Football: Happy Taylor back in business at Wolves: Former England manager makes smart start in his attempt to inspire Midlands giants to play-off place. Phil Shaw reports

The turnip, as some of the supporters gathered outside the ground were calling him, has a new patch. The game's worst- kept secret was confirmed yesterday when Graham Taylor was awarded a three-year contract, reputedly worth pounds 500,000, as the manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Many of the same seemingly disgruntled fans were among 300 or so who surged around the main entrance an hour later, when the former England manager went out. 'One Graham Taylor,' they sang, before cheering his avowed aim of taking Wolves into the play-off places. Welcome back to football, Mr Taylor.

Five months after the end of an international career blighted by acrimonious media relations, the 49-year-old star of television's Yellow Pages commercial opened a new chapter with the First Division's 13th-placed club at a press conference in a plush new suite beneath one of Molineux's plush new stands.

Taylor, a journalist's son, once described an element among the entourage who covered his World Cup campaign as 'a very nice bunch of bastards'. Here, he was back among faces familiar from happier days at Aston Villa, evidently light years from the figure who harangued a linesman in Rotterdam last October.

Jonathan Hayward, the Wolves chairman, who was turned down by his first choice, Gerry Francis, introduced his new man of destiny with the claim that 'more than half the Premier League managers' had approached him about the post 'either directly or indirectly'.

'Some clubs approached me immediately after I left the England job, but I didn't feel the time was right,' he said. 'I needed to recuperate. There were only a handful of clubs I'd have come back for and though I flew in from Spain for Wolves, I'd have walked back if necessary.'

Sipping from a glass whose contents gave the lie to his TV catchphrase, 'Do I not like orange', Taylor summed up his priority by evoking the example of another big-spending club. 'Two years ago, Blackburn seemed to be out of it but they won their last game, at Plymouth, to scrape into the play-offs. And look where they are now.

'The next six weeks are all about trying to pinch a play-off place. It's a long shot, but we can do it. Graham Turner, my predecessor, provided so much for this club, and now I'm hoping to put the icing on the cake he baked. The objective is to get into the Premiership and win the big trophies.'

Taylor was aware of hostility from some supporters, but said the secretary's mailbag was now running strongly in his favour. Any 'sensible person' who wrote in or phoned expressing reservations would, he promised, be invited in 'for a chat'.

A deputy would not be named until the summer. Despite the presence of two former England captains - Billy Wright, now a director, and the Hayward family PRO and former cricketer, Rachael Heyhoe Flint - the smart money is still on Walsall's Kenny Hibbitt.

Finally, one bold scribe threw in the T-word. Taylor responded confidently: 'Opposition fans may sing 'Turnip, turnip, give us a wave', and the answer to that is to oblige them. I've never had a problem with the vegetable thing. There are a lot worse things to be called.'

A few more pictures - with photographers trying to ensnare him in the same shot as a sign warning against 'foul and abusive language' - and it was off to Bolton with a positive parting shot. 'It's not about money, but about me getting back into football,' Taylor said. 'Just being in the dressing-room this morning, I thought: 'This is great'. The ambition and desire are still there.'

(Photograph omitted)