Do I Not Like That! England's Downfall Under Graham Taylor | Part One
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast. Co-hosts Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper continue on from last week’s episode with Jan Fjortoft to delve into how things went wrong for Graham Taylor during his time as England manager. In this first part of a three part series on Graham Taylor (following our episode with Fjortoft) we take a look at the high of Italia ’90 to the early warning signs of Graham Taylor’s troubled England reign, setting up the wider story of his eventual downfall. Central to the episode is Paul Gascoigne’s rise into “Gaza mania,” the off-field chaos and disciplinary problems that followed, including the 1991 FA Cup final knee rupture and subsequent setbacks. Taylor struggled to manage both the player and the circus around him. England qualified for Euro 1992 but drew twice, lost to Sweden and Taylor’s substitution of Gary Lineker became emblematic as tabloid ridicule culminate in a reputational collapse for Taylor.
01:05 The Impossible Job Era
07:39 Referees And Rotterdam
12:47 Italia 90 Reality Check
20:02 Gaza Mania Begins
25:31 Euro Qualifiers Begin
28:24 Ireland Away Selection
30:08 Taylor Press Tightrope
35:48 Cup Final Knee Rupture
41:46 Euro 92 Sweden Turning Point
42:55 Lineker Sub Controversy
47:50 Fitness Gap And Refuelling
49:32 Turnip Taylor Tabloid Sting
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm not saying Gordon Cowan's a better player than Paul Gascoigne. What I'm saying is in this |
| 0:13.1 | particular game, I picked the right side to meet what I knew would happen. It mattered that we |
| 0:18.4 | kept a clear mind when the onslaught was on. Well, welcome to it was |
| 0:23.4 | what it was. I'm Rob Draper. I'm with Jonathan Wilson. And that, of course, was Graham Taylor. |
| 0:29.4 | After England's one-one draw with the Republic of Ireland, a year in 1992, qualifier in Dublin |
| 0:35.1 | in November 1990. That game came just five months after an epic |
| 0:40.6 | World Cup for England, additionally in 1990 and defeat in a semi-final against Germany, a game |
| 0:46.6 | that had promised a great English Renaissance. And these are perhaps the first signs that that's |
| 0:51.4 | not going to happen. Today, we're in part two of our episode on, |
| 0:57.8 | well, really that iconic England-Norway game from 1993, but really the next three parts are |
| 1:03.4 | going to be about Graham Taylor's. England, we are huge fans of Graham Taylor on this show, |
| 1:09.4 | but this is probably his worst moment, his Nadir really. |
| 1:13.4 | But it's a really, really interesting period to look at how for a really smart, good |
| 1:18.1 | tactical manager, things go wrong under the spotlight with England. |
| 1:21.6 | And really, this is when the impossible job term for England gets coined. |
| 1:26.5 | So with Norway qualifying for the World Cup finals |
| 1:28.9 | and with England still not having won a trophy |
| 1:31.5 | and with the impossible job mantle |
| 1:33.6 | now, Pastor Thomas Tuchel, |
| 1:35.0 | we thought this was a really good time to go back and look at this |
| 1:38.4 | really fascinating period of English and Norwegian football history. |
| 1:42.5 | So part one today, we're going to go from Italian 90 |
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