Jim Taylor
1949-1954; 1956- 1961
153 games
35 goals
Best and Fairest 1953, 1957<\/p>\n
As a boy, Jim Taylor could walk to the Lake Oval to watch his South Melbourne heroes in action. A devout follower of the Swans, his love of football competed during his high school years with his other great love: athletics. At Caulfield Grammer, he became an outstanding athlete, excelling in high jump and sprinting events.<\/p>\n
Such was his athletic prowess that at the 1947 Associated Grammar Schools Combined Athletics Meeting, he won the Under-16 and Open High Jump events. The following year, he defended his High Jump crown while winning the Open 100-yard sprint in 10.7 seconds.<\/p>\n
1948 was also the year that Taylor joined the South Melbourne Football Club. He played in the club\u2019s fourths as a 16-year-old, impressing enough to earn promotion into the thirds ahead of the 1949 season. Then, at just 17 and a half years old, he made his VFL debut against St Kilda. It could have happened the week before, but Taylor withdrew from the squad due to exams.<\/p>\n
At the end of his first season in red and white, Taylor was awarded the club\u2019s Most Promising Young Player award. According to The Record, he was presented with a \u2018magnificent canteen of cutlery\u2019 at the South Melbourne annual meeting. The club\u2019s treasurer, Joe White, impressed with the young ruckman, said, \u201cAs treasurer, I have found Jim particularly pleasant to deal with, as he is a strict amateur and refuses to take any payment for League football.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 17-year-old sporting prodigy had already jumped a personal best of 1.91 metres \u2014 his own height \u2014 and narrowly missed selection in the Australian athletics team for the 1950 Empire Games. Eventually, Taylor grew too heavy for high jump, and with a lack of appropriate coaching options, he left the sport. Instead, he focused his energy on making it as a league footballer.<\/p>\n
Rarely has a key position player made such an immediate impact. Playing predominantly in the ruck, Taylor used his incredible leap to significant effect. When deployed at centre half-back, he regularly impressed by taking well-timed strong marks to repel countless opposition forward forays.<\/p>\n
In 1951, at the age of 19 and having played just 32 games, Taylor was the subject of an article in The Herald advocating for his inclusion in the state team. It said, \u201cYoung South Melbourne ruckman Jim Taylor seems certain to play for Victoria next year. He dominated the ruck against Geelong and, when spelling in a back pocket, repeatedly saved his side with well-judged high marks.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his star on the rise, in 1952, renowned journalist Hec de Lacy declared Taylor the \u2018best big man footballer in Australia today.\u2019 In his Sporting Globe column, de Lacy said, \u201cHe meets the tough opponents with clever counterplay and has found out that big shoulders and strong hips don\u2019t have to knock a man off his feet to unsettle him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout his outstanding career, Taylor represented Victoria 13 times, playing a pivotal role in the 1953 VFL team that went undefeated in winning the national carnival in Adelaide. It was a memorable season for him, as he became the third youngest winner of the Swans\u2019 best and fairest award at 21. Earlier in the year, Taylor married Evelyn Stockton, with former South teammate Chester Reed his best man in the St Kilda service.<\/p>\n
The South Melbourne Football Club\u2019s 1953 annual report said of Taylor, \u201cHe rightly earns the congratulations of all connected with the club on his sterling performances. Looking back over the years of the best and fairest winners, one is struck by the names of truly great players who have fought their way up through the ranks of South\u2019s junior teams, and here we have another great clubman adding his name to the list of South\u2019s immortals.\u201d<\/p>\n
After that stellar season, Taylor found consistency elusive. In August 1954, football writer \u2018Wingster\u2019 lamented the popular ruckman\u2019s omission from the senior team in The Record. \u201cJim should take heart from the fact that even greater players than he \u2014 including the mighty Bob Pratt, Ron Hillis and Len Thomas \u2014 experienced similar heartbreaking experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJim\u2019s grand play in the ruck and back pocket in 1953 won him the vice-captaincy of South, and it is a bitter pill indeed for one in that position to be dropped.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of that season, Taylor moved to Adelaide, and after two earlier refusals, South Melbourne cleared him to play with Norwood, making headlines in both football-loving states. He proved an outstanding acquisition for the Redlegs, playing 13 games and being named their best player in a losing Grand Final. Taylor also played four games for South Australia and was named in The Sporting Life\u2019s All-Australian team.<\/p>\n
After one season away, Taylor returned to South in 1956 \u2014 the same year Bob Skilton debuted \u2014 and the pair built a formidable combination in the Swans\u2019 midfield over the ensuing years. However, the events surrounding Taylor\u2019s return match were devastating.<\/p>\n
While his son played Geelong at the Lake Oval, Taylor\u2019s father, James, died in the club\u2019s committee reserve. Taylor\u2019s parents ran a pastry-cook business in Albert Park for many years, and both were well-known to the community. His mother requested that Jim not be told of the tragedy until after the match. South Melbourne\u2019s secretary Joe White later said, \u201cMr Taylor was a vice-president at South from 1952-1954. He was one of our greatest workers and keenest supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the team struggled, it won the inaugural Night Premiership in 1956, and Taylor continued to perform at a consistently high level. In 1957, he claimed his second club best and fairest award while also finishing fourth in the Brownlow Medal, polling 16 votes.<\/p>\n
While South was generally competitive during the 1950s, its inability to play finals frustrated supporters, and officials found recruiting players increasingly difficult. Bloods Legend and Taylor\u2019s longtime teammate, Ron Clegg, took the reins as captain-coach for the 1958 season. The Swans were an incredibly inexperienced team, and Taylor, as one of only three players to have played more than 100 games, provided invaluable assistance and guidance to the young side.<\/p>\n
In 1961, now a senior player at 29, Taylor played in the Victorian side that finished runner-up in the national carnival held in Brisbane. Despite playing only 11 games for the Swans, he also finished fifth in the Brownlow Medal.<\/p>\n
Taylor retired at the end of the 1961 season, seemingly with plenty left to give. However, years of fearless ruckwork and pinch-hitting in key-position posts had taken their toll. In retirement, he worked part-time as a model, promoting cigarettes, and was a popular and highly respected media commentator on Channel Seven\u2019s World of Sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A dedicated South Melbourne man, Taylor served as the club\u2019s Chairman of Selectors in the 1970s. On 18 April 2000, he passed away at the age of 68. In 2013, Jim Taylor was inducted into the Swans Hall of Fame<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Taylor1949-1954; 1956- 1961153 games35 goalsBest and Fairest 1953, 1957 As a boy, Jim Taylor could walk to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-219150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}