Watford boss Graham Taylor has revealed how close he came to making ex-Blues striker Stan Collymore Southend United's First England international.

The former national team coach has admitted he contemplated handing Collymore a sensational baptism of fire during England's ill-fated qualifying campaign for the 1994 World Cup.

Taylor had considered playing Collymore against Holland in Rotterdam, a game England needed to win to make the finals in America, but instead opted for a front-pairing of Paul Merson and Alan Shearer as the Dutch triumphed 2-0.

"When I was manager of England I thought to myself 'can I actually think about picking someone from Southend in the England squad?'," said Taylor on Tuesday.

"Now I've done some things in my time and you either have to be brave or daft, or a bit of both, and that would have been.

"But the answer was 'yes I could have picked a Southend player', and it would have been one right out of the blue if I had gone ahead with it."

Collymore was playing First Division football at Roots Hall at the time, making a name for himself as a regular goalscorer, blasting the Shrimpers to league survival and a run in the FA Cup to the fifth round stage.

"At Southend, Stan was already looking an exceptionally gifted player and someone who was destined to go on and play at a higher level," added Taylor.

"On his day he is fearsome and his pace, power and control were there for everybody to see."

Collymore had been a virtual unknown when he joined Blues for £150,000 from Crystal Palace in November 1992.

But 18 spectacular strikes in just 33 appearances for the Seasiders soon changed all that and sparked a series of multi-million pound moves to Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and Aston Villa.

However, his career soon went off the boil, following a £7million transfer to Villa Park and a series of high-profile bust-ups, which ended in Collymore booking himself up for depression treatment at a private clinic.

The front-runner, now 29, has just joined his fourth Premiership club Leicester City on a pay-as-you play

Fact file

Blues sold Collymore to Nottingham Forest for a record £3.57m fee, before the City Ground outfit sold him to Liverpool for £8.5m, and he has gone on to play for England three times.

Southend's most capped player was goalkeeper George Mackenzie who played nine times for the Republic of Ireland during the 30s.

Blues' last player to win international honours was Irish midfielder Ronnie Whelan, who made the final of 53 appearances for his country, whilst at Roots Hall, against Liechtenstein in 1995.

Exceptionally gifted - Stan Collymore came close to earning an England call-up while playing for Southend United

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.