Philliskirk relishes his Bramall Lane return with Fylde
Non-League stalwart will face Sheffield United with his ex-Blade father in away end, he tells James Ducker
It is seven years since Danny Philliskirk left Sheffield United but, as the Fylde midfielder prepares for a reunion with his old club in the FA Cup at Bramall Lane, there are certain memories from his time there that never fade, and friendships that still endure. Rob Kozluk, for example, was not too fond of animals and Philliskirk can still remember the day Ched Evans found a dead hare and left it in the boot of the former Sheffield United defender’s car. “It’s fair to say Kozzy jumped when he found it,” Philliskirk says, chuckling at the recollection.
Harry Maguire was also at the club then. It would be another few years before the centre-half would be christened “Slab Head” by Leicester City and England team-mate Jamie Vardy, but he had become well accustomed to mickey-taking by that stage. “We used to call him ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ or ‘Bowling-ball Head’, because his head was so big,” explains Philliskirk. Maguire is now a Manchester United player and the world’s most expensive defender and remains a good friend.
“Some of my best friends were from there – Matty Lowton, Harry,” Philliskirk says. “I’m very close to Harry. We go out with our families. He was always destined for the top.
“There were players at Sheffield United back then who really aided my development. Chris Morgan was brilliant to me, Richard Cresswell, Nick Montgomery. It was great as a youngster being around demanding people like that.”
Philliskirk was boarding a flight back from Dublin, where Fylde’s players had been for their Christmas party, when he heard that the lowestranked club left in the competition had been paired with Sheffield United.
One of three former Blades in the National League team’s squad, along with Andy Taylor and Mark Yeates, the excitement at facing Chris Wilder’s Premier League high-fliers is obvious. But for Philliskirk, a graduate of Oldham and later Chelsea’s youth academies, the links run deeper. His father, Tony, Burnley Under-18s manager, was a former team-mate of Wilder’s at Sheffield United in the 1980s and Danny himself briefly played under Wilder during two loan spells at Oxford United. Tony will be in the away end at Bramall Lane today.
“My dad still speaks to Chris. I know they’re good friends,” Philliskirk says. “I played a handful of games under Chris at Oxford. He’d come to watch me at Chelsea a couple of times. I probably wasn’t ready for first-team football in terms of my physical development. But Chris was brilliant – very demanding, very organised, very hard-working.
“He’d expect you to respect the club’s values and philosophy and if you didn’t, you’d be told but, if you did, he’d be very encouraging. He’s honest. As a player, all you want is a bit of honesty from your manager but he’s a very good coach, too. The way he’s adapted this 3-5-2 formation with the centre-halves overlapping, I think the quality of his coaching does get overlooked but I’m sure in the future he’ll be at one of the big clubs.”
Philliskirk left Oldham’s academy to move to Chelsea over Bolton in 2007, aged 16. His contemporaries included the likes of Fabio Borini, Gael Kakuta, Josh McEachran, Jeffrey Bruma, Jacob Mellis and Patrick van Aanholt but, while senior opportunities for youth-team graduates were sparse at
Stamford Bridge then, Philliskirk believes his three years at the club helped shape him as a player. “Technically, in regards to my game management and tactical awareness as I’ve got older, I think being at Chelsea helped me massively,” he says. The opportunity to train with midfielders of the calibre of Frank Lampard, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack and Deco was something he cherishes, although he is pleased to see Chelsea’s current crop of youngsters, such as Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori, getting the chances their predecessors were largely denied.
“I never went there thinking I’d never play in the first team,” he says. “I look back at it now and think, ‘Could I have done any differently?’ Yeah, possibly gone to the gym a bit more but I don’t look back and think,
‘I regret that’. I look back and think, ‘Wow’. I think the transfer ban has probably helped but with Lampard being the manager, I think he’d have played the young kids anyway.”
Philliskirk made just eight appearances for Sheffield United before leaving in January 2013. A brief, ill-fated spell at Coventry City followed and, for a while after that, the midfielder, then just 22, was wondering what his next move would be. “I went to Coventry, played a game and then the manager Mark Robins left for Huddersfield a week later,” he recalls. “That was just my luck at the time. He texted me saying sorry, but I was starting to think, ‘Which club’s going to take a punt on me?’”
That club would be Oldham, where his father had been academy manager as he rose though the junior ranks.
Three successful seasons followed, during which time he scored 25 goals in 124 games from a variety of midfield positions, before a move to Blackpool. In his first full season, Blackpool won promotion back to League One. Now 28, Philliskirk is relishing life at Fylde – while also working as the coach of Oldham’s Under-16s team, a role he shares with Matty McNeil, father of the Burnley winger Dwight McNeil.
“That’s one bit of advice I’ve taken from my dad,” explains Philliskirk, who completed his Uefa A licence last year. “He told me to do my coaching badges while I’m young and you never know, you might finish your career somewhere and an opportunity arises. I’ve been doing it for nearly three years now. It’s time consuming – Tuesday and Thursday nights training and games on Sundays – but I really enjoy it. We’re back training two days after the Sheffield United game.”
When he will hope to be able to recount the story of a historic Cup upset to his young pupils.
‘I’m very close to Harry Maguire. We go out with our families. He was always destined for the top’