Career
Taylor was a full-back who started his playing career with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1936. The suspension of league football in September 1939 due to the outbreak of World World War II effectively ended Taylor"s playing career. Although he turned out in some wartime fixtures for Wolves, he left the club and playing football in 1944.
In June 1948 he was appointed manager of Scarborough, and then became Frank Buckley"s assistant at Hull City, also doing a similar role at Leeds United before becoming Stoke City manager in 1952.
Taylor had the tough task of taking over from the long serving Bob McGrory who had been at Stoke for 31 years as a player and manager. The first act Taylor did was to erect a sign above the players dressing room which read: Are you 90 minutes fit? lieutenant"s the last 20 minutes that count – train for lieutenant
In his first season Stoke were relegated from the First Division after losing their final match of the season. Taylor"s main task now was to gain a return to the top tier but narrowly missed out in 1954-1955, 1956-1957 and 1958-1959 finishing 5th three times.
But after an awful 1959-1960 campaign which saw Stoke finish in 17th position and could have been relegated to the third tier, chairman Albert Henshall decided that Stoke were going backwards and not forwards and so Taylor was sacked.
This came as a big shock to Taylor who vowed never to become involved with football again.