The Ex-Files: Darren Currie - Ipswich Town News

In the seventh part of our regular series, The Ex-Files, in which Blair Ferguson chats with Town stars of the past, we catch up with former winger Darren Currie.

It's fair to say that Darren Currie is a man who loves the game. He openly admits that he wants to be in football "as long as he lives" and having been at 18 clubs and now making the first steps into coaching it looks, all being well, like that could happen.

As young children most of us have people we look up to. For Darren it was his uncle Tony of Sheffield United, Leeds, QPR and England fame. As you would expect he had an impact on his career from the start, as Darren explains.

"When I was a kid, from a very young age, even five and six when my uncle was still playing, I used to go along and watch him at QPR. I was mascot a couple of times and it gave me a very early taste of the whole stadium atmosphere.

"Obviously, my uncle was a well-respected player so when he wanted to talk football I was all ears and he was a help, certainly in my younger years with advice on certain things.

"But the biggest bit of advice he gave me was try and become a two-footed player. He had an impact on my career, certainly when I was a small boy."

Having been involved with Watford and Chelsea, Darren finally joined West Ham’s academy, the place he gives credit for making him the player he is.

"A lot of the player I became was what I was taught as a kid at West Ham,” he says. "It was all about the ball and all about the technical skill and how to manipulate the ball. It was a way I enjoyed playing anyway so it was a really good fit for me."

Having gone through the academy system he then had to make a decision which would shape the rest of his career.

"I was a young pro at West Ham and I had been out on loan a couple of times and I got the buzz for playing at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, there was no other feeling like it.

"I was given the opportunity to have a new contract at West Ham or moving permanently to Shrewsbury Town."

In action for the Shrews

When talking to Darren you get the sense that he was, and still is, someone who knows what he wanted out of his career. To some, leaving West Ham may look to have been a big gamble, but it was one that he had considered carefully.

"I thought to myself I'll go to Shrewsbury and I'll play really well for a year and I'll get a move back up to the top.

"My naivety kicked in then because it didn't quite happen. I thought I'd done OK and I was linked with a couple of moves but the route back to the top wasn't as simple as I thought it would be in my head.

"So I ended up getting a couple of moves to other clubs in the lower levels, one being Wycombe, which was brilliant, I really enjoyed my time there, it was a fantastic club.

And for Barnet

"Where I thought it would take me one, maybe two years, to bounce back to a higher level it ended up taking me the best part of 10."

When asked if he thought he would spend the rest of his career in the lower leagues, the subject of pace comes up. Throughout his career this was an issue, even early on. "I supposed I'd had it drummed into me that as I wasn't quick and wasn't a pacy player, possibly the Premiership was just a bit out of my reach. My self-belief said I'd still be able to get there but realistically the pace would always be a problem."

With Wycombe

Having taken the long way round, Darren finally got a chance at becoming a Championship player. With his contract up at Wycombe he was offered a trial at newly-promoted Brighton. Once again his self-belief came into play, as he explains.

"I just had an opportunity, my contract had run out at Wycombe, I'd been offered a couple of deals at a number of teams but the opportunity to go on trial at Brighton, because they had just got promoted that year into the Championship, was an opportunity that I wanted to take and I actually took the trial over being offered contracts elsewhere."

Playing for Brighton against Town

After winning a deal and a short successful spell at Brighton the switch that he describes as "the move that I'd hoped for earlier on in my career" finally happened and Joe Royle signed him for Ipswich for £250,000, the first fee the manager had paid since taking over at Portman Road.

For his debut Currie found himself on familiar territory, Loftus Road, the home of the club he had supported as a boy. The obvious question to ask is what it’s like to play against your boyhood club and score a stunning goal in a 4-2 victory?

Debut goal at QPR

"It's funny because I'd been linked with QPR a couple of times over my career and I followed them as a boy and they were also a team I seemed to do OK against when I played against them.

"So it was kind of ironic that my Ipswich debut would come at Loftus Road, which sort of added to the excitement for me really and obviously there was the family history I had there.

"I was fairly experienced by then but I felt like a teenager in a sweetshop because I was playing at QPR for a team that was top of the league with all these names, the likes of Jim Magilton, Kevin Horlock, Benty, Shefki and Jason De Vos I was like ‘Cor! It's been well worth the wait I'm finally here!’."

One obvious question then leads to another, his miss late on at Leeds in the Blues’ third-last fixture of 2004/05 with the game at 1-1 as Town battled Paul Jewell’s Wigan for an automatic promotion place.

You would be forgiven for thinking that some players would put this out of their mind and forget, but as soon as the question is asked you can hear in his voice that it’s a moment he still thinks about.

Gutted at Leeds

"A lot of people when I go back to the club mention that miss at Leeds and I can't really get past it myself because I'm quite shocked that I missed it.

"Unfortunately, it's a shame that it’s one of the things that people bring up all the time because it hurts me badly, but it's a fact, it happened.

"I remember what Joe Royle said after the game, 'I'd have lost a lot of money there, if I had to make a decision it would have been you' and I can accept that, it was a bad miss on my part.

"Have I managed to get over that season? No, I haven't. My wife would tell you that I still talk about that on a regular basis because we finished on 85 points and finished third.

"You've got teams nowadays getting promoted on a lot less than that and it's heart-breaking because, looking back, that was the one opportunity that I had to get to the Premiership with a fantastic football club and it didn't happen and it was a shame because we were a bloody good team."

Enjoying his time at the club Darren was in discussions with Joe Royle about a new contract, but with Jim Magilton replacing him as manager in the summer of 2006, Darren's Ipswich career came to an abrupt close, something he wasn’t anticipating.

"I don't know, Jim would maybe have a different take on it. If I'm being totally honest I don't know the real reason why it came to an end.

"I remember being in discussions with Joe about a new contract, which I couldn’t wait to sign. If he'd had put it in front of me I'd have signed up, not a problem.

"I wasn't looking for a move, I wasn't looking to leave and I remember that me and Jim were good friends as players and we got on well.

"I made sure that when I came back in pre-season that year that I was in even better condition because I wanted it to work for Jim.

"When Jim was going for the job we had been in discussions and I thought it was brilliant, I thought it was a match made in heaven after Joe.

"Joe was the best manager I'd worked for but certainly Jim going in I thought that was great news for everyone concerned because Jim has got the club at his heart and I thought he would be perfect, and I still believe it was perfect.

"I don't necessarily change my opinion because it came to an end. It came to an end as a bit of a surprise to me because I didn't want to leave."

With his time at Ipswich ending an opportunity in the MLS came knocking, thanks to some help from a former Blue.

"That came about from Frankie Yallop, obviously an ex-Town player as well. I was very keen to go out there but for one reason or another it didn't quite work out.

"It turned out I wasn't quite what they were looking for and they weren't quite what I was looking for. It was all amicable, there were no bad feelings, it was just bad timing. My wife was expecting our second child and just the timing of it all really."

With the opportunity in America not to be, a loan spell at Derby came in its place as the season came to a close. The Rams were promoted to the Premier League and after a promise from Billy Davies, Darren thought his career ambition was about to be fulfilled, only for him to be sent back to Ipswich.

Scoring for the Rams

"I was pretty gutted about that. When I went on loan to Derby Billy had suggested that all being well when we get there I'll take you along for the ride. It just turned out that we got there and he decided it wasn't going to happen.

"I was pretty gutted by that but I was also old enough and wise to know that football is football and people maybe say things that they can't back up later on down the line, but that's the way the game is.

"But it didn't create a problem with me and Billy, I think he's a brilliant manager and his journey into the Premiership didn't involve me."

Asked if pace was again the problem, Darren puts across a well thought out argument as to why he feels the judgement of the pace issue was incorrect and how it cost him his dream.

"I’ve got to be honest, it sounds like most of this interview I'd had the violin out but to a certain extent I probably have because I feel sorry for myself that I never got where I wanted to go, to the very top.

"When I look at where the game is now with the whole emphasis on possession, I like to think it was a big part of my game and have I just missed out on an era [which might have suited me], and there might be an argument for that.

"I don't have regrets, let’s put it this way, I played the game the way I played it. My argument was always and still is to this day, if you put me on one wing and put a whippet on the other wing, I still guarantee you that I'd get the ball in the box more than him.

"Because traditionally when you think of wingers and widemen, you think of pace, that's normally the first thing people mention with wingers. I suppose that's the biggest thing my game never had."

Like others, I judged his pace a problem, but sitting and listening to him speak you begin to think maybe he has point, for example the way he says Joe Royle would sometimes set out his team.

"I remember in my first year there, when we were flying high, Joe would set-up with me on one side and Jim on the other and you aren't going to get two slower widemen than that!

"There were enough balls in the box and forward passes and defence splitting passes that were created but just not very quickly.

"That has been an argument for 20 years, my argument has always been ‘If you give me enough of the ball I will get balls in the box and make things happen’.

At Chesterfield

"My make-up and characteristics as a player meant that if I didn't get a lot of the ball I was ineffective, I think that would be the case with most wingers. But that was a fact with me, if you give me enough ball I'll get the balls in the box. "

By the time he made the next big step of his career the reality of never having played in the Premier League had set in. The decision to become a coach and put his playing career to one side was very difficult, especially for a man who thinks he is still fit enough to play.

"I'm 38 now, 39 in November and I'm currently a coach at Dagenham and Redbridge, I'm a first team coach there which is a fantastic position. But, and there is a but, I still want to play.

Playing for the Daggers before hanging up his boots

"I would have stopped playing for two reasons. I'd run out of teams that want to sign me and in the job that I'm in now I can't play.

"I had to make the decision, do I want to carry on playing for another year in non-league or somewhere like that, or do I make that step where I can be a coach or a manager for the next 20 years? And the sensible side of me said that I have to take the step into coaching."

Having grown up in football and then becoming a professional, the football world is the only one that Darren has known. When speaking about wanting to be a coach, you can hear in his voice that football is special to him.

"I am so in love with this game, it means so much to me, and I know it sounds a bit cliché, but without it I would be a really different person.

"So, to stay involved in coaching and development and helping people become better players, that's where I like to be, I like to be around people who want to improve and I like helping people understand and get better at football."

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