Taylor's return trip to dreamland

The old boy: After a brief spell with Bolton in the Premiership it seemed that West Brom's evergreen striker had had his moment in the big league. Today, the 35-year-old who was earmarked to work down the pits will step out once again with the millionaires at Old Trafford. Phil Shaw met him

Much of football's enduring appeal, even in what is increasingly characterised as an age of mercenary players and moribund clubs, lies in its capacity to pit polar opposites against each other. Bob Taylor's return to Old Trafford on the Premiership's opening weekend represents just such a collision.

The 35-year-old Taylor is the product of a Durham coal-mining community. Unlike the Manchester United prodigies, coveted and courted before they could tie their own boot-laces, he dabbled rather than dazzled as a teenager, even failing to cut it with Hartlepool's juniors. And unlike Sir Alex Ferguson's multi-million pound recruits, he has commanded a trifling £565,000 in transfer fees – small change to Rio Ferdinand. Yet he remains a cult figure among West Bromwich Albion supporters.

Last month, while their Leeds counterparts vented their anger over Ferdinand's defection, the Albion faithful were creating a more dignified furore over the decision to allocate Taylor's customary No 9 shirt to another striker after their extraordinary promotion. The players who aroused such emotions were due to meet today until Manchester United's £29.1m defender suffered an injury which will deny the 68,000 crowd a great compare-and-contrast exercise.

Rightly or wrongly, the England centre-back has been typecast, in Yorkshire and beyond, as greedy and disloyal. Neither charge has ever been levelled against Taylor, who, while no one-club man, is so steeped in Albion lore that he has been granted a testimonial this season. On the face of it, he and Ferdinand have nothing in common except a formative spell with Leeds. Even then, their respective arrivals, departures and impacts at Elland Road could hardly have been more different.

"I come from the village of Horden where we had three pits," recalled Taylor. "My dad put my name down to work there, like his father did for him, but he always told me it wasn't a nice place to go and I can believe it. The place is pretty dead now. Peterlee, a mile up the road, has got new industries so I could have been on an assembly line now if I'd stayed.

"I was training with Hartlepool's youth side and playing for them on Saturdays. My dad pushed me hard -- we even had an argument about it because he was so keen for me to turn professional -- but I never felt I fitted in. I also had a trial at Newcastle but it was: 'Turn up on the night, play a game and we'll speak to you later'. I didn't hear any more."

Taylor was "scoring a few" for Horden Colliery Welfare when their manager told him he was off to Leeds, then in the old Second Division under Billy Bremner. "I said: 'I'm not going.' I felt overawed, petrified to be honest. But they gave me a good grounding in the footballer's lifestyle. Although I was 18, I did the dirty jobs with the apprentices. They also built me up, doing weights, and gave my debut in the juniors. I got a hat-trick and took it from there."

Despite reaching Leeds' first team, Taylor was offloaded to Bristol City after Howard Wilkinson came in as manager. Benefiting from the tutelage of a legendary centre-forward, Joe Jordan, his prolific marksmanship persuaded Bobby Gould to pay £300,000 to bring him to Albion 10 years ago last January. He scored on his debut and the bond with the fans was cemented the next season when, with Ossie Ardiles as manager, he helped the club out of the third grade by becoming the first Albion player to score 30 League goals in a season for three decades.

"Ossie tried to build a side that played the way he did," he said. "We had some skilful players yet he worked hard to improve them. Even in the close season, when we were supposed to be on our holidays, he kept us back for two weeks, playing matches every day."

Five years, four managers and dozens of goals later, the unthinkable happened: Taylor left, joining Bolton, initially on loan, as Denis Smith revamped Albion. At the start of a two-year exile, he sampled the Premiership for the only time, scoring his first goal at Old Trafford. "It was the anniversary of the Busby Babes' crash at Munich as well as a big derby, so it was great one to get off the mark in. Andy Cole equalised near the end, but I felt I was doing what I came into football to do – play at the top level in great stadiums."

His chances of doing so again seemed remote when Bolton went down; more so after Gary Megson, newly installed at Albion, brought him "home". "Bolton appointed Sam Allardyce as manager," said Taylor, "and it was made clear that they didn't want me. I got a call asking if I'd go back to West Brom. My heart ruled my head and I said 'yes' without hesitation."

Albion were third from bottom in the First Division with eight games left, but the returning hero chipped in with five goals, including the one which guaranteed survival. "I never imagined then I might be part of an Albion team that got into the Premiership. We lost in the play-offs 12 months later – to Bolton – and you fear the chance may never come again."

What happened last season, when Taylor again produced a late flurry, his 193rd League goal sealing the crucial last-day triumph over Crystal Palace, was therefore "a fairytale". He added: "No one could have scripted it better, with us coming from behind to overhaul our great local rivals, Wolves, and take second place."

On the lap of honour a reporter collared him to ask whether they could stay up. "I told him: 'It's the best day of my life, we've just got promoted and you're asking if we can avoid relegation!' What I'd say now is that there's a mini-league of teams we feel we can beat. That doesn't mean we'll go to Manchester United and lie down. We pull together as a team and don't concede many goals."

The Hawthorns' first top-flight fixture in 16 years is against Leeds the following Saturday, with Arsenal hitting the Black Country three days later. "Talk about a baptism of fire," mused Taylor. "I'd rather get them out of the way now, before they're firing on all cylinders. We all start even – we may even spring a few surprises and be top after two weeks!"

How frequently the reluctant No 15 will feature remains to be seen, although Taylor may have been under-estimating his value when he said: "I don't expect to play much. I'd just like to be involved and I'm looking forward to going to Old Trafford and to Newcastle and Sunderland. But the one I want to play in most is Leeds away."

It is a sentence you are unlikely to hear Rio Ferdinand utter. Taylor explained: "I've never played there since I left, even in reserve football, and I think Peter Ridsdale, their chairman, is the only one left from my time. This season is my last chance. I have to face the fact that this is almost certainly my last year here. I'll be 36 when my contract ends and clubs don't tend to keep players of that age."

The parting, when it comes, will not be permanent. Like the late Jeff Astle, whose wife left Taylor "humbled and honoured" when she told him the great man was one of his biggest fans, he plans to come back and cheer "The Baggies" from the stand. "Even when I went to Bolton I came to West Brom games," Taylor said. "If I'm living in the area, I won't be going to Wolves or Birmingham. It'll always be the Albion. For me it's the place to be."

It definitely beats the pit and the production line, although Old Trafford may run it close this afternoon.