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Tommy Taylor was born at Smithies, Barnsley on 29 January 1932. As he teenager he worked on the pit top at Wharncliffe Woodmoor colliery and as a slightly built sixteen year old he played for Smithies Utd when they were short of players!
National Service saw him gain weight and at the age of eighteen he signed professional forms for Barnsley. In July 1950 he made his debut at home to Grimsby Town and in his next match he registered a hat-trick against Queens Park Rangers when Barnsley ran out 7-0 victors. By the end of his first season in professional soccer he had scored twelve goals.
He missed much of the following campaign through injury but returned as a regular member of Barnsley's 1952-53 side and had scored 21 goals when Manchester Utd manager Matt Busby stepped in with an offer for the Barnsley lad that the club could not afford to refuse.
Taylor didn't want to leave, he loved everything about his home town club, but that didn't matter, the club told him he was going and that was that
Matt Busby was concerned that the £30,000 price tag may affect the lad and thus a fee of £29,999 was agreed. Stories recall Tommy arriving at Old Trafford with his boots wrapped in a brown paper bag! Three days after his transfer, Tommy scored on his debut in a 5-2 victory over Preston North End.
In May 1953 Taylor made his England debut in front of 100,000 spectators at Buenos Aires, home of Argentina (the match was later abandoned after heavy rain).
Tommy was a member of Manchester Utd's Championship winning sides of 1955-56 and 1956-57 and he also won an F.A. Cup Final Runners-up medal in 1957, when he scored Utd's goal in a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Aston Villa.
Taylor played in 14 European matches during his Manchester Utd days, scoring 11 goals. Sadly, he was amongst the Utd team which had drawn 3-3 at Redstar Belgrade on 6 February 1958. On attempting to leave Munich Airport after the match, the plane carrying the Manchester Utd team and members of the press crashed before it had even left the runway. Tommy was amongst those who were killed in the tragedy. He was just 26 years old.
Tommy Taylor's game was based on his tremendous strength, electrifying pace and power in the air. He played 168 times for Manchester Utd scoring an incredible 112 goals. Tommy's form for his country was just as impressive, 14 goals in 19 outings for England, including hat-tricks against Denmark in December 1956 and Eire in May 1957.
It is difficult to draw comparisons between players of Tommy's era and the players of today, as the game has changed so much. However, in a game currently overtaken by ridiculous transfer fees, if the lad from Smithies was around today, he'd be the most expensive of them all.
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