SIR ELTON AND WATFORD'S ROCKET UP THE LEAGUES

Crazy rise from 92nd & rock bottom to the No.1 spot in just seven years

- BY MIKE WALTERS

ROCKET MAN Sir Elton John today celebrates a golden anniversary marking the start of football's ultimate magic carpet ride.

Fifty years ago, the superstar's beloved Watford lost 1-0 at Darlington and sank to 92nd in the Football League.

Four months earlier, Elton had ducked into a New York record store and asked to borrow the phone so he could ring home to find out the score from the Hornets' last game of the season.

When he discovered they had lost 3-2 at home to Walsall, and been relegated to Division Four, he slumped to the floor and burst into tears.

The dismal defeat at Feethams early the following season was the last straw. Already on the board at Vicarage Road, he resolved to take over his boyhood club and lead them from rock-bottom to the top of the charts.

By the end of the season, he had agreed to settle Watford's £200,000 debts and bought out unpopular chairman Jim Bonser.

Fast forward to September 1982, and Watford beat West Bromwich Albion 3-0 to go top of Division One for the only time in their history.