The legend left out in the cold...

He was 36 on Monday, Horden miner's son, worked as a binman and on YTS schemes painting old folks' homes before the night that amazingly changed his life.

Now, however, the goalscorer the Hawthorns knows simply as "Superbob" is back training with the YTS lads, banished from the first team table and - since the manager hasn't spoken to him for three months - with no idea why.

His testimonial is already under way. If not a benefit of the doubtful, then it is of the decidedly strange.

"It hurts, I can't understand it," says the legend left out in the cold. "I wouldn't even mind if the gaffer called me all the names under the sun, I'd respect him for that because I'd know what I was supposed to have done.

"People say I'm in the stiffs, but it's below that. Now I spend Saturday afternoons sitting watching the football results and twiddling my thumbs. At my age you need to be involved."

Baggies at ten paces? "I honestly don't know what it is," says Bob. "No one has bothered to tell me."

His is a remarkable story, nonetheless, and - it should be stressed before further proceeding - Superbob Taylor is the most self-effacing, articulate and at once engaging professional footballer it would be possible to meet, the utter antithesis of the arrogant arriviste.

In the pretty -boy Premiership, he is a man wholly out of the Hordenary. There's even a dispute over who picks up the lunch bill, until the pen proves mightier than the soured.

"Whatever I've achieved in football is more about attitude than ability," he insists. "I wasn't that good, I just had the lucky breaks. There are far better players than me who never had the chance.

"I don't go out clubbing round Birmingham, I go out with my mates to the sort of pub where you wipe your feet on the way out and talk to the fans. They're Black Country people, working lads and salt of the earth, it's not much different from Horden."

With his meal he has a glass of dry white wine, admits to enjoying the stuff, supposes that they won't sell much in Horden Comrades Club or in the Tin Pot, the conservatively Conservative Club down the road.

His father spent 26 years as a power loader at the face; young Bob's name was down to follow him - "it was almost a family business, the pit" - had they not closed the coalhouse door first.

At school, like so many more, he'd written "footballer" when asked what he wanted to be and, asked to nominate a second and third choice, wrote "footballer" twice more.

On the dole afterwards, he played snooker during the week and cricket, rugby and football at weekends, "hung around until all hours" with his mates and wore, whilst professionally unqualified to do so, a Coal Board donkey jacket with a fluorescent orange patch on the back.

"The closest I ever got to the pit was picking up my dad's pay packet on a Friday afternoon. I drew the dole during the week and was a footballer at weekends."

On Sundays he played for the Comrades Club, where he remains a member - "you grew up fast, playing Sunday football in Horden" - on Saturdays in the Northern League for Horden CW, managed by former Sunderland full-back Dick Malone.

One night he'd turned up for training as usual when Malone told him not to get changed but to go home and pack. Leeds United wanted him next day.

"It was bizarre, the first I knew about it, but it must have been one of Dick Malone's contacts" he recalls. The next day he arrived at Elland Road, was offered £120 a week - the same as he'd earned in his 13 weeks emptying bins for Easington Council - and at 18 found himself back with the YTS lads.

"It was the biggest culture shock ever known. I'd never been beyond Skegness in my life, didn't have a passport or nowt.

"They put me in digs and for a month I didn't dare go out after my tea. We hadn't the phone at home, so finally my dad rang the club to see if I was alive or dead.

"I had to ring him back at the Comrades Club that night. He gave me a right bollocking."

At Leeds he scored 13 goals in 54 games, was transferred (by Howard Wilkinson) to Bristol City for £175,000, won the Adidas golden boot with 34 in a season and after three years moved to West Bromwich for £300,000 to replace fans' favourite Don Goodman.

On his first appearance, pressure on, he scored in a 2-0 win; in the second, away to local rivals Birmingham City, he hit two in a 3-0 victory. From Horden lad to Wednesbury's child, Superbob was about to make an indelible mark on the Black Country.

"People mention me in the same breath as Ray Allen, Jeff Astle and Bomber Brown and I still find that incredible," he says.

Between 1992-98 he scored 113 goals in 284 appearances but was transferred (by Denis Smith) to Bolton Wanderers. "I got a lot of grief off Denis Smith. The first thing he ever said to me was that he'd heard I was unfit, overweight and liked a drink. Most managers would have said Hullo."

Though he enjoyed Bolton, helped them to a play-off final and FA Cup semi-final, he continued to make the three hour round trip from Lichfield.

If not necessarily Lord Lichfield, he is probably the best known man in town. "People talk about footballers drinking, gambling and sleeping around," he says.

"How could I do that here? Our lass would be the first to know."

Lesley Taylor is from Peterlee, worked at the dentist's in Horden, waylaid him and his mate on the top road. He swears the big attraction was the Coal Board donkey jacket with the fluorescent orange patch.

Now they have an 11-year-old daughter and son aged six who like nothing better than visiting Horden, fishing with their grandad, throwing stones at the sea like generations before them, lighting fires on the once coaly beach.

Bob and his dad go round the old drinking haunts. "I can go into the Comrades, buy 15 drinks and get charged £10 and something. You forget about that.

"It's changed a lot since the pit closed, everywhere's so empty, but I'd hate to think that I've changed. I've just been made aware of what's outside Horden. If I'd stayed at home I might have been more one track minded.

"It's a bit of a ghost town, but I still thoroughly enjoy going back home."

When Bolton played at Hawthorns the whole ground rose to applaud his appearance as a sub; after two years at the Reebok Stadium the Wanderer returned to West Bromwich.

In occasional appearances last season, his seven goals helped the club to improbable Premiership promotion; this season, eight weeks out with an Achilles injury caused by a new pair of shoes, he has appeared just once, against Blackburn.

Even now he is reluctant to criticise manager Gary Megson, just to question him. "The way he's brought this club forward is unreal, probably we're ahead of our time. The fans love him and quite rightly, but it;s a bit difficult for me just now."

On Monday night he played for the reserves against Manchester United at Halesowen, on Wednesday we had a long lunch in Birmingham, a neighbouring table occupied by a buxom brunette in half a dress.

"She can't take her eyes off you," said Superbob. One of us, anyway. European commitments permitting, his testimonial committee hopes to get Man United for the big match at season's end. He wonders how he'll react.

"A lot of people will be there, I'll be walking out with my children, I just hope I don't cry like a big soft Geordie."

His contract ends in June and is unlikely, unequivocally, to be renewed. He hopes to continue playing, even at a lower level, preferably within range of Lichfield. "I've played with the roughest of the rough in the North-East. I'll know when I can't handle myself."

After that? "I've no O levels, no A levels, nowt. Thick as two short planks. I might try coaching but in football today 20 years experience counts for nothing, you have to have a certificate to say you can pass a ball from A to B.

"I'd just love to be starting again with all the money flying around - 34 in a season for Bristol, 36 for West Brom, I could make an absolute killing."

When he starts talking like this, he says, when he gets on his high horse, he thinks back to where he's from and what he did.

"I just want to walk away with my head held high, to remember that there've been a lot more ups than downs, and if I'm tempted to get cocky to remember where I come from.

"When I do, when I think where I might have been without football, I'm just very, very grateful."

Players out of the Horden-ary

In keeping with North-East tradition, the colliery area around Horden has produced a rich seam of top-class footballers.

"It's amazing how many have made it, and how many could have done if they'd had a proper chance when they were young," says Bob Taylor.

Though the Big Book says he was born in South Shields, full-back Tom Garrett won three England caps after leaving Horden CW for Blackpool after the war.

Stan Anderson, pictured inset, Horden lad for certain, also won two England caps and though best remembered at Sunderland, remains the only man to have captained each of the North-East big three.

Last we heard from him, Stan was living near Doncaster and was captain of the left handers' golf society.

Colin Bell, capped 48 times for England, also began his senior football career at Horden, though memory suggests he was born at one or other of the Hesledens.

We last saw him, looking prosperous, over coffee at Manchester Airport.

Micky Fenton, the Middlesbrough and England forward who died this week, is also said to have Horden connections; Richie Norman, over 300 Leicester City full-back appearances in the 50s and 60s, learned his trade at the Colliery.

Bob Taylor particular remembers playing in the same schools team as Ian Cranson, who went to Ipswich and won five Under 21 caps - "Oh aye, Cranner kicked me up a height many a time" - and Brian Honour, to become an all-time hero at Hartlepool.

"Brian was a fantastic player, probably two or three years older than me and I was just in awe of him.

"No offence to Darlington and Hartlepool, but I can never understand why he didn't play at a higher level."

Brian, 39 next week, is now manager of Bishop Auckland.

And finally...

The four English racetracks which don't form a complete circuit (Backtrack, February 4) are Brighton, Epsom, Newmarket and York.

Since most of today's column has been spent in the Throstles' nest, readers may care to name the only Ripon born player - another old Albion legend - to be capped by England.

On song as always, the column returns on Tuesday.

Published: 07/02/2003