First viewed : Uncertain
Cutting Edge started in 1990 as Channel 4's main documentary strand and remains so. It's more than likely I caught some of it before but the first one I definitely remember is, by far, the most famous episode in the programme's history.
Graham Taylor : An Impossible Job ( 24.1.94 )
England manager Graham Taylor had always cultivated good relations with the press from his days at Watford and clearly enjoyed his reputation as the media-friendly manager. As England manager he was clearly rattled by the negative press after the unimpressive showing in Sweden in 1992, from people he thought were his mates. This was probably behind his calamitous decision to allow the Cutting Edge team to do a fly on the wall documentary about England's qualifying campaign for the 1994 World Cup. This included wearing a wire at matches so the programme-makers could catch all his tactical instructions and pearls of wisdom.
As a portrait of a man slowly drowning having bitten off more than he could chew the documentary is unsurpassed. The narration is minimal, letting Taylor verbally hammer the nails into his own coffin. Things just go from bad to worse with Taylor's tactics becoming increasingly hard to follow particularly the instructions he gives Nigel Clough coming on as a substitute in one of the games.
It all builds up to the crucial match away to Holland. We see the pre-match press conference where Taylor is desperately pleading with journalist Rob Shepherd to be more optimistic. During the game itself Taylor completely loses it when the referee fails to send Ronald Koeman off for a professional foul on David Platt. His anger is understandable but the way he chose to express his frustration at the end of the game invited nothing but contempt , going up to the linesman and saying "I was just saying to your colleague, the referee has got me the sack. Thank him ever so much for that, won't you ?" perhaps forgetting that it hadn't been the same official in charge of the games against Norway. What makes that footage even more remarkable is that Taylor had an easy get-out option before the game. The Dutch FA wouldn't allow the Cutting Edge team to film in the stadium so Taylor dressed them in England tracksuits and gave them kitbags in which to hide their equipment.
Though he made a reasonably successful return to club management and worked as a pundit for Radio Five, Taylor's reputation never really recovered and his catchphrase "Do I not like
that ?" followed him to the grave. It didn't do his cohorts any favours either. Lawrie McMenemy tried to stay out of shot as much as possible and seemed to offer little beyond surly statements of the obvious while Phil Neal's sycophantic agreement with everything Taylor suggested made him a target for almost equal derision. Apart from punditry work. he hasn't had a real job in the game since 1998.
I have wondered since how else was in the frame to take over from Bobby Robson? Presumably Clough's drink problem was an open enough secret to rule him out... Venables, perhaps. It's hard to think of many other contenders, at least from the pool of English managers. Not much changes!
ReplyDeleteWhilst England were hard done to by the non-sending off of Koeman (who went on to score, of course), the San Marino goal seconds after kick off in the subsequent game seemed to sum up the whole Taylor regime. Well, that and Carlton Palmer being a regular for a couple of years!