I’m very sad to see that Graham Taylor has passed away at just 72.

I got to know Graham during the 1993 U.S. Cup in Boston when I was working as the press officer for the venue, and England came out to play the USA and lost 2-0. The scoreline may not have reflected it, but it was a real sound thrashing and the tabloids in England were particularly unkind to him.

But I met him and his wife Rita around that time socially as well as professional, and a nicer man in football you will not meet. He was a total gentleman, and even though there must have been a lot going on in his mind with what was being written about him in that period, he was always gracious.

The England part of his life was unfortunate, because there was so much more to Graham Taylor than just what happened when he was the England manager. He was an innovator.

He did things with clubs like Lincoln City and Watford that if you were to go back now and read about them now, you would be struck by how big an achievement it was to do what he did back then.

I don’t know if people in Scotland knew the real Graham Taylor all that well, because television programmes tended to be very unkind to him. But I’ll just remember the man I met in Boston and who kept in touch with us in that Boston office.

And while the England years were not particularly memorable years for him and he was criticised for his style of play a lot of the time, I think there was a really bright football man there, and that came out particularly well on radio which I feel was a medium that suited him.

I think he was a very good broadcaster. He saw the game very well and he had his own views.

He was somebody who always put football first and it is really sad. He has left this world far too young.