Lyle Taylor found his feet quickly by bagging a hat-trick for AFC Wimbledon just hours after putting pen to paper at the club and the London boy believes home comforts will help him at Kingsmeadow.
The 25-year-old was unveiled as a Dons player yesterday afternoon following talks with manager Neal Ardley and was almost straight on the bus to Basingstoke for a pre-season friendly.
Taylor scored a treble in the final 12 minutes to turn a 1-0 defeat into a 3-1 win to show he’s already feeling comfortable in his new surroundings.
That familiarity was one of the main reasons Taylor gave for choosing Wimbledon, having been playing a long way from his roots up in Sheffield, Scunthorpe and at Partick Thistle in Scotland.
Born in Greenwich and having come through the ranks at Staines and Saturday’s opponents Millwall, the striker is glad to be back down south and a stone’s throw from where he studied as a teenager.
“The best place for me to be is back home with my friends and family,” Taylor told Dons Player.
“It will be nice to be back home and have that support structure around me. When the opportunity to come here came up I could not turn it down. I cannot wait to start training and playing here.
“I had a chance to speak to the manager today about what he wants to do with the club, the squad and each individual player. It was something I wanted to be a part of.
“I went to Kingston College and did a college course combined with football. That involved playing for Staines Town academy against the college set-up at Wimbledon and it was always a tough game.”
Taylor left Scunthrope having scored four goals 25 first-team appearances for the Iron but already looks like bettering that ratio after his Dons debut last night in Hampshire.
