If anything had caused Elton John to lose the edge of enthusiasm for Watford FC as the club’s fortunes had plateaued out following the Cup Final, which he had described as “one of the happiest days of my life even though we lost”, the success of the club’s appeal against Watford Council would have given him just the boost.

Elton seemed on a high because the appeal against Watford Council’s ill-judged opposition to developing Vicarage Road had come through the previous year and the star was able to announce: “We’ve won” from the centre of the pitch. I have already gone through the examples of Town Hall myopia as far as Watford FC was concerned, but Elton’s joy at vanquishing them was total.

That time in Miami, in September 1986, he had told me he was as enthusiastic as ever and thought that the eventual development of Vicarage Road would cost another £8 million and he might have to dip into his own pocket in part to fund it.

While he may not have been unaware of quite how much money he did not have, as outlined last week, this did not sound like a man who was thinking of selling the club within six months. At that time, he still hankered after his dream of building an entirely new stadium but the council had blocked that and the development of Vicarage Road, much to his chagrin. So overturning their refusal on ground development was a real delight for the chairman, management and the fans. “The council’s attitude towards us has softened and likewise ours to them. They are welcome to the ground any time and that is good things have improved,” he said in Florida.

However, he still looked to further development.

“Will fans recognise the ground in 1996?” he asked, looking to his next ten years as Watford chairman.

Elton had a complete folder of photographs, showing how the new stand was taking shape. “He shows them to everyone. He is so delighted at having a stand built,” his chauffer Bob told me in Miami.

“I am not into real estate, apartment blocks,” Elton said. “I cannot ever imagine not being involved in Watford FC. I follow the building of the stand week by week and I bore people stiff talking about it and I am looking forward to coming back during October to open the stand.”

He stressed: “I am still fully committed to the Watford cause. I cannot tell you how much joy it has given me. If someone had come up with a proposition ten years ago that would entail Watford gaining promotion from three divisions; have some wonderful promotion and cup nights; reach the top flight and establish itself; play in Europe and reach the FA Cup Final; build a new stand on one side of the ground and my contribution would be £2.2 million I would have gladly written the cheque then and there.

“I have a career and that involves a lot of work over here in the USA but while I am not there so much in person, the joy of association, the connection and the sense of achievement is very real. You cannot put a price on it. Even doing this series of interviews has given me the feeling that I am closer to the club and back in contact.”

The only negative in the whole interview, which ran more than three hours, arrived late on when I asked him about his wife Renate. There had been claims in the English press that the marriage, which would last four years, had not been consummated and was in trouble.

“Renate and I have our relationship and we are and will work on that together. We know exactly where we stand,” he said.

Of course we now know his impetuous sally into the heterosexual world would be an on-running cause for negative publicity. The extremely attractive Renate, for whom photos were unable to do justice, was there in the October when the Rous Stand was dedicated.

At that time, Elton told me he was very happy with how I had got his attitude across in the newspaper, following the interview, and everything seemed very positive. Yet by the following April, he was in advanced negotiations to sell the club to Robert Maxwell, who we did not fully appreciate at the time, although those in Watford’s print had a pretty shrewd idea, was not the sort of person you wanted handling a family club.

The fact Elton negotiated with Maxwell, not once but a second time after the first approach had come to naught, indicated there was an element of desperation, triggered by one of the most unseemly sagas in British journalism.

The failing marriage and the Sun’s unrelenting war, brought the rockstar lurid, front-page headlines about kinky sex, rent boys, drugs and then, when Elton said he would instruct his lawyers to sue, they printed a front page headline in vast type: You’re a liar, Elton.

They had also claimed the singer’s Rottweiler dogs had their voice-boxes removed in a painful operation. It transpired he did not own a single Rottweiler and all the dogs he did have, barked.

However, the story, which broke with claims the singer used teenage rent boys, came out in February 1987. Such is the way with such things it took over a year before The Sun, blaming everything on a lying rent boy who had never even met Elton and hated his music, said “Sorry Elton” and paid over £1 million.

This article was first published in Friday's Watford Observer.