Known as ‘The Silver Fox’ due to his prematurely grey hair, David Taylor was one of snooker’s ‘nearly men’, who, although he was highly ranked for many years, never won a major professional event.

He was brought up around the Manchester area and started playing snooker at the age of 14 and quickly established himself as a leading amateur. He was inspired by the success of another local lad, John Spencer when he won the English Amateur title in 1966 and David believed he could do the same. Two years later in 1968 he did just that beating Colin Ross 11-8 in the final. This victory meant he could enter the World Amateur Championship in Sydney which he did and returned as champion after a narrow 8-7 victory over Australian Max Williams.

On his return form Australia, he turned professional bur found success hard to come by and he struggled to make a living till he joined the holiday camp circuit in the mid 1970s. His first World Championship was in 1970 when he reached the quarter-finals. He did not travel to the next championship in Australia but in 1972 he was seeded into the quarter-finals where he lost and from then on he did not get beyond the last 16 until 1980.

In 1978 came probably his best result as a professional when he reached the UK final, eventually losing to Doug Mountjoy 15-9. In 1980 he reached is only world semi-final and the following season he was runner-up in the Yamaha International Masters invitational event. He reached his only final of a world-ranking event in 1982 when Tony Knowles beat him 9-6 in the Jameson International. These were to prove to be the best few years of his career.

He spent ten consecutive seasons in the top 16 ranked players up to the end of the 1985/86 season and made two appearances in the England World Cup team, first in 1980 and then in the 1891 winning side. He was also in great demand on the exhibition circuit.