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Steven Taylor reveals his audition for ‘An Idiot Abroad’

Steven Taylor was released in June 2016 after a lifetime at Newcastle United.

The centre-back fortunate to land a two and a half year contract with MLS side Portland Timbers.

Only four months and nine league starts later, the Timbers agreed to release him from his contract so he could come back to England.

No reasons were given at the time but Steven Taylor has now given the overwhelming reasons as to why he found it so difficult to settle in America…

Sounding like a cross between the classic Karl Pilkington (‘An idiot abroad’) TV persona and Gazza when he went to Lazio, Taylor points out some insurmountable problems that faced him.

The language was a major one, with American saying ‘corn’ instead of ‘sweetcorn’, as well as the different way they pronounced ‘tomatoes’.

Hmmm, imagine like Gazza and Karl Pilkington, faced with a country where every word (language) was different?!!

Steven Taylor says (jokingly I think) ‘I don’t think they liked the Geordies for some reason’ and Americans asked ‘if I came with subtitles’.

The former Newcastle player says another problem was that allegedly it doesn’t mean as much whether you win or lose in America and that there was a lack of ‘hunger and fight’ on the training pitch.

Another concern was the lack of ‘banter’ in the dressing room at Portland, apart from obviously the sweetcorn/tomatoes ‘banter’.

Little wonder that Taylor then ended up at Ipswich with ‘proper’ old school Mick McCarthy and plenty of banter, as well as a whole three games on the pitch before injury.

Steven Taylor is still only 31 but hasn’t made 10 league starts in a season for any club since 2012/13 and only once in seven years has he started more than 14 league matches in a year.

Despite this, it is reported that Taylor has been invited back to Ipswich for pre-season training.

A bit like the charmed life (just like Shola) he led at Newcastle, getting contract after contract, it looks like Taylor’s luck still hasn’t ran out quite yet.

Steven Taylor talking to the East Anglian Daily Times:

“They (Americans) didn’t have a flipping clue what I was saying – they asked if I came with subtitles.

“You have got to speak really slowly, especially with the terms – they call sweetcorn ‘corn’ and they had no idea what I said when I asked for tomatoes.

“I was like ‘come on, you’ve got to understand me’, I don’t think they liked the Geordies for some reason!

“It’s just a different mentality (in America), it doesn’t mean as much if you win, lose, or draw, while over here there is so much more pressure, it’s proper.

“It’s nice to be back and I did miss the banter around the place as that’s one thing I didn’t have in the changing room alongside the hunger and fight in training.

“It (football in the States) is definitely getting better and there are some players from El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Mexico who I would have never thought about being good.

“There’s some top players out there who could easily come and play in the Championship.

“It was a good experience and I enjoyed, it was something new for me and gave me the drive and mojo to come back to England.”

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