Agent tailing team bus down M6, surprise service station stop and high-fives with Wigan team-mates…the truth behind Ryan Taylor’s Newcastle move

In the last part of an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes Fanzone, Ryan Taylor talks about his 2009 move to Newcastle and the secret behind Wigan’s success.

For more of Taylor’s thoughts, read part one. part two and part three of our interview.

I’m in the starting line-up for Wigan and my agent is tailing the team bus waiting for the green light to get me off and take me to Newcastle!

It was an easy decision to leave Wigan. First of all, I only had six months left on my deal. There were little bits and bobs going on behind the scenes and talk of me staying on. But there was never anything put in front of me. No one ever told me not to go to Newcastle.

I was in the swap deal, basically, with Charles N’Zogbia. That whole thing kicked off, really, when Joe Kinnear called him Charlie Insomnia on Match of the Day, I think it was. So then, obviously, N’Zogbia wants out. Wigan want N’Zogbia. So then Newcastle want me. I don’t even know who was valued at what or where they met along the line.

I loved my time at Wigan – even though I broke my leg twice, by the way – because I met some great lads there. I just knew I couldn’t miss that opportunity to move up the road to sign for Newcastle. There was no way I was going to let that happen.

It all came about, I think, the day before deadline day. I knew Newcastle were interested, and I was asking my agent what was going on. Things were just taking a while to go through, but no one was telling me why.

The next day, we were on the bus down to Aston Villa away, and I was in the starting line-up. I remember it so clearly. I was playing left midfield for Wigan against Villa. We’d done all of our set-plays in training. I was on free-kicks, corners, you name it…we’d done everything; team plan, everything.

I said to my agent, “I need to get off this bus.”

This was the chance of a lifetime for me and I wasn’t going to miss out on it. I said to him: “You’re going to have to follow this bus, because I’m not missing this move.”

So my agent follows our team bus down the M6 and pulls up at a service station when he must have got a phone call, and I basically end up jumping off the team bus, on the way to the game, at this service station on the M6. And off we shot, back up the road. No hesitation, not much negotiating, bang. Done.

I think Steve Bruce knew what was going on that day, with my agent driving behind us. We pulled over in this service station and everyone’s wondering what’s going on. But Steve must have known, because there was just too much talk going on at the time about the deal. I think the main reason everything was held up was because Charles was negotiating his own personal terms. I’m sat on this bus, though, and obviously I know my agent is right behind us. Next thing you know, Steve Bruce just shouts:

“Taylor! Off!”

And I’ve leapt up, giving high-fives to all the boys. “See you, boys!”

I didn’t sign in time to make my debut in the derby, which was the next day. But when I got up there, I just thought ‘Jesus…this is a bit different to Wigan!’

The secret behind Wigan’s debut Prem season success

When I look back on my time with Wigan, I just feel like, particularly in that first season, no one in the Premier League had a clue what we were going to be like. They knew, sort of, how we played, with Jason Roberts up front, the big man bringing people into play.

But the core of the group was just amazing to be around every day. Everyone was together, and it’s no coincidence for me, that if you have a team full of players who are in it together, you’ve got half a chance of achieving something. If you’ve got a plan in place, and you’ve got a group of lads that want to be together; not just eight players and three individuals, you want all of your team-mates on the same page, all thinking ‘let’s go and give this a proper go today’.

And that’s what we had at Wigan. We had some really good players, but above everything they were really good people. The training ground was small, so we were constantly with each other, all the time. You know, none of these huge training grounds where you don’t know where anyone is. This place was like: dressing room, canteen, boot room, kit room, gym, out. If you wanted someone, they were only ever 30 seconds away from you.

Paul Jewell must have created this team spirit and brought in the right people. For a kid leaving Tranmere and joining a club like Wigan, it all just felt so different. As in, there were a few complete lunatics in that dressing room, but that’s what kept the dressing room together. The shenanigans from Jimmy [Bullard], we had Alan Mahon, Lee McCulloch, Leighton Baines. These lads had all been together for years. Then they sprinkled in some more players with real quality over a few transfer windows, and I’d come in from League One, bypassing the Championship, straight to the Premier League.

I never really gave that move much thought, though. As far as I was concerned, I was signing for a Premier League club. I was a Premier League player. I didn’t go into games thinking ‘I fear you…I watched you on Match of the Day when I was in League One’. I actually thought ‘I want a piece of you’. I felt like I belonged there.

And having a manager such as Paul Jewell, that helped me massively, just because he’s a Scouser!