Daz gets his big chance to slip from the shadow
PROFILE DARREN ON BYFIELD REDDITCH UNITED MANAGER
FEW players epitomise the journeyman footballer quite like Redditch United’s new gaffer, Darren Byfield. Nineteen moves. Seventeen clubs. More than 100 goals scored at every level from the Premier League to National North.
“I am a journeyman,” he once admitted. “But it wasn’t through choice. I’d have loved to stay longer at a lot of places, but that’s the life of a footballer. If you aren’t wanted or a bid comes in, you pack your bags.”
Byfield’s career is no disappointment. A jet-heeled, selfless striker who spent the majority of his playing days in the second tier, he won the play-offs for Walsall in 2001 and was 90 minutes from the top-flight with Bristol City seven years later.
“He scored goals, he linked play, his touch was great,” said Chris Hutchings, Byfield’s manager at Walsall. “And he had the pace to scare any defender. I don’t know if he was quite a model pro, but he worked hard, knew his strengths and made the most of what he had.”
Yet things might have been even better but for the sudden, stratospheric emergence of Darius Vassell, the friend who would become a rival and, ultimately, a barrier.
As a partnership, the duo scored prolifically at reserve level for Aston Villa, the club that Birmingham-born Byfield had joined as a teenager.
Snapped
Initially, it was Byfield, four years older than Vassell, who was tipped for stardom. His debut in a 1-1 draw with Leeds in December 1997 was followed by a further seven under Brian Little.
Sadly, the touchpaper was doused by a triple dose of bad luck. First, Little was sacked in favour of John Gregory, who didn’t much fancy the homegrown striker.
Then, in September 1998, with ten minutes of a UEFA Cup tie against Stromsgodset to play and Villa trailing 2-1, Byfield was hooked in favour of Vassell, who promptly made himself a Holte End hero with two late goals.
Next came a bout of chicken pox, a broken foot and a snapped medial ligament. By the time he joined Walsall in 2000, Byfield was 24.
“People think Daz was a late bloomer, but a lot of that was down to Darius,” said former Villa midfielder Lee Hendrie, a close friend who has known Byfield since the pair were kids playing for Erdington District.
“They were similar players and he found it very hard to get in front of him. It’s a shame because he definitely had the ability. It was just a case of bad timing.”
For Walsall, though, Byfield’s Villa rejection was great news. Initially, his laid-back attitude and tendency to turn up late did not sit well with Ray Graydon, the Saddlers manager whose disciplinary demands – like wearing a suit to training – caused Mark Robins to quit in disgust. But the pair forged a mutual respect that culminated in Byfield netting a 110th-minute winner against Reading in the 2001 Division Two play-off final.
It was a moment the striker hails as the sweetest of his career. “As a manager you’re always a little bit wary of a player who comes from a big club to one which isn’t,” said Graydon. “But the first time we met, he said ‘I’ve heard a lot about you and I want to work for you’. That showed me he was switched on. And he was actually very receptive. He listened to you and he worked hard. He was a very good player for us.” Over the next decade, the big time would frequently beckon. Six caps for Jamaica, 20 goals in 65 games for Rotherham and a move to Mick McCarthy’s Sunderland that ended with defeat in the Championship play-off semis. Byfield also hit the gossip pages, courtesy of a stormy five-year relationship with the pop singer Jamelia. His final shot at the top flight came in 2008, as part of the Bristol City squad beaten at Wembley by Hull and that Dean Windass screamer. “We genuinely believed we would win it,” said Byfield, who hails his solitary season at Ashton Gate as the most enjoyable of his two decades in the game. “That's the hardest thing. We had good results against Hull in the league and we were really ready for the match.
Developing
“Losing was heart-breaking. The ones that had to go back had another chance at it all again, but I’d been told I was leaving unless we won.
“That was the final game I played in that red shirt.” Byfield’s final Football League club was, fittingly, his first. And, even at 33, his greatest asset – that lightning pace –had not diminished. “Daz was the perfect foil for me,” said Troy Deeney, then a youngster at Walsall, who credits Byfield with developing his game. “He was 33 but still quicker than anyone I know. He used to come in doing sprint training and strengthening work. At the time, I could hardly get myself out of bed. Seeing him made me realise what a proper pro is.” That ability has since come in handy during spells at AFC Telford and Tamworth, where his influence on the clubs’ youngsters was praised by first Andy Sinton and then Dale Belford. And, with a host of coaching badges and a stint in charge of Solihull Moors’ Under18s, it was only a matter of time before somebody came calling. That somebody is Redditch. “I’ve been at a lot of clubs,” he once said. “That’s given me a really broad range of experience and can only help my life after football. I’m desperate to be a success in management.”