Deeney began season in prison but can end it in heaven

Posted Monday, May 27, 2013 by The Sun

TROY UNCONFINED ... Watford striker Deeney celebrates play-off semi-final glory

TROY DEENEY started the season locked in a prison cell with only his SunSport fixture guide for company.

Today, he can finish it by firing Watford to the Premier League in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley.

Striker Deeney, 24, was jailed for 10 months in June last year for his part in a brutal attack on a group of students outside a Birmingham nightclub.

The victims were punched and kicked repeatedly, leaving one with a broken jaw.

A repentant Deeney served three months, returning to the Watford side in September.

Since then he has bagged 20 goals — including the dramatic winner against Leicester that took the Hornets to today’s Championship play-off final with Crystal Palace.

He said: “It was a blessing for me. My missus says that every day.

“She says that now, when you look back, it was probably the best thing that happened for me. I have grown up massively.”

The attack happened at around the time a number of Deeney’s close family members, including his father, died.

Deeney added: “Before the incident everything was going well with football. But because my personal life wasn’t going well I was drinking a lot, so those two things collided, the incident happened and I went to jail.

“I am conscious of the fact I hurt someone physically and mentally but there is nothing I could say or do that would change that.

“If I say I didn’t mean to do it, you know I did.”

Ironically, Watford’s first Championship fixture was at Palace, Matej Vydra getting a stoppage-time winner for the Hornets.

When that goal went in, Deeney was sitting in an 8ft by 6ft cell in Winson Green nick.

He said: “The Sun do a fixtures thing every year so I knew which day the games were.

“Each cell has a portable television so I stayed up and watched the highlights on BBC1.

“It made the days pass a bit quicker and kept me focused. But we got locked up at 7.30pm so it was hard to keep awake for the next four hours.”

Deeney was transferred to an open prison in Warrington, where he made himself useful by cleaning the gym he used to keep himself fit.

He became pals with football-loving prison warders, some of whom will be cheering him on at Wembley.

But the forward feared Watford boss Gianfranco Zola would not be so friendly and show him the door.

He said: “I knew I’d be playing football, but thought I might have to go to League Two, maybe win some trust back and build myself back up again.

“Fortunately, the club saw fit to keep me. I was apprehensive because everyone knows who the boss is — a really well-spoken guy who everyone loves.

“Him and me were at completely different ends of the scale, so I was a bit worried he might not like me.

“But we had one conversation when I got back and he said he’d seen me play a few times. He said I reminded him of Carlton Cole, which was nice.

“Once he saw me do all the fitness tests he knew I was going to be part of his plans.”

Deeney has been busy repaying that faith ever since, on and off the pitch.

He gives talks to young offenders, while his 20-goal tally is only two fewer than strike partner Vydra.

The most memorable of those goals was the 96th-minute shot that sunk Leicester in the play-off semis just moments after the Foxes had missed the penalty that would have taken them to Wembley.

Within 20 seconds of Manuel Almunia’s double save from Anthony Knockaert, Deeney finished a sizzling five-man move by slamming in the winner.

That sparked amazing scenes, with Deeney leaping into the crowd and Zola falling over as he joined a mass pitch invasion.

But Deeney knows that will be meaningless if Palace win today.

He said: “It would be pointless celebrating like that and then losing — to say ‘I’ve been to Wembley but we lost and we’re back in the Championship’.

“The fear of losing is great but the rewards of winning are greater.”