Phil Taylor (footballer)

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Phil Taylor (born 18 September 1917) was an English footballer who played for and managed Liverpool.

Contents

[edit] Life and playing career

Born in Bristol, England, Taylor played for hometown club Bristol Rovers as an apprentice before he was signed by Liverpool manager George Patterson for £5000 plus Ted Harthill in March 1936, he made his debut on the 28th of the same month in a league game at the Baseball Ground, Liverpool shared the points with Derby County in a 2-2 draw with Taylor scoring a late equaliser, his first goal for the club.

Taylor joined Liverpool as a young centre-forward with a lot of potential but was reverted to centre-half by George Kay where he developed into a stylish, composed defender.

Taylor was a member of Liverpool's 1946-47 Championship winning team making 35 league appearances scoring once Taylor represented England 3 times making his debut on the 18 October 1947 in a British Championship match at Ninian Park, Cardiff, England legends Tom Finney, Stan Mortensen and Tommy Lawton made it a memorable day for Taylor scoring the goals in a 3-0 win.

Taylor was handed the captaincy during the 1949/50 season and led the side to the FA Cup final on the 29 April 1950, he appeared 7 times in the cup run. Arsenal spoilt the day for the Reds by beating them 2-0.

Overall Phil played 345 games for Liverpool, scoring 34 goals. Upon his retirement in 1954 he joined the backroom staff as a coach

He became manager of Liverpool in 1956 when former manager Don Welsh was sacked after failing to gain promotion back to the 1st Division.

Taylor took over reins with a determination to put Liverpool back where they belonged immediately signing Alan A'Court, Tommy Younger and Liverpool legend Ronnie Moran who ended up spending 5 decades at Anfield.

Taylor, however, failed to achieve what he set out to do and after an unsteady start to the 1959/60 campaign he resigned stating "the strain of trying to win promotion has proved too much," a very sad Taylor spoke to the Liverpool Echo newspaper about the difficult decision to resign as Liverpool manager, he said "No matter how great has been the disappointment of the Directors at our failure to win our way back to the first division, it has not been greater then mine. I made it my goal. I set my heart on it and strove for it with all the energy I could muster. Such striving has not been enough and now the time has come to hand over to someone else to see if they can do better." Unbeknown to Taylor he would hand over to a man who did do better, one Bill Shankly.

[edit] Career details

[edit] As a player

  • Liverpool F.C (1936 - 1954) - Football League First Division (Level 1) championship winners medal (1947), F.A Cup runners-up medal (1950)
  • England (1947) 3 caps

[edit] External links

Liverpool F.C. - Managers
Barclay and McKenna (1892-96) | Watson (1896-1915) | Ashworth (1920-23) | McQueen (1923-28) | Patterson (1928-36) | Kay (1936-51) | Welsh (1951-56) | Taylor (1956-59) | Shankly (1959-74) | Paisley (1974-83) | Fagan (1983-85) | Dalglish (1986-91) | Souness (1991-94) | Evans (1994-98) | Evans and Houllier (1998) | Houllier (1998-2004) | Benítez (2004-)
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