Exeter City: Swift manager decision a masterstroke from Supporters' Trust - View | OneFootball

Matt Taylor was quickly appointed by Exeter City in 2018 and, while it took a long time, proved to be the right one from the board.

Promoting from within when a manager leaves is always a bit of a gamble.

Well, all managerial appointments are a gamble to a certain extent - unless you’re a petro-state club hiring the world’s best boss after spending years employing his trusted confidants and putting every possible building block in place.

That couldn’t be further from what happened when Paul Tisdale left Exeter City in 2018 and Matt Taylor was swiftly installed as his replacement.

Tisdale had spent a dozen years at St James Park, riding the rollercoaster from the Nationwide Conference up to League One and back down to League Two with successive play-off final losses in his final two years.

There was a decent portion of City fans who had never known anything other than Tisdale and his protracted departure, which took almost two years from start to finish, was a constant drain on the mood around the club.

When it was finally announced Tisdale was going City fans barely had a chance to wonder who might replace him as former club captain, double-promotion-winning defender, and then coach Taylor was announced as his successor later that day.

The timing of the announcement was a surprise, but it was also the most obvious of all possible outcomes.

Taylor's start at Exeter City

Taylor clearly had leadership skills, we saw that on the pitch in his four excellent years at the club since joining under Tisdale in 2007.

What was less apparent was how he would adapt to life in the hot seat. Many hoped for a shift on the pitch and another in terms of communication with fans.

With Taylor being a rugged former centre back, an emphasis was put on rock-solid defence and trying to pinch one up the other end.

It was no-nonsense off the pitch as well, with little given away in interviews before and after games.

While Tisdale didn’t necessarily have that win-at-all-costs mentality, Taylor seemed to put more of an emphasis on the result rather than maximising the potential of whatever young starlet was coming through.

He didn’t have to, of course, given the money that Tisdale brought in through sales, and perhaps the remit had changed from, ‘let’s survive’ to ‘let’s push on’.

You dread to think of the reception Tisdale would have received from the Big Bank and beyond if he had finished 9th in 2018/19 as Taylor did in his first season in charge, but, City fans were prepared to give their new manager plenty of rope such was his reputation in EX4.

Exeter City's promotion in 2021/22

Taylor certainly had an authority about him, and he started to get the required results on the pitch as well, the following season climaxing in a horrific 4-0 playoff final loss to Northampton Town at a Covid-closed Wembley.

While it wasn’t to be, any manager getting to a playoff final with Ryan Bowman as their main striker should be applauded.

Another fallow year followed with a 9th-placed finish in 2020/21, but Taylor’s role as former under 23s coach started to come to the fore as a decent group emerged including Alex Hartridge, Archie Collins and Joel Randall, while Matt Jay finally came of age with the diminutive forward top scoring with 18.

That elusive promotion out of the fourth tier finally came at the 10th attempt thanks, largely, to two of Taylor’s 'marquee signings' in Sam Nombe and the sublime Jevani Brown.

Both signings were greeted with a shrug, but both were absolutely key before each ending their City careers in wildly different fashions after securing that elusive promotion.

Nombe followed Taylor when he moved to Rotherham in the Championship for around £1m while Brown was frozen out after pleading guilty to a city centre altercation with a woman in February 2023, just hours after a move to Portsmouth failed to materialise.

While Brown’s City career ended in disgrace, Taylor’s certainly did not and that October 2022 switch to the Millers came at the optimal time for him, with City going well in the third tier but with a horror run of fixtures on the horizon.

He got in at the right time and out at the perfect moment as well. His appointment was slightly underwhelming but proved to be the right call from the club.

The lack of a process in finding a manager in Taylor's appointment at Exeter felt a bit like a cop out, a continuation of a frustrating system bumping its head against a glass ceiling.

But Taylor knew the young players, knew the people in the boardroom and those in the boot room.

He benefited from the finances Tisdale was able to bring in and was allowed two fallow seasons out of his four completed ones because of his reputation and the fact City were always there or thereabouts in the playoff picture.

It may not have been pretty at times, often is was flat-out dull, but Taylor got City into League One with some pretty good football in that 2021/22 season.

In the end, he proved he was the right man in the right place and, purely on a hunch, was the right appointment from the board.

Perhaps most importantly, he also had the foresight to get out at the right time and cement his legacy as a City legend.