Watford's new saviour on the hallowed Cup road

Since survival and prosperity are the twin ambitions of FA Cup semi-finalists Watford, the club could not have a more appropriate chairman than Graham Simpson. Before graduating into the millionaire bracket, Simpson undertook stints as a minicab driver, waiter, office cleaner and pet-food salesman who won an incentive prize, a weekend in Paris, for flogging the most tins of the stuff by actually eating it in front of sceptical purchasers.

"Pretty horrific, but it got me to Paris," was the verdict. So when Simpson, who as what he calls "a jobbing actor" learned to get by on very little, tells you that "Watford will survive", you had better believe him. In the act of investing his fortune in the construction of a luxury hotel in the mountains of Crete, Simpson sank the money instead into bailing out Watford, the club he has supported since childhood. His cash input having got him on to the board, the man who had appeared in supporting roles on such TV programmes as Z Cars, Dr Who and Blake's Seven found himself starring last September as the replacement for Sir Elton John as chairman.

He took over a club on the brink of administration following the loss of ITV Digital money, saddled by unrealistically high players' wages and managed by a high-profile big earner, Gianluca Vialli. But someone who has swallowed pet food in the course of his job knew well enough what he was getting into, and the rewards of their Cup run have already made it worthwhile.

Having made a fortune by selling his travel company in 1999 to Thomsons, Simpson found himself a man in his fifties contemplating what to do next. "I didn't want to just play golf or tennis," he said. "I needed to regroup and find a way forward." Among the investments he made at that time was one in Watford before fulfilling an ambition by setting off to the southern hemisphere as "a wrinkly backpacker" to explore Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands.

He left for his sabbatical knowing that Graham Taylor was about to move on from the club and agreed that, in his absence, he would go along with the board majority in the appointment of a new manager. It was a decision which thus removed Simpson from the immediate scene of Vialli's hiring and made a little easier the tough decisions he was forced to take last autumn as the new chairman.

"We couldn't afford Luca any longer," he said. "I also had to make a very big decision in terms of my own finances, and put in a substantial amount of what I had left. The hardest thing was raising the money in order for the club to survive. We had to make sure we could meet our commitments, like ongoing wage bills, and not run out of money nine months down the road. We needed £9.5 million to take us through the next two years, back to sensible wages and a cost-effective way of running the club. I realised it needed someone to take the reins and lead the club through a difficult period, and you can't make a commitment when you are trying to build a hotel in Crete."

Simpson's travel company had specialised in Greek holidays, which explains his purchase of 100 acres for the new hotel. Now the land is for sale and, he says: "I am totally committed to Watford for the next five years."

The termination of Vialli's contract has ongoing repercussions, with the Italian suing Watford for £2m. "It is not advisable for me to make a lot of comments," said Simpson, "but we are very keen to sort the situation out and not let it go to court. We have a sum of money which we feel is fair and I am hoping common sense will prevail."

Common sense prevailed when this former actor took on the tough role of asking the players to accept a 12 per cent wage deferral over two years, with no guarantee of repayment. "If they didn't accept, we had had it," he said. "We were about to sink." According to one player, Tommy Smith, "The wage cut probably helped team spirit. Everyone has chosen to come together and it shows on the pitch". The Cup run also ensured that the team were paid full wages last month, though among the contracts which will not be renewed because of money is that of Stephen Glass, scorer of the second goal against Burnley in last weekend's quarter-final.

Simpson himself is the embodiment of team spirit, having helped out in the office to meet the demand for Cup tickets. "The first phone call I got was a difficult one, so I told the man I was a trainee. He had no idea he was talking to the chairman. But we are all in this together and we still have a long way to go to get this club back on its feet.

"We will survive but we will have to manage things very carefully. We have to find a way to buy back our ground and we want to build a new stand. We had planned just to hang on for the next two or three years, but it is working out better than we dreamed."

Cup success has been the catalyst. "After the Burnley match I was euphoric," said Simpson. "Some of my directors were in tears, and I was as well. It is a bit of a fairy story for a club to have been on their knees six months ago, two days away from administration, and then for this to happen. I went out with a couple of fans afterwards to a pub and sat there, still in a trance."

So Graham Simpson, born four miles from Vicarage Road at Chorley Wood, who started work as a police cadet and moved on to being a security trainee before drama school settled the direction of his life, a man who made his millions out of travel, now dreams of beating Southampton and getting to the Cup final, just as Watford did back in 1984. He would be the first to tell you that being in Cardiff that day beats Crete.