When your father was a Premier League player for almost a century, your parent club West Brom’s manager is picking you to start at centre half for them soon, and you are thrown into a League One promotion battle at Bolton, it’s sink or swim.
Thankfully, the big 21-year-old is skilled in a variety of sports, including swimming.
The kid defender seemed to have everything going for him, standing far over his stated 6 feet 2 inches on Wikipedia and even taller than the 6 feet 4 inches his father Martin played at when he was a player for Birmingham City and Blackburn Rovers.
After a successful season on loan at Cheltenham Town, Taylor was already accustomed to this level of play. During the January transfer window, Bolton needed an aerially powerful defender to anchor their back three in lieu of captain Ricardo Santos. Taylor responded to their call.
Just one week before to the loan transfer to Lancashire, he had been thrown into the thick of an FA Cup Black Country derby – a tense match that was postponed for thirty-five minutes due to unruly crowds from the opposing support bases.
In the final days of the window, a mad rush to sign him emerged, raising the stakes even higher for his future professional move. Fortunately, Taylor doesn’t have to travel far to find guidance on the football side of things if they become too much for him.
It’s odd since my dad doesn’t put any pressure on me; he’s such a laid back guy. What happens happens, and he is always chill,” he said to The Bolton News.
“You have a long way to go, your dad has played in the Premier League,” says my mother in the comments every time.He had a fantastic career, and as I continue to play and advance in the game, I’m becoming more and more aware of how much.
“I didn’t really realise how good he was when I was younger, but now that I’m trying to prove myself, I can see it—he accomplished a lot.”My parents encourage me not to be startled by anything in football, and we do spend hours discussing his experiences in the game.
“It was a matter of ‘are you going there, are you going here?’ even during the transfer window. Although things were constantly changing, they only assisted in maintaining order.
To be honest, it was really worrying, but my biggest concern was that I wouldn’t be able to return the loan. I could have avoided playing a lot of games for four or five months.
