Taylor’s City takes on Taylor’s Walsall

FOOTBALL has a funny habit of throwing up all kinds of crazy statistics and quirky landmarks, so how about this one for any football anorak out there: Two managers with the same name have not gone head to head in the Football League since Bobby Campbell’s Fulham thrashed Bobby Campbell’s Bristol Rovers side 3-0 at Craven Cottage in January 1978.

Today, that rather futile statistic will be put to bed when Exeter City manager Matt Taylor will welcome the Matt Taylor of League Two rivals Walsall to St James Park with both teams chasing three points for their own needs.

City are having another decent season and are challenging at the top end of League Two, but it’s not so good for Walsall as they find themselves struggling at the wrong end of the table.

The two Taylors are also the same age – 39 – were both defenders and earned their coaching stripes in Academy and Under-23 football before becoming managers in their own right. Impressed? Thought not!

Walsall’s Taylor has only been in the job since June, when he left his role as an Under-23 coach at Tottenham Hotspur to take on the top job with the Midlands club. So confused were bookies that there could conceivably be two people of the same name that Exeter’s Matt Taylor was, at one point, odds-on favourite to take the Walsall job before it became apparent that it was in fact the ‘other’ Matt Taylor who had applied for the role!

“That’s an interesting stat, you can definitely say that!” Exeter’s Matt Taylor said with a wry smile. “I don’t know him and I’ve not come across him really. I have coached teams that played against him when he was still playing – I think he was playing for Swindon when I was coaching under Tis (Paul Tisdale.)

“He has had a fantastic career and by all accounts, gone away and worked hard in relation to coaching and got experience