Education
Taylor finished his career having scored 84 goals in 204 games.
Taylor finished his career having scored 84 goals in 204 games.
He went on to perform opera. In an eight-year career as a professional football player, Taylor played in Division One, Two and Three of the Football League for Huddersfield Town, Fulham and Brentford respectively. Taylor scored in double-figures in his first two seasons with Huddersfield Town.
He moved to Fulham in 1951, hitting a hattrick in one of his early appearances against Middlesbrough, before his music studies began to take precedence and he dropped out of the first team picture.
He was Brentford"s second-highest scorer in the 1956-1957 season, his last in football. I had no long-term ambitions in football and I realised that it was impossible to marry the two".
While still a football player, Taylor was able to use his wages to pay for his studies in singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music. Taylor performed opera under the name "Neilson Taylor" and was a bass baritone.
After retiring from football, he joined the Yorkshire Opera Company.
Taylor moved on in 1962 to understudy Michel Roux in Pelléas et Mélisande and Walter Alberti and John Shirley-Quirk in L"incoronazione di Poppea at Glyndebourne. His time at Glyndebourne proved to be a breakthrough and he toured the world, spending time in Australia and a year at Mantua in Italy, which led to work at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and in Rotterdam. Taylor failed fully to deliver on his promise as a singer, but found fulfilment when he was made Professor of Singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow, remaining in the role for 18 years.