Matt Taylor interview: Enduring family tragedy alongside the struggle of trying to keep my job as Bristol Rovers manager

"It is not the end of my story."

For Matt Taylor, the old line about football being more important than life and death was exposed for the lie it is when tragedy struck last winter.

After six years as a Football League manager with Exeter, Rotherham and Bristol Rovers his career had to take a backseat.

Here, as told to Adam Bate, he shares that story. It is one of profound loss and the challenge of rebuilding after it, revealing much about football's relationship with grief as he looks to return to the game with a different perspective on life…

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I was delighted on the coach home on that Saturday night in late November. We had played Mansfield away from home and won 1-0. A big result.

The first thing that my wife Sarah said to me when I got home was that Hannah was having contractions.

My sister Hannah was staying with us along with her husband Steve and their two children, Molly and Jack. They live in Kenya but had wanted to come back to the UK to have their third child so they had been with us since October.

We had enough space in Bristol. We thought it was a great opportunity for the cousins to get together.

Everything seemed fine when I reported into training on Sunday morning but I got a phone call at the training ground telling me there had been complications and I needed to come home straight away.

Sarah is a nurse and Steve had told her they needed her at the hospital.

Alarm bells started ringing then.

I immediately went home and just had to look after the four kids. Molly and Jack, as well as my daughter Annie, who was one at the time, and my son Darragh, who was two.

And then there was just a horrible period of basically radio silence, nothing coming through on the phone. That's when it dawns on you that something is drastically wrong. My wife wasn't answering.

By that point Steve had phoned my parents. My mum was driving down and she was phoning me in a panic trying to find out what was going on. And I didn't have any idea really.

Elsie, my sister's newborn daughter, had got stuck during the birth. She had been without oxygen for eight minutes. And that meant, in terms of brain activity, straight away, there was none.

They restarted her heart and got her going, but she was only alive on a life support machine right from the start.

My sister was also rushed straight into surgery. It was a life-saving surgery.

I got to speak to Sarah in the afternoon and she said it's not good, the baby is not in a good way and your sister is seriously ill. I did not process the information. I just went into survival mode in terms of just making sure the children are safe.

My main concern was the children and making sure my mum drove safely because she was coming from Wigan down to Bristol. She came to the house briefly and then went straight to hospital.

I just tried to hold the fort for as long as I could, waiting for more news. Hannah had her initial operation. It still wasn't good.

She was in the ICU straight away. By the time I got to speak to Sarah with any detail, it was early evening and Hannah was due to go in for a second operation in the next couple of hours to basically try and save her life.

And Elsie was in the same position, there was still no brain activity. The doctors were fearing the worst.

It's still a bit of a blur, but it's just a horrible time where you're waiting to hear from the hospital. My wife came home that evening in a state, as you can imagine, distraught for Elsie, for Hannah and Steve. We were so worried about both and did not know what was next.

That Sunday night, because I had rushed out of the team meeting and rushed from the training ground, I went back to pick up my laptop and my washbag and actually ended up bumping the car into the training ground gates.

I've done that journey and that entrance god knows how many times, but I must just have been on autopilot and banged the car at the entrance.

That night was a long night waiting to hear.

The next morning I was able to go to the hospital first thing. Hannah's second operation had saved her life, but she was still in the ICU. It was still touch and go, but the feeling we were getting from the doctors was that while she was not out of the woods, she had a good chance of pulling through it.

Whereas any communication about Elsie stayed the same. Not looking good, they'll continue to run tests and tests and tests, but still no brain activity at this moment in time.

The horrible thing was visiting Hannah in the ICU in the main hospital and then you go over to the neonatal specialist ward to see Elsie. That was just heartbreaking.

Steve's looking after Hannah and then Elsie and his kids are at home with us. So we're trying to reassure them, look after the kids as best we can, be there for anything they need, contact anyone who needs to be contacted.

Because the kids were so young they had no idea of the magnitude of what was going on. Molly, who was five at the time, knew there was something wrong. 'Why is my mum not coming back from hospital? Where's Elsie? Why is my dad not here?'

Normal questions. We tried to calm her. But you can't lie to her. Steve and Hannah were brilliant in terms of their conversations. But she still did not have a full handle on it. Like all children, she just saw the hospital as a place where they made people better.

As a manager, I pride myself on being a problem solver. My instinct is to lead and I believe I am someone who can influence situations for the better, fix them. This was life, in the cold light of day, telling me that this was a situation that I could not fix.

No matter what I said, how I acted, who I spoke to, this was the brutal reality of it. I was absolutely helpless and heartbroken.

But still with a little bit of hope. Hope that what they're saying about Elsie might have been wrong, that there might be a sign of brain activity in the next few days in the tests and they're going to keep on running those tests.

As that week started to progress, we had a game on a Tuesday night, which I wasn't going to go to, but Hannah's condition on the Tuesday improved and, typically, Hannah and Steve said I should go to the game.

I went on autopilot, I was there but not there. I shouldn't have gone.

We got beat 2-0. I was on the touchline. I hadn't been involved. I left training and selection to my assistant. I had no input but I wanted to be there because it's your team. I don't think I could have made a difference, we were beaten by the better team on the night.

I remember I went straight from that game back to hospital because I'd seen Hannah that day but I hadn't seen Elsie. I wanted to see Elsie every single day and read to her and speak to her. Being sat in neonatal at midnight. That was a pattern for the week.

On the Wednesday, there was a conversation with the club in terms of the need for a leave of absence, which was right and was needed. It gave me the opportunity to be there with the family.

Hannah slowly improved. Elsie's condition stayed the same.

It got towards the end of the week and Hannah was coming out of the ICU. They'd managed to move her closer to the neonatal, just so she could be closer to Elsie, naturally. On Friday, Hannah, Steve and the doctors had a meeting.

They said that over the weekend there would be a time when they would turn off the life support machine.

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Our house became the base for visitors. Steve's family, Hannah's eldest brother and family, parents, everyone came. Saturday was the day we said goodbye. Sarah, my children and my parents said goodbye to Elsie. Hannah and Steve had all day Sunday with their beautiful little girl.

Elsie passed away peacefully in Hannah and Steve's arms on Sunday. It was absolutely brutal and heartbreaking.

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A day later, Sarah did a pregnancy test and she was pregnant. That was another set of emotions.

She was emotional, as you can imagine. Guilt, fear, joy, everything. All sorts of feelings which I suppose we weren't expecting to feel.

We'd had two children. We'd spoken about having a big family. All of a sudden, this major thing had happened. It makes you question everything.

I wanted the news to be positive and happy. We told Hannah and Steve that we couldn't hide that from them and act the same way. They made us feel better about our news despite their situation. It was incredible from them.

In the midst of all that, I was looking to go back to work…

We had played Barnsley and won on penalties in the FA Cup on Saturday but we got beaten by Leyton Orient 3-0 on the Tuesday night. I went back to work at the end of that week.

I remember it was Storm Darragh because my son was called Darragh. We were due to play Bolton at home. That game got called off due to stadium damage.

Going into what would be my final week, I felt that if I didn't beat Birmingham away, who were the strongest team that had ever been in League One, then my time could be up. A lot had happened while I was away.

They had put the first-team coach in charge, not my assistant.

When I went back, it felt like the players knew. I knew within a day that they'd told my assistant that the Birmingham game was going to be his last game.

We got beat 2-0 at Birmingham. We didn't play that badly, 2-0 away at Birmingham with the way they were in that league that season. But we didn't have a shot on goal in anger, didn't create anything, never looked like winning the game. They were comfortable.

Then I received a message on the Saturday night about a meeting on the Sunday. It was obvious what was coming.

I've enjoyed every day of my management career apart from that week.

Naturally, people go into self-preservation mode. Some people are honest with you. Some understandably start looking to what is next. I was working with a different group of players to what I had done previously, that's the feeling I got throughout that week.

What made that week even more difficult was that it was December and we had a hospital visit. A children's hospital, which is brutal at the best of times, let alone that situation. We had a hospice visit too. I did both of them.

As a manager, it's always your responsibility to put yourself in those situations. I always do it, no matter what the situation. I was pleased with myself that I did do it. But, deep down, the pain and the hurt was incredible.

The meeting in which I was sacked wasn't a relief in any way. You're always disappointed to lose your job. But my focus had to be on my family.

That month, which had Christmas, the funeral, New Year, and then them going back to Kenya, it was a lot. I had also just lost my job as well. My wife was pregnant.

Christmas was the first time we'd all been together for 20-odd years. There were close to 20 people in our house. We made it an event and we did a fireworks display. It was a little moment of joy in amongst the sadness.

The funeral was beautiful despite the sadness and pain. And then, saying goodbye to Hannah, Steve, Molly and Jack too. It was a real tough moment.

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It's difficult to say how Hannah is now. There's still something missing which she'll always have. She's functioning, if that's even the right word. She has joy and love with the kids and Steve.

But there's a massive part of her and the family missing. The grief is huge. We talk openly. Maybe because we were all together at the start, it's helped us have that kind of relationship. But I can't put into words the grief that they must be feeling as parents.

In terms of where Hannah's at now, it's good and bad every day. Difficult moments every single day. You hope her health continues to improve. Even now, she's still trying to get her body in a better place.

We sat down in mid-January, took a breath and realised we needed to be away from the house for a little bit. We went back to Sligo, Ireland, where Sarah is from. Spending the week along the Wild Atlantic Way with Sarah's family allowed us to reconnect with ourselves and the outside world.

When our tenancy was up in March, we moved back to Sheffield. That was the Bristol chapter finished.

I actually got offered a job at the end of January. But it wasn't the appropriate time to take it. I made the excuses every manager does in terms of the squad, the recruitment, the timing of the window. But it wouldn't have been right for my family.

That was the correct decision. I was so pleased I made it.

Finding structure in our lives in Sheffield

Being in Sheffield, we found a structure in our life with me being at home. I was finally fully present. Spending time with the kids, it felt like a fresh start. I developed a better relationship with them, with my wife. We love the area, the Peak District on our doorstep.

The kids have now started nursery, pre-school for Darragh.

But we were all building towards five weeks ago, when we had our baby Conor.

That was the next big moment. I am always positive and just react when something happens but Sarah's brain was going towards the worst-case scenario, naturally.

I have to say the League Managers' Association were brilliant with me and Sarah in terms of support - psychological support, counselling.

I had the initial session with Sarah but I think it was quite obvious from the outset that she probably needed her own time as well. She had that numerous times through the LMA and that built towards her giving birth to Conor. It helped her massively.

As managers, we feel like we can talk our way out of most things. We can't talk our way out of something that we don't understand. I can try and comfort her as a good husband but professional help was needed. I'm so grateful to the LMA.

Hannah is still having counselling through other sources.

Sarah is doing great and the way Conor's birth went, as smooth as a birth can go, we were so lucky. They are both healthy. We were so grateful to get home.

Darragh has taken on the big brother role really well. You pick them up from pre-school and nursery. And the first thing they want to do is see baby Conor. They're in a really good place.

Despite settling into our new life in Sheffield, I knew that I needed competition in my life. My release came from cricket.

I asked the woman on reception at the local sports centre if she knew how I could get involved in some nets with the season starting soon. It turned out she was the mum of the first-team captain at Sheffield Collegiate, Joe Root's old club.

Luckily, that was my in. I played a good level of junior and club cricket until football took over. Going back into it, I felt like an old man. I am 43 and my body is not how it used to be. I am turning up playing second XI cricket alongside teenagers, the elder statesman.

I had gone 15 years without holding a bat consistently but I managed to get some decent scores and the whole season just felt like a real release for me after everything. It allowed me to go back into the changing room. I learned so much about the younger generation by sharing a changing room with them. It turned out to be a great education for me.

I got a hundred in an MCC game at White Coppice in Chorley, fantastic place in the hills where I actually spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was a kid. My grandad's ashes are scattered around there and my parents were at the game that day so that was great.

The commitment surprised Sarah, admittedly. And not in a good way! I had got my weekends back and then suddenly you are out all Saturday. But the more I played, she understood that it was huge for me. I needed something for my competitive mindset.

When I do go back into management, I know I won't be able to play in the same capacity again. It might be my last full cricket season because I want to go back in…

Ready to return to work

I am ready now. I needed to be there for Sarah during the pregnancy but now, with my family safe and in a good place, I feel comfortable that I can go back out into the working world and be myself and give it my all.

It's also probably helped me as well. You go into management at 37 years of age, wet behind the ears, thinking you know everything. I had six-and-a-half years full on, Exeter to Rotherham, Rotherham to Bristol Rovers with only two weeks in between.

I've felt so different in the last six months. Disconnecting from it has helped me no end. The game has not changed and I have not changed in terms of how I see it. But do I have a better understanding of people? I feel I am in a much better place to do that.

I know I can motivate people. I know I can upskill them. It is about the balance of the will and the skill, that is the art of leadership and management.

And I am proud of my track record in producing good teams, developing players and winning promotion at Exeter, keeping Rotherham in the Championship and getting the best from players and staff everywhere I have been.

I am champing at the bit now. I can't wait for the next challenge.

I don't want the end at Bristol Rovers to be the last memory of football management.

It is not the end of my story.

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In loving memory of Elsie

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