How Troy Deeney accidentally bagged League Two managerial role thanks to bizarre loophole in his contract

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You may know Troy Deeney best for his goalscoring exploits at Watford, or for his work in the media since retiring, but let’s not forget that brief and, frankly, disastrous managerial career he had.

No one can doubt Deeney’s playing credentials. The striker bagged plenty of goals in the Championship during his career and even did a good job in the Premier League with Watford.

But, towards the end of his career, the forward took a step down to League Two to turn out for Forest Green Rovers. He lasted five months there.

During that time, he ended up becoming the manager of the team in a strange twist of fate, before getting sacked after just six games.

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Troy Deeney was fast-tracked to management at Forest Green, and they immediately regretted it

Deeney was in charge for just six games before being relieved of his duties after failing to win a game, getting sent off from the sidelines, and launching a scathing attack on his players in a post-match interview.

On his TikTok, Forest Green owner Dale Vince shared the story of how Deeney’s arrival at the club and subsequent appointment as manager came to pass.

He said: “We had Troy Deeney. That didn’t work out. He had four games and got a touchline ban… for threatening the referee. He threatened to punch his head in or something. And I was just like f—, I can’t live with that. He was calling out our players as babies, too.

“I was like, this is bad. But I didn’t actually choose him. That was a Director of Football recruitment problem. He had told me he could get Troy Deeney in as a player, and obviously, why wouldn’t you do that? He was in the Championship with Birmingham at the time.

“But, we had to promise him he would get a shot at the manager job when it comes up. He told me it was written in the contract, and then the manager job came up six months later, a lot sooner than we expected.

“He wasn’t ready… and when we looked at the contract after it all, we didn’t actually have to give it to him. I mean, he could have walked I guess but that wouldn’t have been a bad thing, it would have been better for us actually. But anyway, that was all a great learning experience.”

The moral of the story here? Read the small print on every contract.

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He may be a poor manager, but Troy Deeney is an EFL legend

It’s ironic, really, that Deeney basically talked himself out of a job. When he was at Watford, he was so influential that Deeney essentially got Vladimir Ivic sacked after a strange misunderstanding and a heated disagreement between the pair.

Still, regardless of what we think of Deeney as a manager, he was some player. In fact, he’s one of the Championship’s all-time top scorers with 95 goals in the second tier.

With 140 goals in total for Watford, and 182 in his career entirely, Deeney must be respected for what he could do on the football pitch. And, let’s not forget, Deeney also scored perhaps the most iconic play-off goal of all time with his winner against Leicester in the semi-final of 2013.