Jenkins savours his emotional return for Graham Taylor Matchday
The long blonde hair may be silver and grey, the tall body slightly stooped, and his gait a little slower and more cautious – but anyone who saw Ross Jenkins at Vicarage Road on Saturday recognised a club legend.
Now 73 and living out in Spain, the big striker returned to Watford to help celebrate the annual Graham Taylor Matchday.
Jenkins was one half of the formidable and feared strike partnership with Luther Blissett that terrorised defences as the Hornets stormed through the divisions under Taylor in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
He made 398 appearances for Watford, scoring 142 goals, in an 11-year stay at the club, earning him legendary status.
Stepping out on the pitch on Saturday alongside many other players who featured in the club’s rise from the Fourth Division to the First Division was emotional for Jenkins.
“You have your moment in time and things come to an end, and unfortunately you have to leave,” he reflected after the game, sitting in the club’s media suite now named in honour of his very close friend, former Watford Observer sports editor Oli Phillips.
Ross Jenkins chats to the Watford Observer's Andrew French in the Watford FC Media Suite, named in honour of Jenkins' good friend and former WO sports editor Oli Phillips. (Image: Watford FC)
“But then when you come back, it is difficult to mentally deal with the reaction of true supporters.
“I always enjoy coming back. It deals with those little question marks that buzz around in your head, because you know you used to do it on the pitch.
“Everyone is so nice. People coming up and thanking you. It’s lovely.”
Tears rolled down his cheeks as he talked about how fans had welcomed him, including those too young to remember him as a player but had heard tales of ‘big Ross’.
“Because I live away and I’ve had probably four different lives since I left football, and I’ve lived in different places and had different experiences, coming back here just kind of gets to you a bit,” he said.
“You get that lump in the throat and the emotions.
“The connection with the supporters was always there, even though they gave me a bad time at the start.
“That was deserved in a way. I had a few excuses but they don’t go very far when the hammer hits the nail.
“You have to come through it and show the fans what you’ve got, and I think I did that in the end.
“I had a manager that wanted my kind of game up front, and knew I could move into good positions.
“What I achieved here at Watford justified my aims and ambitions as a kid, to be a successful footballer.
“We had some very, very important games at Watford, for the club and for me, and those moments live with you.
“But when you come back and you’re back where it all happened, it’s emotional.”
Jenkins in his Watford heydays. (Image: Watford Observer)
Vicarage Road itself is physically so far removed from the place that Jenkins found when he signed for Watford in 1972 that it is almost impossible to compare.
No dog track, no ramshackle stands, a pristine pitch and a crowd that ran beyond a few thousand – Saturday bore no resemblance to the Vicarage Road of December 2, 1972, when he made his home debut in a 2-1 win against Bolton Wanderers in front of an attendance of 7,349.
“The stadium and what has gone on here since I played was certainly built around the legacy of the success of Graham Taylor and Elton John,” he said.
“GT created a momentum that not only went through the players, but also affected the whole area.
“Our support level was quite low in the early days, and he tried to get the connection between the town and the club.
“I think Oli, at the Watford Observer, helped a great deal with his articles and the way he expressed everything.
“Once we started to become winners, even in the lower divisions, people wanted to come and watch it.
“Watford were making good press and people were talking positively in the pubs and the bars.
“Graham and Elton created a bit of a tsunami that went through Watford really.”
Jenkins was among the players that pre-dated Taylor at Vicarage Road.
“I didn’t know Graham before he arrived, and he had that way of working where he sat in the higher chair and he sat you in a lower chair,” he smiled.
“Some people like to do that – it’s not a technique I’ve ever needed to use myself! At my height I look down on most people!
“The thing with Graham was he was very straight: if you performed and you did what he asked, and you connected with the rest of the players, you could go on the Yellow Brick Road and see where it led.
“When I came here the level of the club, the ground and the expectations were all pretty low.
“They had spent, what was for them, a large amount of money getting me, and things didn’t work out initially.
“We just didn’t have the structure.
“I’d been at Crystal Palace as a youngster and came through the ranks, and the club had a system of playing.
“But when I came to Watford there wasn’t a system of playing, and things fell apart for me.
“I was playing up front, trying to score goals, in the lower divisions were there was a lot more physical stuff.
“It was still early in my career and I was maturing.”
Along with Jenkins, Elton John was also at Vicarage Road before Taylor came to the party in 1977.
“Elton was the reason that Graham came, and he started the whole change at Watford which led us to becoming a successful team and club,” said Jenkins.
“I’m back here today with Watford as an established Championship club. That’s quite a difference to the years of playing in the lower divisions that had gone on when I arrived.
“Elton was a key leader, and him getting Graham was perfect. The two of them meshed together.
“Graham inherited good players, he had half a team, and some youngsters that came through like Luther Blissett and Nigel Callaghan.
“He then got in three or four solid, experienced players to set us up really.”
Having enjoyed successive promotions, Watford found themselves in Division Two only a couple of years after Taylor arrived.
They spent three seasons there before finally reaching the promised land of Division One.
Barring a break – literally – Jenkins was a key part of the meteoric rise.
“One wondered how it was going to go when we got into the Second Division, and I unfortunately broke my ankle,” Jenkins recalled.
Luther Blissett and Ross Jenkins - what a partnership! (Image: Watford Observer)
“But when I came back they had found John Barnes, and me and Luther had such a good partnership.
“Plus he got Gerry Armstrong in to consolidate an alternative approach to me and Luther. It gave us alternatives, which you needed then as you do now.
“Building a squad gave us momentum – without it, you can easily lose that.”
With the No.9 position having been a problem for some time recently for Watford, there is at least one pensioner ready to answer the call!
“I think, if I was in my peak, I could easily play that No.9 role today. I’d love to be able to play now!” Jenkins laughed.
“What I saw today, if you took me back to when I was in my prime and put me out on the pitch, I think I could be a very good centre forward.
“I think I developed into being exactly that, a very good centre forward, and I was very much a team player. I wasn’t an individual player.
“If the team plays to your strengths, it helps. If you look at any team in the Premier League now, they do that.
“The way Liverpool use their strikers and the momentum they create causes damage. They have a formula to win games.
“If I was playing now, I’d love it because you are far more protected and you have VAR on your side.
“If you have the skill and the ability to out-think and out-manoeuvre your centre half, you’re not going to get whacked like happened in the old days because the cameras will see it.
“Being mentally aware of where to position yourself and when to make runs, for the benefit of a pass or to take players away, was as much of a skill then as it is now.
“So yes I’d love to be playing now – and the money would be much nicer!”
Living out in Spain, Jenkins watches much of his football on TV, and his friends enjoy his expert punditry.
“When you’ve been a professional footballer and had some success, when you watch it on TV then I see a lot more than most people,” he said.
“When I talk to my friends and we discuss football a lot, they always say ‘you seem to know a lot’.
“But that’s because you lived it and you know it, and when something isn’t working you can tell why.
“You can tell if the problem can be put right by the players you have, or if you need another player to put it right.
“Managers have to have luck. Graham Taylor had luck. You need luck to succeed.”
Jenkins was one of the scorers in the unforgettable 7-1 cup win over Southampton. (Image: Watford Observer)
Jenkins was awarded a well-earned testimonial season at Watford, and sitting in the Sir Elton John Stand brought back more emotional memories for Jenkins.
“He rung me up and said he’d do a concert for my testimonial, I was a bit stunned. I couldn’t believe it was really happening,” he said, with tears forming again.
“It came out of the blue.
“I was organising a few things for the testimonial, dinners and other events, and we got Luton down for a match.
“Then Elton rings me up and says ‘I’ll do a concert in the town hall for you’.
“It just meant that Elton, the man who changed everything at Watford, was sitting up in the stands and recognised what I had done.
“Then when I went to play in Hong Kong, I saw in the paper that Elton was doing a concert.
“So I made a few enquiries, rung his hotel and left a message for him.
“Within 10 minutes he rung me back, and said come up to the top floor of the hotel before the concert and we’ll have tea and a chat.
“He gave us tickets for the concert, and then he dedicated a song to me as well.
“That’s the kind of man he was: I’d done what I’d done, and he did something very special for me.”
