Damien Delaney appeared on the Second Captains podcast to talk about Eamon Dunphy book 'Only A Game', and in the course of the conversation spoke candidly about the latter stages of his career as well as the changing attitudes to Christmas partys at Crystal Palace.
The Cork native lifted the lid on his relationship with former team mate Wilfried Zaha, who used to clash constantly in training:
Myself and Wilfried Zaha used to have murder, because he was that person -the young, cocky winger- me and him would go at it every day. It became a running joke, but the the argument would go too far and we wouldn't speak to each other for a week.
This cocky, south London, in your face type of fella, you're dying a death and he's killing you in training, and then you find yourself going to the other side of the 5-a-side pitch.
Whereas a few years ago, when I was a few years younger I had the bounce in the legs, I used to follow him around the 5-a-side pitch, and he used to go mad, I'd kick seven colours out of him. Every day it was my thing 'I'm going after him'. And Wilfried wasn't as good as he is now, he's developed so much in the last few years. He was a little bit raw and he'd take too many touches. Even if he got past you, you'd know he'd take the extra touch.
The tables turned in my last year, he just followed me! And I was like 'would you go away and leave me alone!'
The 37-year-old also recounted how the old traditions of English football, namely getting smashed at the Christmas party, fell by the wayside with the influx of foreigners to English shores:
Christmas parties was probably the oldest tradition in English football, it's a two day bender you're 'on it'. Palace, just as we got promoted and there were a lot more foreigners coming in and then they'd come to the Christmas party and they'd be looking at us.
We had a rule Sunday morning ten o'clock in the hotel bar with a drink in your hand. You had to be there. The foreign lads are getting dragged out of bed. And you're shoving down a jager bomb at ten in the morning, they were sitting there looking at you.
That was the old mentality that we tried to bring through into the modern age. It didn't work.
