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I know after the past two or three
seasons, we've almost come to accept that we'll have strikers up there
amongst the leading scorers in the division. We have in fact been spoilt
with the likes of Holt, Lambert, Murray and Dagnall. For there was a time
that a Dale player with more than about five or six goals to his name
throughout a season was a candidate for top goalscorer.
So when Steve Taylor came along in
the mid 80's, he did things that no Dale player had done in a long, long
time. He became the first Dale player since Reg Jenkins to score twenty or
more goals in a season, but he didn't just stop there.
In that season 1985-86,
everything that Taylor did seemed to come off. He was your classic
poacher, scored great penalties and had this wonderful habit of always
being in the right place at the right time.
He finished that season with 25
goals in the league and further six in the cups to give him a total of 31
for the season. That was enough to secure him the top scorer in the
division that year, winning the prestigious Adidas Golden Boot. You have
to go back to 1927-28 to find someone who scored more goals in a season
for Dale.
He came to the club as a much
travelled striker. Like they all seemed to do in those days, Taylor was a
player who seemed to spend every Summer trying to find a new club in
Lancashire that he'd never played for. It wouldn't be unfair to say that
he hadn't pulled up any trees at other times in his career, but in this
year, everything just clicked.
But it was over all too soon. A
good start to the 86-7 season saw PNE come in for him with a bid of
£20,000. This was a transfer which very nearly cost us our league status,
as without Taylor we really struggled to score goals. Many a game in those
days saw the frustrated supporters sing "There's only one Steve Taylor" in
the closing minutes as Dale once again finished goalless.
We had a brief return of the goal
machine a couple of years later, and in true Taylor style, he grabbed an
equalising goal on his debut in a rain soaked Spotland midweek game
against Hereford.
If I'm being honest, I'd say
Taylor was my first ever Dale hero.
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