to — we were second at arsenal. we were — we did get to the top at one point and we finished second that year and it was an extraordinary, wonderful time of my life, which, you know, thank god i did this. it meant so much to me because it was part of my life, coming here when i was a young boy to two horrible stands and then, a dog track or a greyhound track. and when you do things together — and you know this — when you're playing in a team that clicks and you've got the people and then, you get the momentum, it's so thrilling. it's like doing a musical onstage that's successful, an album in a studio that's successful. it doesn't happen very often but when it does, you know, it's magical. would you prefer to have been a footballer? —— would you have preferred to have been a footballer? in my dreams. no, i... because i think we always want to be something else that we're not, possibly. no, i love football but i was, i was destined to be who i was because i loved music.

but the combination of the music and this was quite extraordinary. do you think there are similarities between the two? yeah, it's all about — it's all about momentum. you know, you get a band together like i had in the first place and then, we started doing shows. we went to america, played a show at the troubadour in los angeles to 300 people and it all took off. and then, the next two years, we just galvanised ourselves and traded in on that momentum that we had. and i think in anything, momentum is so important. adrenaline. and if you click and you — sometimes, you see it when leicester won the league, the premiership, it was one of the greatest moments, i think, in the history and you see... i agree. ..clubs like ipswich — no, it was — ipswich and you see chesterfield down there in the conference and you see them, the momentum they got. they lost out to one of the best matches ever — notts county and chesterfield last year in that play—off final was incredible — and this year, they're still there, they're at the top

of the league. you've got stockport going crazy, you've got notts county going crazy, wrexham going crazy. it's fabulous to watch that. and it's grassroots — it starts there. and if you have the right team, we did with graham and eddie plumley and bertie mee and tom walley — bless him — um, it was fun. it was like a yes! how did it come about being the owner and chairman of watford? well, first of all, i did a concert here with rod stewart to raise money for the club and i became a vice chairman. the chairman there was jim bonser, and i think he'd had enough of the abuse. coughs. and, you know, in those days, if you were chairman of a football club, you're a local businessman and that was it. you went to... it's changed a bit. ..grimsby, you got fish, you went to workington, you got potatoes or something like that. it was — it was lovely. and in the end, i made him an offer he couldn't refuse and i became a director and then a chairman. did you feel like you knew what you were doing at the start, running a football club? because it's quite

a thing, isn't it? it is. but i was so determined to do something other than what i'd been doing. it's totally different from what i do. in what i do, i'm surrounded by a lot of sycophants and, you know, it's a very weird business. but this was where i came from. i lived six miles up the road, i was born. you talked about the previous guy, he got fed up of it because of the abuse. did you — did you ever get any stick? i suppose it started and went so well that perhaps... i didn't get any stick at all. i got homophobic comments and that, which i laughed at and i expected that, so i wasn't coming in, "oh, how dare you?" i knew that i was setting myself — gay chairman of a football club. but everything i experienced like that was kind of done with humour and i always used to wave back at them. there were some really embarrassing moments which i can't go into but, no, i was determined. when i set my mind on something, i — you know, i wasn'tjust playing silly games.

i knew that i wanted to do this and we could do it. you were so determined. and obviously, you had a special manager. and a special relationship. yeah. that's very important. yeah. how did it work between the two of you? well, i used to love — because i'm on the outside, i used to love who he was interested in buying. we used to go on — we used to go and watch games together outside of watford, which was fun. we got locked in at rochdale. you got locked in? well, they wouldn't let — the crowds were so small, they wouldn't let them leave. so, we got locked in there but we stood on the terraces. for me, that was so interesting. what players are you looking at? what — who are you going after? did you involve yourself in that, or was it pure...? i talked to him about players. we talked about, "what do you think of this guy? "what do you think of that guy?" um, and then he'd say, "listen, i've got this player. "i need to buy him." and that was, "here's the cheque to get him." but he would never overspend on players. no. he never took advantage of money with me. he bought players that he

wanted to be a team. like, you know, if you weren't watford through and through, he would have you up against the wall. and i've seen him with players up against the wall, "play this. "you're playing for our club now." yeah, yeah. i've seen that side. yeah, i'm sure you have. laughter. there were four of the players that went right the way through, wasn't there, from the bottom of the fourth division to the top of the first? yes, i mean, rossjenkins, who we thought was, you know, a giraffe, who became one of the best centre forwards and one of the most underrated centre forwards in the league. and then, luther, of course, came through. played for england. and then, the first person he really bought was sam ellis, centre half. he said, "it all starts with a captain. "sam ellis is going to be my captain". he bought dennis booth, ian bolton, who was a fantastic ambassador for this club and a great player. he wanted players who would die for him and he got them. he played a certain way. very direct. he played a certain way but we were very attractive to watch. we had two amazing wingers, barnes and callahan, and luther blissett and rossjenkins up front

would have frightened anybody. and i just think that was a little unfair because, you know, you don'tjust win football matches — i get so fed up with playing out from the back sometimes, it's like everybody does it. even if they're not good enough to do so. yes! on occasions. he would have gone nuts. but, yeah, he would definitely... he would definitely have gone nuts. football has changed. yeah. football has changed. and the reason it's changed, i mean, you look out this window here and you see a playing surface that's perfect. you could not have played that way back then because most of the grounds, they were mud heaps. they were mud heaps by this time of the year. yeah. no, it's changed, and it's probably changed for the better and it's a privilege to watch some of these players play. it's incredible the way they play. but that was the time we were playing that and we got a lot of criticism for it. got a lot of snootiness thrown at us from certain clubs when we went to visit them because they thought we were a bit of a riff—raff. that bother you? yeah. or inspire you? yeah, absolutely. chuckling i remember beating arsenal 4—2 at highbury and i was so happy. yeah. were they particularly

pompous there? um, not really. um, but there was a certain — it only came with the london clubs. oh, really? not up north. i remember going to manchester united, beating them in the league cup 2—1 up there and they couldn't have been more gracious. they were fantastic. they were amazing, and liverpool... no, they were better up north than they were down here. who's the best player you've seen at watford? best player that i've seen at watford, john barnes. i thought that might be the answer. yeah. he was special, wasn't he? well, graham played him when he was 17, 16 years of age. hejust threw him in. i get crazy when they, you know, players get left out of clubs. i'm so glad cole palmer's in the english squad. he's like, this boy, he's only going to learn by playing with the better players. he's a good player anyway — very good player. play him. yeah. if he's good enough, play him. how is he going to learn if he doesn't learn? it's like when you get a young musician. go out there, play, play to a club with hardly any people in it. it'll give you the experience. you'll write better songs. it's just learning the game.

and did you socialise with — with graham taylor as well? yes, i went round to his house. it was a friendship — it seems you were very close. yeah, we socialised, we loved going round there and playing games. he was a dreadful loser, as i was, and rita was always a laugh. yes, i loved going round his house. and, yeah — we both came from similar roots. we both came from working class backgrounds at the same — you know, wejust clicked. he was — he was, he was terrifying sometimes. yeah, i can see he probably was sometimes. yeah. terrifying for you as well, or...? he was never terrifying towards me. but i saw him in action sometimes and i thought, "i don't want to get on the other side, "bad side of you." that's how football used to be, though. yeah, it used to be. you know, it's changed a lot now. people...| think all walks of life have changed. but he had great management skills as well. great man management skills. yeah. maybe rossjenkins would probably disagree with me. yeah, he was...he was something... he was of his time, and i hated the way he was treated

and called a turnip. and it hurt me very, very much. you're talking about the england time? yeah. um, you know, he was a good man. why do you think it didn't quite work for him with england? i think football was changing and that was the time it was changing. yeah. and we didn't really have the players that, you know, maybe that he could... no, at that stage, it was just after...there was kind of... you lost butcher and shilton and bryan robson... but then he was playing palmer, carlton... yeah. so we didn't really have, we had some great players, but it was changing and i don't quite know if he knew how to adapt to being the england manager. i think it really... i always felt that he... i think he should have played his way. i think he kind of thought, "can i play that way for england?" and i think hejust got stuck in the middle of the two things. he was stubborn. he was a good guy, though. he was a great... he was very stubborn, very good guy. a great guy. i mean, he's like my brother, and i have the greatest memories of him. and when he died, i was distraught. ijust couldn't believe it.

i'd only spoken to him a couple of days before that. very sad. what was the highlight of the watford. .. the fa cup final? though it didn't end well. the fa cup final is a conundrum with me, because looking back on it, i should have told graham, "i'm going in there "to talk to the dressing room, to talk to the dressing room "before the game", because in music you have tours and you have special things, like you play glastonbury or you play dodger stadium. there's always a highlight coming up and those things, you have to pull off. now, when we got to the cup final, i thought they played as if it was enough just being there. i would have gone in there and said to them, "listen, in football you don't get this very often. "in fact, it is very rare. you've got to go out "and believe that you can win this game." do you think they went out without that belief, it was just, "well, we've done well enough"? yeah, that's what i found, and i thought, i made a mistake. i should have said to graham, "let me go in there and have a moment," you know? "please." and ijust think turning up was enough. and... did you ever go in the dressing

room, have a word with them before a game, though? no, i went in the dressing room after the game. yeah. would that have been out of the ordinary, though, wouldn't it? would it... would graham have accepted it, do you think? um, i think he would have done, if i'd have had the courage. it made sense. looking back on it, it made sense. i've been there. i've been to the big occasions. these guys haven't. and it's like, "come on, don't be afraid, "you can win this." everton aren't the greatest team in the world, but they had old heads, they'd been there several times before, and i regret that. crowd sings abide with me the famous image of that final, of course, is abide with me, and you standing there with tears in your eye. very emotive. well, it's one of my favourite hymns of all time, anyway. and with the brass band, i've always cried at abide with me. it wasn't just because we were there... i've done it myself. ..it'sjust a wonderful piece of music. and with the brass band and everything like that, and the occasion, obviously. i was walking around on the pitch thinking, "god, we're in the cup final."

commentator: steven again. graeme sharp waiting in the centre. - and gray is closing in here. oh, and sherwood didn't collect! - and the goal is given. the challenger gray, - too much for the goalkeeper. everton are 2—0. merseyside are celebrating. we didn't handle it the right way, which is my fault, because i should have said to graham, "let me go in there and have a word with them." yeah. do you think it would have made a difference? yeah. yeah? absolutely. i can be quite...good at that. yeah, i'm sure. yeah. you're very, very successful... in your career, i've had an incredibly long career. the highlight of my career was glastonbury, which i never thought i'd play, and i had to go in there

and pull it off. i did pull it off because you have to. you don't get that opportunity very often. you were sort of the first "celebrity," shall we describe it, that really got involved in buying a football club. there are one or two now, of course, including the likes of david beckham, of course... yes, of course. ..at miami. miami, yes. and ryan reynolds and rob mcelhenney at wrexham, which is slightly different with it being a tv show as well. but it's great. it's great. and i phoned ryan when they got... they won and they got promoted, and ijust think it's fantastic. yeah. they're on the ride that i was on. it's slightly different because times have changed, but it's no more unexciting. it's so exciting for them. i bet they have more fun doing that than any movie they've ever made. yeah, quite probably. do you think it's become even more about the top six now, or do you still think there's a chance of someone doing something like watford did, like leicester did? of course, not that long ago, which for me was the biggest sporting miracle i can ever remember. well, it's not so long ago brighton were in the bottom division. yeah. i love them. i love brentford, i love brighton.

i've got a soft spot for fulham as well. i don't know, i get a little fed up with the top six all the time, but there are teams around like brighton and brentford who can give them a real go. yeah. and i love those kind of teams. i think they're brilliantly run. brighton's brilliantly run, brentford's brilliantly run. good — we need more teams like that. you need to be able to dream, you know that. yeah. you need...if you don't... we dreamt and so many other clubs dreamt, and they did it. look at swansea, they did the same as we did, shrewsbury town with graham turner, you know? they dreamt and they got to places where they never thought they would be. so the great thing in life is to be able to dream of being successful in whatever you do. but in football, yes, you can win and you can be there. you have an entitlement to be there just as much as anybody else. how much are you still involved with the football club? obviously you did sell it, i think it was in 1987. then you got it back and then you're, i think, life president, i'm sure? i'm life president.

sir stanley rous used to be the life president. did he? ithink...i prefer you, elton. elton laughs i go crazy every weekend. yeah. you know? weekends can be doom and gloom, especially recently. still? even now? it just ruins my life. i don't know about you, i've found as i've got older, the results seem to... you just think to yourself, "come on, you're a mature "old man now. " but it still affects your weekend. it gets worse. it does, doesn't it? it really gets worse. i think now within the club we've got valerien ismael as the manager, and what he's come in to do is trying to stabilise a club that's been firing managers left, right and centre. and the players, you know, i think because of the firings of managers, they lost their confidence. what did you make of that? i mean, it was like three or four a season at one point. oh, yeah. imean... madness, wasn't it? yeah, it was mad. yeah. it was mad. look at rob edwards. yeah. you know, he's gone to luton, which are our rival team, and he's doing very well. good luck to him.

i think he's come in and the board suddenly realise, or the owner realises, that you've got to have someone to stabilise, give them a period of time, which he's beginning to do, to get them to play without fear, to play with confidence and to have discipline, because the discipline here has not been good, and that takes a long while. so people are saying, "well, he played great football "at barnsley, he played great football at west brom." you have to give him some time. elton, it's been an absolute pleasure. thank you, gary. and lovely to see you again. and i'll show you the scar that you were... down in the dressing room, that point, at that time. thank you so much. thank you very much. fascinating. hello there. a few wintry scenes captured by our weather watchers on friday across parts of scotland, such as here in perth and kinross. but the severe frost will become a lot more widespread as we go into the start of next week, with the potential for some disruptive snow, too. where is that colder air? well, it's behind this series of weather fronts. across northern scotland on sunday, that chilly airjust spilling down from the arctic as we head through the start of next week across the whole

of the uk, with brisk and cold northerly winds blowing. so, lots of added wind chill to factor into the temperatures. but this is how we start off the day on saturday, with temperatures hovering just above freezing, a few pockets of air frost where we see the clear spells, a week weather front sinking southwards, bringing outbreaks of patchy rain into northern areas of northern ireland, north west england and north wales. to the north of the front across scotland, some winter sunshine, showers by the end of the day in the north ahead of the front across england and wales, variable amounts of cloud, but also some brighter spells, temperatures ranging between 5—8 degrees celsius. and it's more of the same, too, on saturday night into sunday morning. there will be some clear skies around at times. we'll start to see the northerly wind pick up, brisk across the northern isles with some snow showers for the north of scotland. but again, to start the day on sunday, most of our temperatures will be slightly above freezing. but then that colder air really starts to show its hand with some snow showers even to low levels across northern scotland, with this

feature just running down towards the north, further south as we head throughout the day. but we've still got the milder air with some winter sunshine across england and wales, 7—8 degrees celsius here. but on sunday night into monday, there is the risk of some snow and ice, with weather warnings in place across northern ireland and the north of scotland. that wind starts to really pick up — look at the squeeze on the isobars on monday into tuesday — so wintry showers towards north sea—facing coasts with this feature running across northern ireland into southern scotland and perhaps northern england. so, here, the snow risk will extend further southwards through the day on tuesday. and then we look to the southwest to see this weather frontjust moving its way further northwards. there is the possibility that as it bumps into the colder air, we could possibly see some snow across the south of england on wednesday, but it's still very uncertain, so my advice would be to keep an eye on the forecast. it will certainly be cold. there is the greater risk of some snow with some severe frosts by night.

terrifying for you as well, or...?

live from washington, this is bbc news. us president biden calls yemen's houthi forces a "terrorist" group following american and british air strikes targeting the iran—backed fighters after months of attacks on ships in the red sea. and voting has just begun in key elections in taiwan. it comes as china calls it a choice between war and peace for the island. plus, iowa braces for dangerous blizzard conditions with heavy wind and snow moving across the us state just days before voters take part in republican presidential caucuses.

hello, i'm sumi somaskanda. thank you forjoining us. we start with reports of new military action on the houthi movement in yemen. those strikes come a day after the us and uk led coalition attacks on locations across yemen. us officials say it's part of an effort to degrade the houthis�* ability to strike red sea shipping. president biden responded to reporters at a coffee shop in pennsylvania, where he gave his first on—camera statement about the strikes, calling the houthis "terrorists" and warning against more aggression in the red sea. inaudible. no, iran does not want a war with us. inaudible. i think they are. were the strikes successful last night, sir? yes. very — i don't think there's any civilian casualties — that's another reason

why it's a success. now, us officials sayjust under 30 sites were targeted,