Taylor was born on September 15, 1944 in Worksop in Nottinghamshire to his mother Dorothy, a postwoman, and father Thomas, a sports reporter for the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph and from whom he first learned his love of the game. Taylor joined the youth ranks at Scunthorpe but transferred to Grimsby in 1962, the club where he reverted from an inside-forward to full-back and went on to play 189 league matches.