HIGHLY-RESPECTED former Huddersfield Town footballer and opera singer Jeff Taylor has died aged 80.

He battled cancer for the last 10 years and died at Holme Valley Memorial Hospital last Tuesday, after treatment at Kirkwood Hospice.

Though he played football professionally from 1947 to 1958 with Town, Fulham and Brentford, music was his passion, his love and his life.

While gaining a BA Hons degree in geography and geology at University College, London – funding his studies with money earned from football – he became deeply involved in music-making.

He went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music and, after graduating, retired from football and embarked on a substantial and successful singing career under the name Neilson Taylor.

An extremely versatile singer, Jeff was regarded as one of the best baritones of his generation, a world-class performer. He also had wonderful skills as a pianist, composer and later, as a teacher.

He was singing at Glyndebourne when Luciano Pavarotti was starring in Mozart’s opera, Idomeneo, and the Italian master introduced Taylor to his own voice teacher, Ettore Campogalliani. Taylor went to Milan to learn from Campogalliani and, when he returned, he performed at Covent Garden.

Regular appearances on the BBC followed in their once-a-week opera broadcasts, when he would be handed a score only days before the performance. One of his excellent recordings, the Verdi opera The Sicilian Vespers, has just been re-released on the classical music label Chandos.

While continuing to perform, Jeff went into teaching at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, being appointed Professor of Singing in 1974.

He spent 18 years in Scotland and his close friend and vocal student, Jeremy Wright from London, said: “He taught a large number of pupils and all voices, ranging from the quite ordinary to the quite exceptional, and I would say half a dozen of them are now international stars.

“Jeff sang everything; performing alongside (Broadway star) Elaine Stritch in the musical Annie Get Your Gun, he could sing things like ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon’ and then perform Wagner, Gilbert and Sullivan, Lieder, and he could sing Rachmaninov songs beautifully.

“He was one of the best baritones of his generation, and I don’t mean just the British.

“Jeff was a very good teacher, too, and there was a great deal behind his teaching which you could also absorb.

“His students gained a great deal from him, not just in terms of singing technique and musicianship but in many other ways. He was still teaching right to the end, and he was very, very highly regarded by everyone.”

Born at Primrose Hill and educated at Stile Common Junior School and King James’s Grammar School, Almondbury, where he won a scholarship, Jeffrey Neilson Taylor did his national service with the RAF as a teenager from 1947-49, having already been spotted playing football locally and signed by Town.

He played junior football for Priestroyd Ironworks, the Firth Street company now the bar/restaurant 1535, and Huddersfield YMCA, and he also represented Town Boys (Huddersfield Schools).

The elder brother of Ken Taylor, who also played for Town and Yorkshire and England at cricket, he played as an amateur at Leeds Road before signing for Town as a professional in September 1947, making a scoring debut in the 2-1 top-flight home defeat by Chelsea in November 1949.

Taylor scored four times in his first five appearances and notched 29 times in 71 games overall for the Leeds Road club.

In August 1951, he scored the first goal of the English Football League season in the second minute of a 2-2 draw against Arsenal at Highbury, watched by a crowd of 54,072, and three months later he signed for Fulham in a swap deal involving Len Quested coming in the opposite direction.

Delighted with the move to London because he could continue his musical studies more easily, he netted 14 goals in 33 games in two-and-a-half years at Craven Cottage, where he played alongside stars including Johnny Haynes, Jimmy Hill and Bobby Robson, before ending his career at Brentford (34 goals in 94 league matches) following a serious injury.

He suffered a badly broken cheekbone, had to go hospital alone on the bus and it was three days later before anyone from the Griffin Park club contacted him. On informing Brentford he was going to retire, despite being offered a new contract, he received a letter from the club chairman saying they would pay him £1 a week extra if he reconsidered!

Taylor moved back to Scholes, near Holmfirth, 20 years ago and enjoyed his retirement with family and friends, although he would regularly return to London to teach and, latterly, students would travel to visit him.

Ken and his wife Avril looked after him through his final days and Ken said: “He was a fine example for me.

“In the football, whatever I did Jeff had done before and he looked after me as a youngster and it was he who took me down to Leeds Road.

“He was bright and clever and everything he did was perfect. He was a perfectionist.

“We are very proud of everything he achieved throughout his life.”

The funeral is today at Parkwood Crematorium at Elland (11.15).