Duff the child champion who wants to play

Damien Duff, double Premiership winner with Chelsea, became so much of a Chelsea fan that it is believed he turned down the chance to join UEFA Cup qualified Tottenham, and has moved to Newcastle instead.

He loved everything at Chelsea. But in the end, he loved something more: playing football. And that is why he felt it best to leave.

“I’m just a kid really, all I want to do is play,” he revealed last week at the training ground. “The money side’s not important to me. I don’t want to be one of those guys who plays ten games a year and picks up their cheques. I can’t do that. I want to play.”

And it was his belief he would get less opportunity to play this season. But over his three years at Chelsea he certainly got plenty of chances.

All the same, it was a very tearful end to his Chelsea days today when he said goodbye to his colleagues after training.

He was a £17m club record purchase in the first summer of Roman Abramovich. He settled quickly, setting up both goals in a 2-1 win at Middlesbrough, scoring his first in a 5-0 victory at Wolves, scoring his first Champions League goal with a wonderful dribble and shot in the 4-0 spanking of Lazio in Rome, and then notching his first Chelsea Stamford Bridge goal past his international pal Shay Given as Newcastle were trounced 5-0.

But just before Christmas he dislocated his shoulder in a fall away to Fulham, and although he came back quickly it was dislodged again in training, and at the end of that season he underwent an operation.

As he got fit at the beginning of the following campaign, new manager José Mourinho, who admitted not to knowing him well, bade his time before giving him his first start away to Middlesbrough. Duff stayed in the side for the rest of the season.

When Arjen Robben was introduced and Chelsea played 4-3-3 with the two of them wide either side of Eidur Gudjohnsen or Didier Drogba, Chelsea were tearing teams apart. Duff and Robben were awesome and top of the entertainment scale. At one stage he scored the first goal in six out of nine games, and didn’t start one of them. In under two months Chelsea scored four in a game six times.

He played all 120 minutes of Chelsea’s first trophy winning match in over four years, the 2005 Carling Cup, having scored the semi-final winner at Old Trafford against Manchester United. He scored the third goal in the dazzling 4-2 victory over Barcelona in the Champions League. He played 48 games, starting 42 and being substitute in six more, and scored ten goals in an outstanding campaign as Chelsea won the Premiership and reached the semi-final of the Champions League. But he missed the semi-final against Liverpool with a hamstring injury, and Chelsea missed him and went out.

With Joe Cole and Robben both fit, he kept his place for the start of last season and began brightly, winning the Community Shield, scoring at Tottenham and Liverpool and getting his share of assists. But at home to Liverpool in the Champions League in December, he injured his achilles and never found his rhythm again. He continued to work hard and was often an excellent substitute, at home to Tottenham for instance, but he couldn’t rediscover his spark.

He found Cole moving ahead of him, and he was more often on the bench with Cole and Robben starting.

But he won his second Premiership medal and had secured four trophies in two years.

Now with the purchase of Andriy Shevchenko and the signing of Michael Ballack, and with the possibility of Chelsea playing with a midfield four this season, he has decided it is best to move on in order to play.

He managed 125 games for Chelsea, made up of 95 starts and 30 substitute appearances, and scored 19 goals. He will be remembered as someone who always gave his all, and was capable of being very special, especially in tandem with Robben or Cole. Most of all, he will be remembered as a champion, a Chelsea fan — and a boy at heart.