Pundit Taylor hopes to call promotion for former side
IAN Taylor will be a pundit on Sky Sports coverage of today’s play-off final. So does that mean he has to stay neutral? “I’ll be rooting for Vale, don’t worry about that,” he said. “Of course I want Port Vale to win! It is about time they got promoted.”
Taylor knows a fair bit about winning promotion with the Vale having done so in 1993/94, the culmination of his two remarkable years with the club.
Signed from Moor Green for £15,000 in 1992, he would score 19 goals and be named player of the year in his first season at Vale Park, helping John Rudge’s side win the Autoglass Trophy and reach the play-off final.
Automatic promotion back to what is now the Championship was secured the following season before Taylor moved on to Sheffield Wednesday for £1m.
Rudge was a master in the transfer market but even by his standards, Taylor was a fabulous signing.
The midfielder would go on to have a terrific career at Aston Villa where he made over 230 league appearances and was part of the club’s 1996 League Cup winning side.
But he certainly hasn’t forgotten the Vale, or Rudge.
He said: “People have asked me who has been the biggest influence in my career. I’ve said John Rudge because he gave me the opportunity to play professional football. He put me in the team and had faith in me. That was the bedrock of my career, he gave me the start, I ended up having a really good career and John was a big part of that. I owe a lot to him.”
Notts County, who had only just been relegated from the top flight, were also in for Taylor but Rudge beat them to it.
Taylor recalls: “I wanted to get somewhere I could get in the team straight away and so I thought joining Port Vale was a better opportunity. I was 23 years old at the time, I didn’t have time to waste. John Rudge promised he would put me in the team and that’s what he did.
“I was just able to play my normal game. I don’t think people realise there were some really good players in non-league in those days. The step up was quite natural.
“Plus, I had a good manager and team-mates who welcomed me into the fold without a problem. I could just play my natural game and that is what John brought me in for.”
And so Taylor is taking a keen interest in the Vale’s fortunes at the national stadium, 29 years after playing for them twice there.
He was part of the side that beat Stockport in the Autoglass in the club’s first Wembley appearance – and also part of the side beaten by West Brom in the play-off final the following week.
He recalls: “To be playing twice at Wembley in my first season in professional football was amazing. That just doesn’t happen to people.
“We are talking about the old Wembley. Just that walk to the centre of the pitch from one end of the stadium was unbelievable and is a memory that will live with me until the day I die. Just to be able to play there was an amazing
thing. To win as well was unbelievable.”
Not so much the following week, as he recalls: “We’d beaten West Brom twice that season which made losing in the play-off final even worse. We were in the top two for most of the season, but just slipped out of it late in the day. We were a better team than West Brom but the gods conspired to get Peter Swan sent off and we played with 10 men. But that’s what happens in a play-off final, things can go against you.”
Vale got 89 points that year and still didn’t go up. So, it was a testament to the squad that they came back from the West Brom defeat to clinch promotion the following year.
Taylor said: “We had some real character in that squad and John added a couple of players. It is
hard to come back from that disappointment of losing out but we came back really strong and I think the club and players should be very proud of that. We won at Brighton to guarantee promotion, I remember it like yesterday.”
The current Port Vale also appear on an upward trajectory since Carol and Kevin Shanahan bought the club three years ago.
So, we’re about to find out if that will lead to promotion this afternoon or they have to start again next season.
They will have 17,000 at Wembley hoping they can do it – make that 17,001 including a terrific former player on media
duty.