Curtis Davies: ‘Football is a selfish world but I owed Derby something’

“M y mind was blown,” Curtis Davies says as he remembers sitting in meetings with accountants and realising that Derby County were sliding towards oblivion. Davies, who has seen it all during his long and distinguished career, could not believe what he was hearing.

Derby had lost their way under Mel Morris. He wanted a sale but potential buyers were all talk and no action. Derby had become a cautionary tale: just another Championship club paying the price for overspending. Relegation was on the cards when they were docked 12 points after entering administration at the start of last season. It was inevitable when a further nine points were deducted for a breach of English Football League accounting rules.

“It’s been a bit of a shambles,” Davies says, but the 38-year-old is grateful that he stuck around. The defender, who joined Derby when Hull dropped into the Championship in 2017, was unsure last summer. “I was going to stay away for a little bit,” Davies says. “I didn’t want to be in the building and be told: ‘There’s nothing for you.’

“If I was younger I probably would have been looking out for myself. Football is a selfish world. What’s your loyalty: your club or your family? But it wasn’t so much my age. It was my standing at the club. I felt that I owed something.”

Davies chose to go back in to train when a prospective takeover by Chris Kirchner fell apart. He felt that Liam Rosenior, who stepped in as interim manager after Wayne Rooney left, needed his help. “Just by being a political face that people could look at in times of worry,” the captain says.

“We were lucky that David Clowes came in. He went under the radar. He didn’t do all the: ‘I’m going to buy the club, we’re going to be in the Premier League.’ He