Great Sporting Docs

The Impossible Job

	The man in me really felt for Graham. Everything was going against him. Everything.

KEN McGILL - THE IMPOSSIBLE JOB        

“THE idea for The Impossible Job came, as they often do, when we were sitting in a pub getting drunk and talking about the worst jobs we could think of for a television series. We all agreed that the England manager’s job must be a pain in the arse, so we put it on the list. Eventually we got round to pitching it and found out that Graham Taylor was really interested so we thought OK, let’s pursue that. Graham then spoke to the FA, they said can’t see why not, and it was really that simple.

To be honest, the initial shooting we did with Graham was fairly dull. Nothing juicy was happening, so we decided that it would only really work if Graham agreed to wear a radio microphone in training and at matches. That’s when the film really starts. It helped that Graham trusted me and I him. Believe it or not, despite all the fallout we both came out of it honourably. Nobody turned anyone over.

People often talk about the Holland game in Rotterdam and I guess it is the highlight of the documentary. But that famous footage nearly didn’t happen. We got notice that we hadn’t been given accreditation from the Dutch FA and even though we had asked the FA to get involved we still hadn’t any luck. Anyway, we were at the England hotel and the team were about to leave for the ground and I was there thinking that the whole film was going to be in pieces. It was panic stations. At about 5.30pm I went to Graham Taylor’s room with my crew and knocked on the door. Graham answered the door. I said ‘Graham, I am in the shit here’ and explained the situation and he just ‘bollocks to that’ and sent Fred Street off to get some tracksuits and kitbags and bring them back to the room. So then you have the scene of me, the Scottish director, my Scottish cameraman and my Irish sound recordist putting on England tracksuits and shoving all the cameras and sound mixers in these England kit bags. Then we got on the bus with the team and went to the ground. When we got off the bus, the team went one way to the dressing room and we spotted our chance and went the other on to the pitch.

As it all unfolded that night, the director in me said this is great, but the man in me really felt for Graham. Everything was going against him. Everything. Of course, it culminated in the decision not to send Ronald Koeman off for his foul on David Platt and England’s eventual elimination.

The press and football lot gave him a lot of grief over the show but the public actually liked him I think. He’s funny, he’s intelligent, he’s erudite and he writes well. And I think most people now realise that as a person and a manager Graham Taylor really wasn’t that bad. When the programme was broadcast he got a huge postbag of letters to his house. He got something like 1500 letters and only three were negative. Graham being Graham, though, then phoned each of those three people - ‘Hello I’m Graham Taylor, I believe you’ve got a bit of problem’ at which point their jaws hit the deck and they don’t know what to say.”