Michael S. Taylor (born 30 December 1953) is a former

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er who played for the

Collingwood Football Club The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. ...

in the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

(VFL) and for the

Norwood Football Club The Norwood Football Club, nicknamed the Redlegs, is an Australian rules football club competing in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Its home ground is Norwood Oval, Coopers Stadium (Norwood Oval), which is often referred ...

in the

South Australian National Football League The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's sports governing body, governing body for the sport. ...

(SANFL). He also played 13 interstate games for South Australia in interstate and State of Origin football. Norwood's Club Champion award, which is given to the Norwood footballer judged best and fairest for the season at senior SANFL level, was renamed in his honour in 2018. On the 14th of June 2022, Michael was inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame.

Playing career

Taylor came to Norwood as a 15 year old, from the South-East town of Kingston SE. He first played for the Norwood Colts, coached by Mal Smith. In two stints at Norwood, Taylor won six

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

awards, a club record he shares with

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

. Five of them were won before he came to Collingwood, where he was a member of a strong Norwood side which won premierships in 1975 and as captain 1978. The 1978 premiership was his first year as captain and he remained in that role until he joined Collingwood in 1981. He had played as both a defender and centreman while at Norwood and he spent most of his time with Collingwood in defence. Despite playing four seasons at Collingwood he managed 92 games, including the 1981 VFL Grand Final which they lost to Carlton. He returned to Norwood in 1985 before retiring two years later after 267 SANFL premiership games, and 359 premiership games in elite football. Taylor also played 26 pre-season/night series matches (22 for Norwood and four for Collingwood), which are counted as senior by the SANFL but not the VFL/AFL; if these are included, Taylor played a total of 398 senior career matches. The VFL/AFL list Taylor's total as 394, excluding his pre-season/night series matches for Collingwood.

Coaching career

As a coach Taylor has been in charge of Collingwood's reserves team as well as being an assistant at AFL club Adelaide. In 1996 he became coach of West Adelaide and spent five seasons with the club. His best effort was in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

when West Adelaide reached the Preliminary final. When the

South Australian Football Hall of Fame The South Australian Football Hall of Fame enshrines those who have made a most significant contribution to the game of Australian Football. The Hall of Fame was established in 2002 when 114 outstanding individuals became inaugural inductees. S ...

was established in 2002, Taylor was among the inaugural inductees, and was also named as a

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in Norwood's official 'Team of the Century'.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Michael 1953 births Living people Australian rules footballers from South Australia Collingwood Football Club players Norwood Football Club players West Adelaide Football Club coaches South Australian State of Origin players South Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees