‘I WASN’T GOING TO MISS OUT ON THE BLUES AGAIN’
LYLE Taylor has a graphic illustration of what it was like trying to get a game at Nottingham Forest.
“I was climbing Everest in a pair of flip-flops and speedos!” said Taylor as he prepared for Birmingham’s home game with Hull yesterday. “That’s the only way I can describe it.”
It would be his eighth game for Blues since joining on loan from Forest.
That’s as many as he’d played for Forest all season. He’d made two starts since September, the last in November, and then Lee Bowyer rescued him.
“It’s fantastic running around on the green stuff, it’s been missed,” adds Taylor. “You don’t realise how much you’ve missed it until you get back to it. It’s been good and I’m enjoying myself.”
Prior to yesterday, Taylor had three Blues goals. At Forest he’d sat on the bench longer than any judge. Thirty-four times he watched in 19 months and when he was picked scored seven in 23 games plus an FA Cup goal.
Pretend
“It kills you,” he says. “You go into every weekend knowing that the best you are going to get is five minutes.
“So people can harp on about ‘Oh, I’d be a footballer. Footballer is the best job in the world blah, blah, blah’.
“Okay, you can be a footballer when things are good but what about when the proverbial hits the fan and you are stood there with absolutely no chance of playing games, proving your worth, or being given a chance?
“Soul destroying? Exactly. Then you’ve got to go home and pretend everything is fine and not let anyone see what’s actually going on in your head.
“You’ve got to not let people see that they have got to you, or that they are beating you, or that they are winning.
“But it gets to you eventually. There is only so much you can take before it gets to you and you are done.”
Taylor, 32 this month, has a year on his Nottingham Forest contract but there is no doubt he’d rather be with Birmingham.
Blues manager Lee Bowyer is a kind of a mentor to Taylor and gets the best out of him. He tried to sign him last summer and did it second time round, like a John Wayne movie, riding to the rescue.
“Lee Bowyer is the reason I am here,” says Taylor. “No disrespect to Birmingham City, but I wouldn’t be here if Bo wasn’t the manager.
“It has clicked and clicked very well. The fans have been phenomenal with me and I can’t thank them enough, and I can’t thank the manager enough.
“We have a relationship that is not just football. We’ve had a good relationship ever since I first met him, we just get on. Speaking to him is really easy. He’s open and honest with me and I’m honest and open with him.
“It’s very simple what he wants me to do so it makes my life easier and I can only assume that when I’m producing it
makes his life a little bit easier as well.
“There’s a lot of respect mutually. I’ve got a lot of time for him as a man and a manager.” Bowyer guided Taylor to the best time of his career with 32 goals in 58 league games at Charlton but it ended in headlines with Taylor refusing to play.
Covid made its ugly appearance and delayed the latter stages of the 201920 campaign
with the Addicks fighting Championship relegation.
The season got going again in June, but Taylor, top scorer, was out of contract and wouldn’t sign an extension because he feared injury and missing a big move.
Sheffield Wednesday, West Brom and Rangers all looked at Taylor in January as he rolled out the goals, but it was Forest who got him.
Sacked
However, Sabri Lamouchi was sacked within five games. Chris Hughton came in and was gone in September. Steve Cooper took over and is producing miracles. Taylor said: “I had three managers. The one who brought me was sacked after a few games. There’s not a great deal I could do about that.
“The manager who came in (Hughton) didn’t take a shine to me. I was used when I was needed and that was basically when Lewis Grabban was injured. “I was told by the hierarchy I could leave in the summer and then I was told by the manager that I couldn’t leave because they were low on numbers. So it was like ‘who am I listening to here?’.
“As soon as Grabbs was fit he was back and that was me done. I think I started one game. I was told I would be given a chance, but no chance materialised. So I had to get out and go and play football.
“By this Saturday I will have started as many games for Birmingham as I did for Forest this season. That says it all, doesn’t it?
“It’s how football works so you get on with it. I’m playing now and appreciated so it’s all good.”
The reuniting of Bowyer and Taylor after how it finished at Charlton is intriguing and Taylor got some stick.
“Me and Bo had had many conversations, daily, about what was going to happen and what I was going to do, there was no straining of the relationship,” insists Taylor. “He, as well as the players, said to me that in my position it was really difficult for me to play.
“Every man and his dog had an opinion on what I did. I cared for so few of those opinions.
“You can call me whate want because that’s been done throughout my career. I’ve been tarred, I’ve been tarnished with names that don’t speak of what I am or who I am.
“My relationship with the manager didn’t change. It didn’t change when Charlton were relegated, he didn’t hold me acault countable, it wasn’t my fault and I don’t really feel that we need to keep going over it.”
Facts
Bowyer has gone from one fire with all the problems at Charlton on and off the pitch to a frying pan of difficulty y at BirTaylor, mingham.
“Let’s be honest”, says “if Lee Bowyer didn’t thi I was all-in and was going him absolutely everythin wasn’t trustworthy or a my word, would he have me? “If people want to generate an opinion about anything just check the facts. Then you can make your mind up.
“When Bo came in for me it was instant, let’s get it done. There was potentially a move
last summer to Birmingham and I wanted that to happen. It didn’t materialise.
“I wasn’t going to let that happen the second time. I had to force it through and make sure it happened.”
Taylor says he would need a crystal ball to say how well Birmingham will do next season. Relegation isn’t on the agenda this term so Bowyer can start planning.
But there is also a crumbling ground to be made safe. There are protests against the ownership of the club to quell, there are huge debts. A successful team would go a long way to solving the club’s ills and Taylor wants to be a part of that and make his loan permanent.
“Should I be given the opportunity to come here, it would be an opportunity to play under Bo and a step into a bit of turmoil at the club,” he said. “If it happens that I leave Forest I would not looking at joining any other club.
“This job follows the tough gig Bo had at Charlton. He’s probably knackered. He will be deserving of his summer.
“It’s not an enviable job being manager or head coach and I want absolutely nothing to do with the management or coaching of a football team in my future. No thank you.”
Taylor’s international career with Montserrat sounds like he gets a break from the Birmingham turmoil.
“It’s not too bad,” he smiles. “You visit Caribbean Islands, get a suntan when you are running around with your mates. It’s special.”
He wants Birmingham to finish strong, top 12.
“We’ve got ten games, 30 points on the table. Let’s see if we can get 15 or, I don’t know, 18.
“It’s a pride thing. Push and see how high we can get, finish this season in a good place that builds a platform for next season.
“There’s a bit of steel replacement to do around the ground. A little bit of welding and, bish, bash, bosh, we could be flying.”
If Lee Bowyer didn’t think that I all-in was and would him give everything, would he have signed me?
Lyle Taylor