Horror at Villa is a stain I can't erase - Taylor

Apr 10 2011 by Mark Douglas, Sunday Sun

IT is indelibly marked in his memory, a stain on his CV that Steven Taylor can never erase.

Villa Park, May 24, 2009 – the day a shameful Newcastle United suffered the indignity of relegation to the Championship.

The afternoon, as the young defender freely admits, that the club got its comeuppance after nine months of conceit, cock-ups and catastrophic complacency.

As United prepare to return to the scene of the crime for the first time, Taylor offers the Sunday Sun the most complete account yet of a day he pinpoints as the “lowest in his career” – and the renaissance that continues to this day.

Taylor on . . . that game

“I REMEMBER going for a walk in the morning before the game – walking in the grounds of the hotel before the game – and the Villa supporters singing: ‘You’re going down’. That wasn’t a particularly nice touch.

“Despite everything that happened that season our fans were behind us from the start of the day – even from the warm up. You could see them, it was a tense day for them. You could see it in their faces and it was the same for players as well.

“You didn’t want any slip ups and for players as well, you don’t want to be the one that gives the goal away.

“But we could hear the fans celebrating because Hull were getting beaten – the player’s knew the craic, just don’t concede and you stay up.

“Villa that day, though: you’d think they were fighting against relegation. They were chasing us down the wings, they were creating a lot of chances and we didn’t create any.

“It was unfortunate for Damien Duff, Gareth Barry’s shot came off his heel and went in the net.

“I think we had one shot on target all day and for a team fighting against relegation you wouldn’t expect that.

“I don’t know what went wrong, maybe it was just the pressure.

“But we’d had our chances to get out of it – after the Middlesbrough game and we beat them everyone thought we were staying up but it didn’t happen.

“I still go on about Mark Viduka’s goal against Fulham . . . it should have stood. It didn’t, but that’s football.”

Taylor on . . . injury time

“I HAD the last kick. Those last four minutes of the game I remember looking over at the clock in the corner of the stand and I couldn’t believe we were going to be a Championship side.

“It was the most emotional I’ve ever been, definitely. It kicks in as soon as the final whistle goes – you see the fans in tears. It was a horrible feeling – crazy really.

“I was in tears myself. For anyone who was part of the club: it’s one of the worst days in Newcastle’s history.”