There's something about players that turn it around.
It shouldn't be forgotten that the boo boys were out for Delaney for much of the first year or so in his time at City. I/we now know that he was incredibly raw (he'd started only 23 league matches before joining us), and didn't really know his best position. Peter Taylor wanted him to refocus as a midfielder at first. He was learning his trade in front of an impatient and success-starved audience. Not many turn it round like that, but Damien did.
From the 2003 season onwards, he was terrific. He learnt well from Justin Whittle and then went on to form excellent partnerships with Marc Joseph, Leon Cort and (briefly) Michael Turner. While many will discuss his contributions to the back-to-back promotions, and the goals against Rochdale and Bournemouth, he was a consistent figure for us in that first season back in the Championship too. While Leon Cort was rightly most people's players of the season that year, Damien was one of our best four or five performers. He was also a key player in other big games - the 1-0 against Leeds that first season back, and then the 1-1 at Stoke and 1-0 at Cardiff as we saw off relegation. He scored the first goal of Phil Brown's managerial reign too. That 4-1 against Cardiff may not look much in retrospect, but lose that game and Gary Megson might well have got the City job. Doesn't bear thinking about... He also played 22 league games for us in the wonderful 2007/08 season. Yes, those who did the business in the second half of the season get the plaudits, and rightly so, but contributions such as those of Damien's shouldn't go unnoticed. As an aside, when writing my book, Phil Brown admitted to one mistake in the whole of his time at Hull City - selling Damien.
When I interviewed Damien, I asked him for his favourite City game. As with so many of that era, I was expecting to hear the Swansea 1-0, the Yeovil game, or most likely the 4-2 at Sheffield Wednesday. No, said Damien, it was the 1-0 win against Leeds. When I asked why, he just said that it was because of what it meant to the city and the City fans to beat Leeds. You only give that sort of answer if you've really taken to a club and city, if you've got them at heart. I didn't put all of it in the book, but he spent ages talking about going to the City fans when we went down against Crystal Palace the last time we were in the Premier League. He got quite emotional at how the City fans responded to him that day. He evidently still loves City. And it was fantastic to see his career turn out the way it did. Damien is a good man. The first thing he did after making his debut for Ireland was to send his shirt to Colin Murphy as a thank you for all the things he did for him. His team-mates loved him, and the City fans did too, eventually! I hope we see him back at the KCOM as a guest at some point. I hope he enjoys his retirement too.
