Danny Rose started his professional football career at Leeds Utd coming through their academy but before cementing his place in the first team was snapped up by Tottenham who had previously signed Aaron Lennon from the Yorkshire club and were hoping this new pacey skilled winger could emulate. He made his move to Tottenham in July of 2007 but was unable to make an impact on the first team so went out on loan to several clubs; Watford, then Peterborough before also Bristol City.
During the 2011/12 season Rose was finally involved with the first team squad at Tottenham making 20 appearances however there was much debate about what his role should be going forward. A decision was made due to his combative nature that a move to becoming a full back was best and to aid him in becoming proficient in that role a loan to Sunderland was arranged where he would play week in and week out in that role. He made 29 appearances for the North East club.
Capped at various youth levels for England Rose famously was involved in the England U21 side that faced racist abuse from Serbian fans at the 2013 UEFA U21 Championship qualifiers. Rose was sent off in the game for kicking a ball at the racist supporters which sparked a conversation amongst UEFA about such incidents going forward. Sadly, nothing much changed and for years and still to this day Danny is very outspoken over racist issues he has faced and continues to face in football.
In 2012 Danny was named in the Team GB Olympic Squad as the home nations fielded a football team for the London games, thus making Danny one of the select few professional footballers from England who can call themselves an Olympian!
For the senior England team Danny got his first call up in 2014 but didn’t make his debut earning his first cap until 2016 in a friendly against Germany and to date has 29 caps for his country including being a part of the 2018 World Cup squad.
Those are just some facts about Rose. Information I knew but double checked online. Facts about the man however does not tell the rather emotional and personal story I have with this player. When Rose signed for us and went through into our youth system and out on loan I was going through a time where I still wanted to be a Tottenham fan (that is for life) but I was becoming increasingly disenfranchised with the first team. On a regular basis I felt like we had some real talent but then we would sell one or more of those players and it was like we were stuck in a loop.
I am from Bristol and have many friends who are season ticket holders at Bristol City who all raved about Rose and each said the same thing; as an attacking full back this kid could go on and play for England and yet when Spurs supporters spoke of him it was with a kind of contempt. “Not good enough” and “will never be in our first team, sell him” was often thrown around.
When he went on loan to Sunderland I made the choice to watch all that I could of him there, as many games as possible to make up my own mind and it was made up – this lad was not only the best left back at our club but with the right coaching I believed could be one of the best left backs full stop.
I felt like I was part of a small club, a small group of Spurs fans who knew and when Pochettino arrived Spurs signed Ben Davies and I was concerned that was it. My small group of Danny Rose ultras were about to be proven wrong – however after just a few training sessions Pochettino handed Rose a new five year deal and told him if he listened to him he would make him great. Music to my ears but as discussed before I was very much in the minority.
Tottenham fans reacted with such vile abuse and hatred towards one of their own players it forced Danny Rose to delete his social media, citing to the media at the time that it was having a very negative effect on him mentally seeing the reactions to him online.
I think it is really important to remind people of this. Danny was a player who joined us very young, developed with our academy and broke into the first team. He was a winger who was being converted to a full back, during that time he made errors sure but he was learning. Yet rather than support and help him Spurs fans on mass elected to attack him. Ironically of course those same Spurs fans for years to come under Pochettino would join me and my small group of “Rose Ultras” (thinking of getting t shirts made now with that) in rating Danny as not only one of the best full backs in England but in Europe.
Rose’s dynamism in getting forward and indeed back when needed was a staple of arguable the best season we have had as Spurs fans in a long long time! The final season at White Hart Lane was something special and one where we went undefeated at home for the whole campaign.
Now what came next was tough for me. Rose wanted to leave. His partner at full back Kyle Walker decided he wanted out citing a move back up north as a key reason before joining title chasing Manchester City. Rose and Walker were close and both Manchester clubs were keen on signing him too that summer but with Spurs struggling to replace Walker as it was, they simply would not sanction Rose departing also.
From there the relationship was a little fractured. It is a silly thing for a fan to feel an attachment to a player, a person that I have never met. Even if I had met it would have been hello and that’s it. However due to me being a fan in my mind before anyone else it hurt that he wanted to leave. Why would he not want to be loyal to the club that has been loyal to him? To the manager in Pochettino who took him to being one of the best full backs in Europe! Surely, he wanted to stay for him if no one else; however, I was not thinking about how loyalty and love works both ways.
Spurs fans turned on Rose at the drop of a hat when he was younger and he had not forgotten that. In interviews that followed his failed attempt to leave he was keen to stress that he held no loyalty to a fan base that on a regular basis abused him.
I also cannot write a piece here without mentioning THAT interview. What was for me the final straw with Rose, the last thing that upset me and turned my upset to anger. You see when you genuinely care about a player, I think its actually natural to then also at times be pissed off with them. Like family, we all have a sibling or someone that has annoyed us more than words can say at some point, you still care of course but you are pissed at them and I was in that place. I was angry.
Many fans looked at what he said and liked it, they felt it was all true. I actually cared very little about the content but at the act itself of sitting down with a view of damaging the club. There is no other objective when doing an interview like that. It will not earn you a move as clubs interested would likely think twice (which has proven to be the case) and it will burn your house down where you are currently.
It was The Sun for ****’s sake. It was to my mind awful and in the same wheel house as a certain former captain we had who made the free move up the road. Not the same, obviously but in the same area of betrayal. For me, and that is what I need to stress. I can only speak to me and how I felt and that is never wrong. Many will read this and think “that’s not how I felt about it at all…” and this is your truth, when it comes to feeling’s we all have that. This is how I felt and it took me a while to really wrap my head around it.
What changed for me on this was a bit of time passing, the player accepting the disciplinary action from the club and then him speaking openly about his mental health. That for me was very tough to read. You see like I have said on several occasions this is a player I have felt a real attachment towards and followed and supported his career, feeling all the pride of the highs and the pain of the lows along with him but at this moment where he admitted he was struggling the most – I had abandoned him and had joined the chorus of people angry at him.
As some of you reading this will know Spurs News has a weekly podcast. On that show two of the admins from our page, me and Matt, talk about all things Tottenham each week and Danny Rose has come up a lot and during this period my voice was that of an angry person who felt betrayed, not once stopping to think about why. Think about the other perspective.
Danny was struggling but was brave enough and should be applauded for it to speak out. My attitude and feelings changed, yet again. I was keen to once again show my support and learn from my mistake, my anger was miss placed. I have to learn from that personally and I have to try and not let that happen again (it probably will, I am human and deeply flawed) but reading and listening to information from Rose talking about the place he was in mentally was eye opening.
What shocked me was the general reaction. For some very strange reason there seems to be a narrative that people who earn a lot of money or have a lot of money in general should never have any problems. Should suffer no mental health issues. I remember reading comments like: “Amount he earns he should shut up….” Or “…never worked a real day in his life, he doesn’t understand what real stress is…” etc etc
I am curious. What amount do you need in the bank or to earn per month for mental illness to just vanish? Anyone? Also is there a line where as a person it is deemed okay to attack people. So, if a man working a 9-5 job feels suicidal society says we all need to take note and help this man; if a man earning £65,000 per week feels this week, we tell him to shove it as nothing is wrong.
Blunt facts, for me, is since this whole incident Danny has never been the same player. He I think suffered injuries and mentally has just never been able to get back. He was not first choice under Pochettino at the end and once Jose came in he was told to find a new club. His time we all felt therefore was coming to an end when he joined Newcastle on loan.
He talked about how happy he was to be playing, how Steve Bruce as a manager was straight forward for him to understand what he wants and how he wants him to play. He seemed to be happy however that loan came to an end, he hardly nailed down the left back spot there and returned to Spurs with a full year left on his deal which he has sat out.
He went in to train with the U23 squad on occasion and he played for them on a couple of occasions to lend his experience but not often. He refused to leave without being paid his contract in full making it clear he was happy to sit at home and collect his money.
Tottenham, according to press reports, made numerous attempts to end his deal but Danny said he would not leave until his contract was done and he stuck to that. It is a really sad end to what was a quite incredible story. A young winger signed from a rival academy… a debut wonder goal in a North London Derby… converted to a left back, heavily backed to fail and then he became the best left back in Europe only for it to fall away. He played for his country, he played in the Champions League and marked Messi – famously being told by Pochettino “don’t kick him, it will only make him mad”
So, for all the good and even the bad thank you Danny Rose. I have followed your career from start to finish with us. You have given your very best for Tottenham and deserved more at times and always deserved more respect from the fans….
For the last time; thank you… “Danny… Danny Rose…. Danny …Danny Rose”.
-Admin SJ
