Watford FC’s Vicarage Road ground will stage the first pop concert ever performed on a football league ground. The news, first indicated in the Watford Observer last autumn, was finally confirmed by the star, Watford director Elton John, seen leading players out for a photo call after a press conference on Wednesday.

The concert, scheduled for Sunday, May 5 [1974] will attract up to 30,000 pop fans, who will pay between £1 and £2 for tickets to see Elton John, raising approximately £35,000 for the club.

Said Elton at the conference: “It is the largest concert I have ever undertaken. I hope to share the bill with a top line pop artist – and I mean top line. Negotiations are in progress at the moment and it would be unfair for me to name names.”

The concert, scheduled to last three and a half hours, will constitute Elton’s first public performance since returning from an exhausting tour of New Zealand and Australia.

“We had announced that we had cancelled all concerts but we have always regarded this, and one at the Festival Hall for children later in the year, as charity affairs and we will be going ahead with them.”

[From the Watford Observer of April 5, 1974]

NOSTALGIA NOTE: The concert, which did indeed take place on May 5, 1974, also featured Elton’s soccer-mad mate Rod Stewart and rock band Nazareth. Did you go? What are your memories of the event?