Captain of Exeter City’s 1990 championship-winning side, Plymouth-born Shaun Taylor had played for St. Blazey and Bideford before moving to Exeter City in December 1986 at the age of 23. Moving on to Swindon Town and Bristol City, Shaun made over 500 Football League appearances before staying in the game as a coach. His younger brother Craig, another centre-back, also played for the Grecians.

Shaun quickly established himself in the side after making his debut at Wolverhampton Wanderers on 27 December 1986. Playing in 23 of the 24 remaining league games in his debut campaign, Shaun made 41 league appearances in 1987/88 before appearing in every game the next time around. 

By now City’s captain, Shaun missed just one game - the very match when promotion was secured against Southend - and scored six times along the way as Exeter won the Fourth Division title in 1989/90.

Remaining a key player during City’s first season in the third-tier - and by now understandably attracting the attention of more highly-ranked clubs - Shaun had played 200 league games (scoring on 16 occasions) when Exeter accepted a £200,000 offer from Swindon Town in July 1991. 

Shaun was an ever-present as Swindon gained promotion to the Premier League in 1992–93 - contributing 13 goals from defence - and played every game in the club’s only season in the top-flight. After a second relegation, he captained Swindon to the Second Division title, and became the first player to win the club's Player of the Year award three times. In total Shaun played 259 games in all competitions for the Wiltshire club before joining Bristol City in September 1996 for £50,000. After a further 105 league games for Bristol City, and helping the club to promotion to Division One in 1998, Shaun retired as a player and joined the club's coaching staff.

Leaving Bristol City in 2005 he became assistant manager of Forest Green Rovers before later returning to St James’ Park as a youth coach. Then, in June 2011, Shaun was appointed assistant-manager at Torquay United to former Grecian Martin Ling who had been a teammate at Swindon Town. 

Taking charge of the Plainmoor club on a caretaker basis when Ling suffered ill-health, Shaun later worked in the academy at Plymouth Argyle before returning to Torquay as head of academy in January 2018. Briefly becoming assistant-manager again Shaun remained with the club until September 2019.