Success in sport never happens by accident.
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It requires determination, passion and the vision to be your best.
For Bendigo's Mick Taylor it stems right back to when he was a young boy and relished the challenge of playing cricket with his two older brothers John and Robert.
"Sport has been in my blood right from the start," Taylor said. "My two brothers are seven and 10 years older than I am and when we were growing up they would always be playing cricket or footy.
"I would tag along and annoy the hell out them and would ask them to bowl or kick the footy to me.
"I still remember a photo of myself when I was about four years old where I had cricket pads coming up to my chest," Taylor laughed.
Growing up in an environment where he pushed himself to compete against the best paved the way for a career which would see Taylor make his first-class debut with Victoria in 1977/78 against Queensland where he made 75 and 107.
Playing for his home state was just the start of his career, after great success with Victoria where he averaged over 50 he was unfortunately overlooked for national selection at the age of 29.
However, another opportunity arose, which he said, was an easy decision to make
Taylor joined the Australian squad for the 1985-86 and 1986-87 South African Rebels Tour, which at the time was under the Apartheid system.
"I looked at it purely from a sporting point of view as it gave me a chance to play international cricket," he said.
"Since then I have read a lot on the history of South Africa and Apartheid in addition to Nelson Mandela's autobiography, he really is is an amazing man," Taylor said.
"You could argue going to South Africa to play cricket was pandering to the Apartheid regime, what it also did was put it in the spotlight and help bring about change."
On the first tour he was Australia's best batsman making 668 runs, at an average of 55.66 and in his debut test he scored a brilliant 109.
Upon returning home, the reception for Victoria's players wasn't the warmest, so Taylor headed south to play with Tasmania, before also going on to win a hat-trick of premierships with North Hobart in the early 90s
Cricket has always been his passion, but there was also another sport which he has been fond of for most of his life, golf. "It was really only when I joined Bendigo Golf Club around 12 years ago that I got my official handicap which I started at 24 and now I am down to around eight," Taylor said.
In his time at Bendigo Taylor was club captain for several years.
"I enjoyed trying to innovate and vary the competition, get people interested in pennant and also get more juniors playing," Taylor said.
Now 65, Taylor has no plans of giving up golf anytime soon and still has a sportsman's instincts to always improve. When it comes to dropping strokes of his handicap, he knows the best way to go about it.
"It's all in your short-game and putting, that's where the strokes are," Taylor said.
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