Speaking on the inaugural episode of the Best Mode On Podcast, Watford legend Troy Deeney discusses a harrowing incident involving his father
Adebayo Akinfenwa is joined by former Walsall, Watford and Birmingham City striker Troy Deeney in the first episode of the brand new Beast Mode On Podcast, with the 37-year-old providing an emotional account of his life before, during and after football.
Deeney, who retired in 2024 after scoring over 200 goals during an impressive career that saw him play in League Two, League One, the Championship and the Premier League, opens up on a physical altercation he and his mum endured when he was just nine years old, a distressing incident in his life that magnified what matters most to him, above all else – family.
Scroll down to read Deeney's account of what went on that day, with the full episode of the Best Mode On podcast available now, via YouTube and Spotify.
Getty Images'YOU TAKE A KICKING'
In an emotional exchange with Akinfenwa, where he reflects on that particular event in his past that is ingrained in his memory, Deeney says: "I had the incident where he (Deeney's father) beat up me and my mum, I was nine at the time. I believe in the snowball effect. If I can influence one person that watches this… that one does three, that three does five and so on and so forth. That incident, now I do therapy, was fight or flight. My mum had left my dad, my dad didn't like it, and for about three to four months we weren't allowed to tell my dad where we lived. If he met us or picked us up it was like at an aunt's house, far from us.
"On this particular day, my dad had been out and about doing whatever he's doing. I know now he was high and drunk and angry. We get in the car, and my little brother, who would've been five or six, said; 'We ride our bikes this way home'. Dad's now like; 'Alright, tell me where'. We get there, he knocks the door, pushes my mum through the door… at this point he's hitting my mum. I'm nine. It doesn't matter whether I'm nine or 90, no one's going to put their hands on my mum. So you stay there and you take a kicking."
Advertisement'WE'D BE DEAD'
"To this day, I promise you this isn't an exaggeration, I'd be dead if one of my little mates didn't come and knock the door. We'd be dead. He'd have killed us. My little mate knocks the door, my dad opens it, screams at this kid. This kid, Lee, runs home, tells his mum; 'There's a man at Troy's house, never seen him before, screaming and shouting – I can hear people screaming'. To get my dad out of the house there were two riot vans and four squad cars. Think how many people that is to get him out."
GOAL'IT'S HEARTBREAKING'
Asked how that experience impacted him as a nine-year-old, Deeney adds: "Obviously it's heartbreaking. Then it goes into embarrassment. I had to have a social worker at school. So now, imagine I've got someone, at the time felt like your (Akinfenwa's) size, sat on them kiddie chairs, and they're sat next to me all the time and I felt like everyone was watching me. As soon as I went to secondary school, a switch flicked and I was like; 'Right, how do I do it so that no one does that again?' I've got the record at my old school for the most detentions of the year – 252. Everyone thought; 'He's crazy'. Do all the stupid sh*t we could do, so that people would leave me alone.
"Football has three outcomes – you win, you lose, you draw. Guess what? You do it again. Championship or EFL, you do it in three days. Prem – four or five. The most negative thing that can happen is someone online, or a pundit, goes; 'He's not very good'. And that's the worst that can happen? Put me in that atmosphere all day, every day."
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