Kevin Dillon: Elton John scrapped my Watford move over Portsmouth disciplinary record

The Pompey Hall of Famer had been lined up for a move to the top-flight side in November 1987, following successful talks with manager Dave Bassett.

However, consecutive Pompey sending offs forced Hornets chairman John to intervene.

And in a 2017 interview for Played Up Pompey Too, Dillon admitted the transfer was scrapped by the music legend over concerns about his discipline.

‘The turning point in that 1987-88 Division One season came when Mick Kennedy was sold days before that Blackburn match – but I almost left a few months earlier,’ he told Played Up Pompey Too.

‘With the club needing the money, I was told in November 1987 that Watford boss Dave Bassett was interested. I didn’t want to depart, but thought I’d go along and see what he had to say.

‘We met at the hotel at Heathrow Airport, it went great and he said they would get back to me.

‘Days later I was sent off against Everton for dissent in a 1-0 defeat, Mick Kennedy also being dismissed following a foul on Peter Reid.

‘Following a one-match ban, I returned at Newcastle and was given another red card, this time for punching Peter Jackson in a 1-1 draw. Except the referee made a mistake, I hadn’t done anything and even Jackson tried to tell him. Regardless, I had been sent off in consecutive appearances.

‘Bassett got back to me and said “Listen Kev, Elton John is a bit concerned about your temperament. so we are not going to follow it through”. That was that.

‘Mind you, my funniest sending off was in December 1986 in Division Two when me, Billy Gilbert and Mick Tait were all dismissed in a 1-0 defeat at Sheffield United.

‘I was already on a yellow card when I hid the ball under my shirt so referee Kelvin Morton couldn’t find it. He didn’t see the funny side of it. When I went back to the dressing room I smashed the door to the toilets - and Noel Blake got the blame! He never grassed me up, though.

‘Letting Kennedy go in January 1988 was definitely silly, but the recruitment in the build-up to that Division One campaign was poor and ultimately costly.

‘In that period, Bally’s signings didn’t inspire and he started to lose a bit of face with the players as most of the recruits were awful and turned out to be rubbish.

‘Terry Connor, Ian Stewart, Mike Fillery, Clive Whitehead, Ian Baird, none of them came off. Barry Horne ended up being a decent signing, but took a while to settle.

‘They were good lads, all of them, but didn’t make us a better team - there were some pretty inept signings.

‘The core of these new players were going straight into the side and we thought ‘Hang on a minute’. If they improved the team, fair enough, but they didn’t - and I think that is a fair opinion.

‘Still, there we were fighting to remain in Division One, while the chairman had a basketball team he was funding and a football club he wanted to sell. So much was going on.

‘We knew we were getting relegated six or seven games before the end of the season because of the position we were in. It never got to the stage that if we won a certain amount of games we could stay up, we just petered out.

‘Pompey were relegated having finished third from bottom and, that summer, Jim Gregory bought the club, but Bally remained until January 1989, when he was sacked following a 2-1 defeat at Leicester City.

‘Then John Gregory stepped up from his role as chief coach – and I didn’t like him at all.’

Kevin Dillon made 258 Pompey appearances and scored 58 goals from March 1983 until May 1989.

Played Up Pompey Too, released in 2017, is still available from Amazon. While Played Up Pompey Three, which contains more of your favourite Blues players, is out in September.

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