Peter Taylor (footballer, born 1953)

Peter Taylor

Personal information
Full name	Peter John Taylor
Position(s)	Midfielder
Team information
Current team	Crystal Palace (Manager)

For the former Nottingham Forest goalkeeper, also a manager of Brighton & Hove Albion, who died in 1990, see Peter Thomas Taylor. For other people named Peter Taylor, see Peter Taylor.

Peter John Taylor (born January 3, 1953 in Southend-on-Sea) is an English football manager. He is currently manager of Crystal Palace. He was head coach of the England under-21 team until January 2007. He also was the England national football team manager on a caretaker basis in 2000.

Playing career

Taylor had enjoyed a successful playing career as a winger, playing for Southend United, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur, Leyton Orient and Oldham Athletic, as well as winning four international caps for England (despite being at Third Division Palace at the time), before embarking on a career as a coach and manager.

Management career

Club management

Peter Taylor became player manager at non-league club Dartford FC. In his four seasons there club attendances rose from 400 to around 1000, he won the Southern Cup twice and each season he was there Dartford scored over 100 goals. At club level, Peter Taylor spent two years (1993-1995) as manager of Southend United, but quit at the end of the 1994-95 season after failing to get them beyond the middle of the Division One table.

Taylor then took on the job as manager of Conference club Dover Athletic in 1995-96 - and guided the club to 20th, enough to stave off the threat of relegation as only two clubs were relegated that season.

He agreed and signed a two-year contract at Dover in May 1996 but was to leave the club only two months later after being asked by then England boss Glenn Hoddle to manage the England's under-21 side.

He returned to club management at the beginning of the 1999-2000 season with Gillingham, and at the end of the season guided them to victory over Wigan Athletic in the Division Two play-off final which marked the club's promotion to the upper half of the English league for the first time in their history. A few weeks later he left the club to take charge at Leicester City in the Premiership and for a few months he did well: for two weeks in October Leicester were Premiership leaders and there was much debate as to whether they could maintain their good form. But then things turned sour; nine defeats in their final ten Premiership fixtures (following a shock FA Cup quarter final defeat by Division Two strugglers Wycombe Wanderers) saw Leicester plummet down the Premiership table to finish 13th. This was despite spending £23 million on transfer fees, the most spent by a Leicester manager before or since.

Taylor was sacked two months after the start of the 2001-02 season, leaving Leicester penniless and rooted to the foot of the Premiership, but he returned to management within two weeks to take charge at Brighton whose previous manager Micky Adams had coincidentally become the new assistant manager of Leicester City. Having inherited a strong team, Taylor guided Brighton to the Division Two championship (marking their return to the upper half of the English league after an 11-year exile) but resigned from his job because he was frustrated at the club's lack of ambition and financial resources.

In November 2002 Peter Taylor was appointed manager of Hull City who were weeks away from their move to the 25,404-seat KC Stadium. That season, Taylor was unable to guide Hull to anything higher than a mid-table finish (although they drew some of the largest crowds outside the Premiership) but in 2003-04 they achieved promotion as Division Three runners-up. They finished League One runners-up the following season, 2004-05, and were in the Football League Championship in the 2005-06 season – their first appearance at that level since 1990-91, and they finished 18th in the division. Among his signings at Hull was Junior Lewis, a player he had previously brought into four other clubs (Dover, Gillingham, Leicester and Brighton).

However this success led to bigger clubs calling, and Championship promotion contenders Crystal Palace and their chairman Simon Jordan agreed a £300,000 compensation package with Adam Pearson (chairman of Hull), and appointed Taylor on 13 June 2006.

Taylor is one of the featured managers in the internet viral sensation 'Pass It On', created to publicize the launch of 24 bespoke football designs by Mitre. One for each of the clubs in The Championship.

International management

Taylor spent two spells as manager of England under-21s, with a good record in both. In his first spell as U21s manager, his record was 15 played; 11 won, 3 drawn and 1 lost. In this time, England finished ninth in 1998 European Championship and qualified for the 2000 finals comfortably, winning every match without conceding a goal. But with 3 matches to play, Taylor was replaced in a controversial manner by Howard Wilkinson, who won the next two matches. The three goals conceded in the 3-1 defeat to group runners-up Poland were the only blemish on the team's qualifying record. England got knocked out in the group stage of the European Championship finals in 2000 under Wilkinson.

However, later that year Taylor became caretaker manager of the senior national team for one match. For that game, a 1-0 defeat to Italy in the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin on November 152000, Taylor looked to youth. He handed David Beckham the captain's armband for the first time, and used six players then still eligible for the Under-21s; Gareth Barry, Jamie Carragher, Kieron Dyer, Rio Ferdinand, Emile Heskey and Seth Johnson.

After a poor performance in the 2002 finals in Switzerland and failure to qualify for the 2004 finals, Taylor was reappointed U21 manager, on 8 July,2004. During his four exodus, Taylor had worked as a scout for Sven-Göran Eriksson's senior England team, as well as managing Hull City.

England comfortably progressed from their qualification group for the 2006 finals but lost to eventual semi-finalists France in a play-off over two legs.

The team qualified for the 2007 finals but on 25 January 2007, Taylor resigned the post. Since the arrival of Steve McClaren as the senior side manager, and Taylor's appointment to Crystal Palace, he was understood to be managing the U-21s on a game-by-game basis. Stating the reasons why he left, Taylor said, "I can't do it any more and devote my time to helping the team ahead of June's European Under-21 Championship in Holland. Anybody coming in would have to commit a lot to the job. I'm sad but I've had a great time with England. I'm proud of having seen some players go on to the senior squad."

Taylor's record in competitive fixtures in his second spell with the U21s was 16 played; 9 won, 5 drawn and 2 lost. He was replaced by Stuart Pearce, who controlled the team on a part-time basis until the end of the 2007 finals, before being appointed full-time manager.

Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Southend United		August 1 1993	February 22 1995	84	27	41	16	32.14
Gillingham		July 71999	June 12 2000	62	34	16	12	54.83
Leicester City		June 12 2000	September 30 2001	54	19	26	9	35.18
Brighton & Hove Albion		October 17 2001	May 31 2002	38	21	6	11	55.26
Hull City		October 14 2002	June 29 2006	184	77	57	50	41.84
Crystal Palace		June 14 2006	Present	49	19	19	11	38.77

External links

• Peter Taylor management career statistics at Soccerbase