The Silver Fox
Snooker always remembers its greats and one such player is David Taylor. Taylor instantly recognisable for his prematurely grey hair. Despite having a promising start in the sport, winning the World and English Amateur Championships in 1968, David’s transition to the professional circuit was less successful. Taylor could be described as a “nearly man”, never quite reaching his true potential in snooker. Like so many players in the 1970s and 80s, he struggled with the game at the professional level and reached three career finals and lost them all, the UK Championship in 1978, the Yamaha Organs Trophy in 1981 and the 1982 Jameson International. His only career win was the 1981 State Express Team Classic in which he teamed up with Steve Davis to raise the trophy for England.
David was a charismatic player who never gave up despite the chips being down and continued to chip into the latter stages of tournaments well into the mid 1980s. His most memorable win was the World Championship when he managed to dispatch an in form Ray Reardon, 13-11, to reach the semi-finals. However luck was not on his side and had it been another year, maybe he could have won it but 1980 was Thorburn’s year and Taylor drew him in the next round. ConThorburn was in no mood for any great pretender and so dispatched Taylor to a Sheffield taxi, winning comfortably, 16-7.
Taylor continued to play on the professional circuit until 1997, having reached a highest career ranking of 7, a highest break of 125 in the 1984 Professional Snooker League and career winnings of £209,780. A respectable achievement but frustrating that a player of his standard didn’t achieve more.It is true that many great players existed at this time and the emergence of Davis and later Hendry didn’t make it easy for any player such as Taylor to fill their silverware cabinet or even have one trophy in there to stop the cabinet being bare.
After retirement, David went on to become a hotelier, running an award winning hotel for many years. He now runs Ash Farm Country Guest House with his wife in Little Bollington near Altrincham in Cheshire. He briefly came back to snooker in 2010 when he attempted to qualify for the World Championship, aged 66 but lost to Paul Wykes, 1-5. David is also known for being a player who made three consecutive clearances in an exhibition match and seven centuries in seven frames in a practice session. He was one the commentators when Steve Davis made his 147 break at the Lada Classic in 1982 and he was the first player to pot all the balls in the final round of the programme, Big Break. Like his same name colleague, Dennis Taylor, he sported the upside down glasses in the latter part of his career, created by Jack Karnehm.
https://youtu.be/V3VImbaAftU
David was a charismatic player who never gave up despite the chips being down and continued to chip into the latter stages of tournaments well into the mid 1980s. His most memorable win was the World Championship when he managed to dispatch an in form Ray Reardon, 13-11, to reach the semi-finals. However luck was not on his side and had it been another year, maybe he could have won it but 1980 was Thorburn’s year and Taylor drew him in the next round. ConThorburn was in no mood for any great pretender and so dispatched Taylor to a Sheffield taxi, winning comfortably, 16-7.
Taylor continued to play on the professional circuit until 1997, having reached a highest career ranking of 7, a highest break of 125 in the 1984 Professional Snooker League and career winnings of £209,780. A respectable achievement but frustrating that a player of his standard didn’t achieve more.It is true that many great players existed at this time and the emergence of Davis and later Hendry didn’t make it easy for any player such as Taylor to fill their silverware cabinet or even have one trophy in there to stop the cabinet being bare.
After retirement, David went on to become a hotelier, running an award winning hotel for many years. He now runs Ash Farm Country Guest House with his wife in Little Bollington near Altrincham in Cheshire. He briefly came back to snooker in 2010 when he attempted to qualify for the World Championship, aged 66 but lost to Paul Wykes, 1-5. David is also known for being a player who made three consecutive clearances in an exhibition match and seven centuries in seven frames in a practice session. He was one the commentators when Steve Davis made his 147 break at the Lada Classic in 1982 and he was the first player to pot all the balls in the final round of the programme, Big Break. Like his same name colleague, Dennis Taylor, he sported the upside down glasses in the latter part of his career, created by Jack Karnehm.
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