Jack Taylor: Referee best known for awarding the first penalty in a World Cup final

[ASFN Admin]

If the football authorities could have drawn up their ideal prototype for a referee – tall, burly and darkly forbidding, oozing authority and charisma in equal measure, steely enough to keep even the most fractious of temperamental stars in order – then surely they would have come up with something very close to Jack Taylor. The Football League described him as "perhaps the finest English referee of all time" and that remains a widespread perception throughout the game. Like every official who ever stepped on to a pitch, Taylor made his mistakes, but they were remarkably few in number and they were made honestly.

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