If you were aware of Terry Dunfield as a youthful, Vancouverite midfielder, you may be surprised to hear that he is just 29. But as he runs across Toronto’s Ossington Avenue – with no suggestion that he is still recovering from a hernia operation – to greet me, it is clear to see that he still has the same boyish face he had when he jogged past Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola onto the pitch for his debut in 2001.
We grab a couple of coffees from a hipster sporting a rather impressive handlebar moustache, and it’s not long until we’re on the subject of the team we both support and where his career began: Manchester City.
“Soccer was just beginning … to become bigger in Canada – registration was always high … we had the opportunity to go to this tournament [in Keele, West Midlands, England], so we washed cars, and sold teddy bears, and did whatever we could to get over there. And yeah, I must have made an impression.”
Dunfield caught the eye of scouts from Crewe, Liverpool and Manchester City, and he earned himself a trial at the latter. He did well, they flew him back over from Canada the year after, and he never returned home for thirteen years. His roommate for the first two years was a probably even-shorter-than-now Shaun Wright-Phillips.
“It was pretty incredible (when) Ian Wright shows up at the door to pick him up for the day, and we’re now walking around Stockport … I was in my element.”
But with everybody telling Dunfield how good he was, he started to believe it. Rather than stay in and play video games with Wright-Phillips, he was more likely to opt for a night out in Manchester.
“Personally, I fell behind because I was yet to establish myself in the first team and I was living this great lifestyle off the field.”
Despite making his debut as a substitute for Jeff Whitley on the last day of the 2000/01 Premier League season, and City getting relegated into the second tier, Dunfield was frustrated with limited first-team opportunities as new boss Kevin Keegan bolstered his midfield with £2.5m Eyal Berkovic from Celtic – who Terry names as the best player he’s played alongside – and the brilliant Ali Benarbia.
“As an arrogant nineteen year-old, I thought I was this world class player and I should be playing every week.”
Dunfield’s path into the first-team was blocked further: not only were Benarbia, Berkovic, Kevin Horlock and, briefly, Dickson Etuhu above him in the pecking order, Keegan had also wasted £1.5m on the erratic Christian Negouai (TD – “I remember the first day he trained. He came in and injured five players … he looked like his knee was put on backwards.”). So he looked elsewhere and moved on loan to Bury, who were managed by Andy Preece, a good friend of City teammate Andy Morrison.
TD – “All of a sudden I was a big fish in a small pond: we won 8 of 9 games…”
DR – “So this didn’t help with the cockiness at all?”
TD – “Oh man, my head was even bigger.”
The spell gave Dunfield a greater appetite for first team football, something that was not forthcoming when he returned to City.
“Kevin Keegan had offered me another year on my deal – so that would’ve been two-and-a-half years – but I told the World Footballer of the Year that he didn’t know what he was doing and that I should be playing.”
Dunfield requested that, if he wasn’t going to get games at City, he could move to Bury – a decision that the British Columbian regrets and was the cause of his dad not speaking to him for three years. He signed permanent terms at Gigg Lane a week later.
After two-and-a-half years at Bury, Dunfield suffered his first serious injury; one that nearly ended his career. It meant an 18 month lay-off, and his contract at The Shakers expired after six of those months.
“Three cars had to go back, the speedboat went, the girlfriend’s left me, and now I’m making ends meet working in a factory.”
Read the second part of the Terry Dunfield interview tomorrow.
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