Watford Forever

If John Preston hasn’t already sold the film rights to this book, he surely will soon. Watford Forever is the heartwarming story of the collaboration and friendship between English football’s oddest couple, Elton John and Graham Taylor

Robert Crampton, The Times

A rollicking period tale of footballing success . . . Watford Forever teems with unforgettable images . . . from first to last, this is an ever-entertaining telling of a remarkable sporting fairy-tale

Declan Ryan, Daily Telegraph

Entwining sport, music and social history, the absorbing Watford Forever is masterfully judged, saccharine-free, true-life fairy tale, which showcases another side of Elton John

John Aizlewood, iNews

A warm and redemptive tale . . . packed with anecdotes, moments that skewer the times with economy and prevision. Plus endless laugh-out-loud yarns…as Preston tells [Elton John and Graham Taylor’s] story, it rattles along at page-turning pace….it reads, indeed, like the script of a movie

Jim White, Independent

The original football fairytale of a small club rising from the bottom to the top

Watford Observer

John bought his beloved Watford FC when it was near the bottom of English football, then carried it to glory in alliance with manager Graham Taylor — his polar opposite. The rock star collaborated with Preston, a skilled and versatile writer, for this English-odd-couple feelgood story

Financial Times

A wonderful, feel-good account of an ultimately English provincial story

Simon Kuper, The Spectator

It is hard to read Watford Forever without becoming overwhelmingly nostalgic . . . Preston burrows to the heart of what for a while Watford got so right

Simon Burnton, Observer

You don't have to be a Watford fan to enjoy this terrific book. It is about much more than the unlikely friendship between one of the most famous stars on the planet, who as a boy had loved being taken to Watford matches by his distant father, and the fiercely ambitious son of a sports editor who wanted, in his managerial achievements, to make up for an undistinguished playing career

Daily Mail