Football: Was England's failure all in the mind?: Simon O'Hagan analyses the methods of Graham Taylor's head man, the team psychologist Dr John Gardner

GRAHAM TAYLOR has been accused of many things, but a reluctance to experiment isn't one of them. Indeed, he might be described as having an almost obsessive urge to tamper. In that respect, the predecessor with whom he has most in common is the great dossier compiler himself, Don Revie.

A feature of Taylor's England management has been his endless exploration of new avenues in search of the real success that has stubbornly eluded him, just as it did Revie. One area that this has led him to, known little to the public and understood by them even less, is sports psychology.

In a prevailing culture in which the idea of 'taking each game as it comes' is still thought to mark the limit of most footballers' psychological sophistication, the presence among a group of players of an expert in mental training, almost always an outsider bearing overtones of the therapist's couch and Freudian analysis, is often an awkward one, prone to misinterpretation on all sides.

For that reason the Football Association has been keen to shield from the public the work of Dr John Gardner, a 43-year-old psychologist who has been a regular member of England's back-up team since Taylor became the manager in 1990. And to trumpet his role at a time when England's lack of success has been conspicuous is hardly appropriate.

Dr Gardner, who studied at Bristol, Leicester and Birmingham Universities and has a practice in Sutton Coldfield, first worked with Taylor in his days as the manager of Watford in the early 1980s and again when Taylor managed Aston Villa. 'My work is basically about getting the best out of people, helping them to cope with pressure and resolve problems,' he says. 'It's about building teamwork and confidence.' In which case, one might ask, how is it that England have shown rather less than might have been hoped of either?

'Sports psychology is not a magical solution that will get everybody playing wonderfully,' Dr Gardner says. 'It's just one of a number of factors involved. The game is unpredictable, and, as everybody knows, that's the beauty of it.'

Dr Gardner is reluctant to talk in detail about what his work entails. But it's clear that a session with a psychologist is not every player's idea of how best to prepare for a big match. At least one member of the England World Cup squad in Poland and Norway in the summer, when a draw and a defeat first set them on a downward path, disliked the approach.

'I couldn't see too much in it myself,' he says. 'What more confidence do you need than to be chosen for England in the first place? Quite honestly, I'd rather just relax and have a sleep on the afternoon of the match than have someone trying to instil confidence in me.' The player was particularly puzzled by one exercise in which Lee Sharpe, the England winger, was required to stand in front of the rest of the squad, keeping the ball up while counting backwards in multiples of five. 'I couldn't see what that was doing for anyone,' he says.

Was there any obligation to attend Dr Gardner's sessions? 'He was there for any individuals who wanted to go and talk to him,' the player says. 'But there were times when the gaffer would arrange for a group of five or six of us to see him, and that was it. You had to go. Frankly, I'd rather not have.'

John Barnes found more in what Dr Gardner had to offer, and became absorbed in the exercises he devised. 'He got us all to fill in questionnaires which showed whether we were to be categorised as extrovert or introvert,' he says. 'Then we were divided into four teams - introverts, extroverts, and two mixed teams, and were given all sorts of challenges. There was rowing, orienteering, quizzes and so on. One of the mixed teams won, which I suppose showed that you need both types of person in a team. It was all about team-building.'

Nobody is in any doubt about the laudability of the aims of the sports psychologist. But the methods involved can often be contentious. One of the more established men in the field is John Syer, who worked with Tottenham Hotspur when they had a run of success in the early 1980s. 'I never approached players as if they had a problem,' he says. 'That wasn't what it was about. The aim was to give them ways of learning more about themselves and their team-mates, to make them more aware of each other. I was there to help them improve their mental skill, just as they would try to improve their physical skill.'

What clearly emerges from Taylor's adoption of alternative expertise is that even if you had misgivings about it there wasn't much scope to duck out. This goes back to Taylor's Watford days when he led the team from the Fourth Division into the First in only five seasons and on into Europe. Nigel Callaghan was then a young winger with the club. 'If you didn't go along with it, you were in trouble,' he says.

Some of what you had to go along with does seem more like crankiness than common sense. 'I remember he got six or seven of us to go and see a hypnotist, an Asian woman just outside Watford,' Callaghan says. 'She was trying to project positive thoughts into us. It was a bit weird, really. I can't honestly say I went out and played brilliantly after that.' Perhaps Taylor could persuade the Dutch team of her benefits before their match against Poland.

(Photograph omitted)