Coventry La La La
New Member
Half time guest on Saturday
Former Coventry and Norwich striker Darren Huckerby will be the guest at The Ricoh on Saturday and will be introduced to the crowd at half time.
Huckerby joined Coventry City from Newcastle in 1996 and struck up a fearsome strike partnership with Dion Dublin. He played a total of 94 games for The Sky Blues, scoring 28 goals. He was sold against his wishes to Leeds in 1999 for a reputed £6m which were used to buy a young, exciting striker named Robbie Keane.
Huckerby has revealed he did not want to leave Coventry City. Speaking to The Coventry Telegraph, he said, “I remember getting the phone call from my agent that a fee had been agreed with Leeds.”
“I didn’t want to go, but I went to Gordon Strachan’s office and he explained that they couldn’t refuse that kind of money for me. I was enjoying playing week in week out, and although Leeds were a higher-placed side at the time I didn’t want to go there and sit on the bench.
“I was really disappointed when I left, but the club needed the money so that was it.”
Huckerby's first game was against local rivals Aston Villa and he supplied the pass for Dion Dublin to score City's goal in the 2-1 defeat.
“I started on the bench then went on against the local rivals,” he said; “I had a good game and set up a goal for Dion Dublin. My partnership with Dion was the best of my career. I actually preferred being out on the wing."
“I didn’t like the fact that you were under so much pressure to score up front and even if you’d had a good game it wasn’t seen so because you hadn’t hit the back of the net. I used to prefer to work out wide and cause some chaos, but up front with Dion was great."
“That season he scored 18 goals and me 14. We were the best strike partnership in the Premiership and for a team like Coventry that was a great achievement. I appreciated scoring goals but didn’t do the right thing all the time, but I wanted to.
“I was a young lad but I know it was sometimes frustrating for the fans and the manager. I just used to run for the sake of it. Looking back I’ve watched some videos of that era and most of the time I was on-side when it was ruled off. I think the linesman just used to panic because I was so quick, I was always three yards ahead."
“As I got older I learnt the game, but when I was 19 or 20 I just loved scoring goals and having fun. The older lads at Coventry, Dion, Paul Telfer, Richard Shaw, really took me under their wing. We had a good team spirit and it really was a great place to be. It doesn’t happen very often at clubs, I should know and it was a great part of my career.”
Huckerby retired from football last year at the age of 34 and now lives in Norfolk. He has a match day hospitality club named in his honour at Carrow Road and has started his own charitable foundation.
He is working for his his coaching badges and said, “Ideally I’d like to work with the youth side and make my way up. I’m not too sure if I want to go into management or not but I’ve got a lot on at the moment.
“I’ve set up a trust in the Norfolk area to give something back. It’s doing really well and it’s not set up for just one cause, we help kids one week, the old the next.
“I still know a few people from my time at Coventry and it’s nice to see them having some success. My ideal would be for Nottingham Forest, Norwich and Coventry to all go up this season but it’s difficult, you’ve got to be so consistent.”
