Stewart Taylor

Stewart Taylor is a British soccer biographer whose books examine former Arsenal players and the lasting influence they can have on supporters. A former civil servant, he studied economics at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. His first book grew from a project begun in 2009 to reconstruct the life of Paul Vaessen, a player remembered for one decisive goal and a difficult life after soccer.

Published in 2014, Stuck in a Moment was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and brought Taylor a best-new-writer shortlist place at the following year’s British Sports Book Awards. His second book, Truly, Madly, Charlie, turns to Charlie Nicholas, combining testimony about the player’s Arsenal career with Taylor’s own recollections of adolescent admiration.

Taylor’s two subjects present contrasting relationships between promise, fame, and the passage of time. The Vaessen biography reconstructs a life whose defining sporting achievement preceded injury and exclusion from the game. The Nicholas book examines a much more visible public figure while acknowledging the author’s personal investment in the story. Interviews with teammates, writers, and supporters allow those memories to be placed beside other accounts of what happened.

Soccer Books

Stuck in a Moment: The Ballad of Paul Vaessen: Taylor reconstructs Paul Vaessen’s life from a working-class childhood to sudden prominence with Arsenal. His goal against Juventus in 1980 made an unknown teenager briefly famous, but injury and declining opportunities soon disrupted his career. The biography follows his departure from professional soccer and descent into drug use, examining the distance between a celebrated sporting moment and the difficulties that followed. Published in 2014.

Vaessen was eighteen when he scored the goal in Turin that put Arsenal into a European final. Three years later, his professional playing career was effectively over. Taylor follows that compressed trajectory through family testimony and recollections from fellow apprentice Nicky Law and other Arsenal players. Tony Adams provides the foreword. The account gives space to the long aftermath of a short career, when the applause had ended but the memory of achievement remained.

Truly, Madly, Charlie: A Tale of Obsession, Superstition and Charlie Nicholas: Taylor examines Charlie Nicholas’s four-and-a-half years at Arsenal through teammates, journalists, supporters, and his own memories. The Scottish forward’s arrival brought excitement and formidable expectations, while his style and celebrity made him a figure beyond the field. The book considers why supporters remained attached to him despite uneven results, connecting a player’s career with the emotional intensity of youthful fandom. Published in 2026.

Nicholas arrived at Highbury from Celtic in 1983, choosing Arsenal amid interest from other major clubs. Contributors include Kenny Dalglish, Pat Jennings, Terry Neill, David Dein, Amy Lawrence, Patrick Barclay, and Martin Tyler. The narrative includes the goals in the 1987 League Cup final and the later disagreement with George Graham that preceded his return to Scotland. Taylor also shares scrapbook memories and efforts to meet his hero, making the supporter’s experience an explicit part of the biography. Nicholas’s reputation was not limited to his playing role. Fashion, publicity, and the social world around a young star in London also affected how he was perceived. The book contrasts that highly visible image with the impressions of people who knew him, asking why their recollections differed from the simpler public descriptions.