England's Calamity? by Chris Jones

Author:Chris Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2023-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ernie Taylor: the One-Cap Wonder

Four players from flavour of the month Blackpool lined up for England that November 1953 day against Hungary. In terms of profile the fourth of the four was Ernie Taylor, sandwiched between Matthews and Mortensen, a link between Wright to the wing play of Matthews and the barnstorming power play of Mortensen. Every sentence that ever appeared in newspapers and football programmes connected with Taylor always featured one specific word – little. It was inescapable – Little Ernie Taylor. Perhaps his parents did christen him Little Ernie Taylor, and Ernie was his second name. The reason Taylor was always named with this prefix was because he was little. His other football sobriquets were ‘Tom Thumb’ and the ‘Puck of Football’, which encapsulated his perceived role on the pitch as a court jester within the game.

The 6-3 match proved to be Ernie’s only England appearance. There were two one-cap wonders in this match; George Robb was the other. Robb’s case was the easier to explain, though, as Winterbottom didn’t want him in the team. The only reason he got a cap was because Tom Finney was injured.

Taylor was 5ft 4in with, incredibly, size four boots, and like all small professional players who were this size his game was based around pure skill. Forceful play and physical presence were clearly not an option. He was an unusual player who developed an idiosyncratic technique in order to survive and flourish in such a physical period of the game. His role at inside-right was that link from the wing-half, front to back and laterally between the centre-forward and the winger. At club level he was renowned for being a quick-witted player who had a delicate touch and a record for scoring vital goals in big matches. This creative link provided George Robledo and Jackie Milburn with plenty of goals at Newcastle United before his substantial move to Blackpool and did similar for the two Stanleys. In his 242 appearances for Blackpool, it was his defence-cutting passes that caused problems for opponents and brought plenty of goals for Mortensen.

Any assessment of Taylor as a player can’t be completed on his one and only England performance, but through his club career. His perceived nature was as a joker whose sharp humour matched his quick-witted play. We see the vagaries of the selection committee, only putting Taylor in with Matthews and Mortensen on that single occasion; England didn’t lose the game 6-0 due to being outplayed and out-thought in the central area and defensive positioning only, they lost 6-3. The forward line could, and they did, justifiably point to the fact that they had done their job and scored three international goals against one of, if not the world’s premier team. Taylor had his clear and effective role within this aspect of the game. Indeed, of the attacking five in the 6-3 match – Matthews, Taylor, Mortensen, Sewell and Robb – four did not play in the return hammering in Budapest six months later.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.