Troy Deeney: ‘The guy I hit in Birmingham could have died’

Troy Deeney has revealed in graphic detail the incident that led to him being sent to prison and how a Watford teammate sent money to his family during his detention.

The Watford captain served three months of a 10-month jail term after being found guilty of affray at Birmingham Crown Court in June 2012. Deeney was convicted for his part in a violent brawl outside the Bliss Bar in Birmingham that left three students injured, including one with a broken jaw and another who required 20 stitches in his lip. Deeney’s younger brother Ellis, who is captain at Worcester City, avoided jail as his role in the Broad Street scene was not considered as serious.

The incident came just days after news that the man Deeney refers to as his father, Paul Anthony Burke, had been told the cancer in his throat had progressed to an advanced stage (Deeney’s biological father left before he was born). Deeney was, as a result, experiencing a heightened state of alertness and an urge to protect his family when he was told his brother was in involved in a fight on that fateful night.

“In a split second, I forgot who I was and what I was,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Chief Sports Writer Oliver Holt. “I just went back in and steam-rollered anything and anyone who was in the way. I could just see a commotion and I thought, “Right, until I find my brother, someone’s in the way”. The only people I didn’t hit were people I knew. Everyone else was a target.”

CCTV footage showed Deeney booting a student in the head as he lay stricken on the pavement.

“That is my biggest regret,” says Deeney. “I hit the guy and he went down and as I have turned round to start fighting again, I felt like a tug on my leg. If you know, in fighting, if someone’s grabbing at you, there’s a chance he’s got a weapon. You don’t know what he’s got. I just put him out. That’s the only part I don’t like talking about. That could have gone so far left. The guy could have died because I am a powerful guy. I didn’t think about my actions. When the police showed me the video the next day, I couldn’t watch.”

With Deeney in Birmingham’s Winson Green prison and then at Thorn Cross open prison, on the outskirts of Warrington, Adrian Mariappa helped Deeney’s then partner and now wife Stacey put food on the table and pay the bills.

“I didn’t want anyone at my house when I got home,” he says. “I just wanted it to be me, my missus and my son. I was a bit embarrassed to be honest. I was ashamed. I was coming home from jail. I wasn’t coming home from winning the league. It wasn’t time for a celebration.”

Click here to read our feature on how Deeney turned his life around with the help of officials and staff at Watford.

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