football and Me

1st blog 24.1.2011

First of all can i thank all of you for your support and for taking the time out to visit my blog. I am truly humbled every day by your support and help.

Wow so here goes my first blog ever, So here goes

Football and me

I was born in Liverpool and raised in an area called Toxteth, i was raised as an only child by my  parents Neil Danns senior and Karen Jackson. As a child football was not the first sport i became engrossed with, having a european skateboard champion as a father some what gave me the urge to go down the skate boarding path first, and also like me my father was also not only a one trick pony, because whilst skate boarding he was also taking part in eurovision song contest qualifications and other musical activities, so you can see were that side of me comes from,(music wise)

So like i said i tried out the whole skateboarding thing first, and was not to bad at it for my age. But once i started to kick a little round thing around my garden that was the end of skateboarding for me and football became my life. Thats when i started practicing and playing at local youth clubs and various weekend teams namely Rossoak f.c under 12′s, and from playing in these teams and youth clubs, i was spotted by a Liverpool fc scout and was invited down for trials,

After the trials proving successful at the tender age of 11, by the time i was fourteen i was selected as one of the sixteen best players in England, and was offered the chance to move away to the midlands were i would get a scholarship and train every day with the other 15 lads my age and  16 the year above me, these players included, Jermain Defoe (Tottenham), Joe Cole (Liverpool)  Stuart Parnaby (Birmingham) Danny Webber (Portsmouth) Leon Britton (Swansea) Rob Edwards (Blackpool) and many more, so as you can see i was living and training everyday for two years with these talented people at the the prestigious Lilleshall football academy, which had also produced many of englands finest stars through the years such as, Rio Ferdinand ,Michael Owen, Sol Campbell, Jamie carragher, Andy Cole and many more.

When i left Lilleshall at the age of 16 i was offered a proffesional contract by Blackburn rovers were i went on to make my debut at 19 in the Uefa cup against Cska Sofia. played for Blackburn in the premier league f.a cup and then coca cola cup, all under the watchful eye of graham Souness.

It was when Graham Souness left for Blackburn and Mark Hughes took over i was deemed surplus to requirements, so i moved to Colchester in league one were i was confident that i would shine out and earn the right to play at a higer level, as i was later to prove, After a great time and successful period of my career i would then  move on to Birmingham were i was surrounded by a wealth of talent in the season we got promoted back to the premier league, i made 38 appearances during this season 11 starts.  After gaining promotion to the premier league in january of that season, Steve Bruce left for the wigan job and once again a change of management added to me leaving the second city and moving to crystal palace, My first season at palace was the worse time of my career due to a long term groin injury that kept me out for nearly a year, and also had some of the fans calling me injury prone, which was untrue, as apart from that one injury, every season i have ever played apart from that one i have played over 35 games so obviously this tag added to that dark time.

But once over the injury i have established myself as a regular at crystal palace, and still strive to give my all week in week out for the palace faithful,

Thanks for reading my  blog and ill try and blog as regular as possible

Neil danns

www.neildanns.com

p.s please excuse any grammar or spelling mistakes (lol)