147: Dean Sturridge, Derby County, Merlin’s Premier League 97 Official Sticker Collection

Happy New Year! We saw in 2021 here at A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words with a look at Eidur Gudjohnsen and his family’s impressive footballing pedigree and hoped that the year ahead would be a significant improvement on the one that had preceded it. We’re going to kick off 2022 with something similar although we might not be so keen to tempt fate with predictions for the year ahead. As always thanks to everyone who has read, shared, liked or commented on any of our posts and the four of us hope the New Year treats you well.

I’m already convinced my son has surpassed me in many ways. Having nearly mastered walking, communication and banging things together I feel there is little left that I can teach him. I wonder when the likes of Frank Lampard Senior and Cesare Maldini had similar realisations about their progeny (in the former’s case probably when his son dropped the ‘Junior’ from the end of his name) and how their children’s achievements have obscured the admirable careers they had carved out for themselves. Simon Sturridge must have been immensely proud when his son Daniel and his overrated, bitey, racist strike partner nearly took Liverpool to Premier League glory only for their feted skipper to fall over and Dwight Gayle to pull off the greatest ever 3-3 comeback. Daniel Sturridge’s 112 club goals in a career that has also taken in spells with Manchester City, Chelsea, Trabzonspor and current club Perth Glory has also included 26 England caps and eight international goals, including strikes at the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016, and has certainly surpassed his father’s more modest return of 56 goals in 313 games for Birmingham City, Stoke City, Blackpool, Northampton Town and Shrewsbury Town. I have no idea if Simon did an irritating little dance routine to celebrate any of those goals but I doubt it somehow.

Not only has young Daniel’s career eclipsed that of his father’s but it has also overtaken the considerable achievements of his uncle, and fellow professional footballer, Dean Sturridge. Uncle Dean came through the youth system at Derby County to make his professional debut in 1992 in a 1-0 defeat to Southend United. He was sent out on loan to Torquay United in the early stages of the 1994/95 season where his five goals in ten games convinced Rams’ manager Roy McFarland to bring the striker back to The Baseball Ground. The arrival of Jim Smith as manager ahead of the 1995/96 campaign came with promises of a top-half finish in Division One and, despite Sturridge’s five goals, the Rams recorded just two wins in their first ten games. From there on out, however, Derby racked up the points and, aided by a further fifteen goals from Sturridge, gained promotion to the Premier League without having to endure the indignity of an extra-time loss to Leicester City in the play-off finals.

Both Derby County and Dean Sturridge hit the ground running upon their elevation to the top flight and the striker’s eleven league goals helped the Rams finish in an impressive twelfth position in the 1996/97 season. Backed by the evergreen Paul McGrath Derby earned an impressive 3-2 win at Old Trafford with Sturridge grabbing the winning goal and it was little surprise that the big clubs started to express an interest in the promising young striker. As the club moved to their new ground Pride Park there was immense speculation that Sturridge would be moving on to Arsenal for a fee of £7m but the deal never manifested and he was back scoring goals for Derby in the 1997/98 season alongside Costa Rican sensation Paulo Wanchope. Ten league goals helped Derby finish ninth and the club went one better with an eighth placed finish in 1998/99 despite Sturridge’s diminishing returns in front of goal. He was outscored by human trebuchet Rory Delap in the 1999/2000 campaign as Derby narrowly avoided relegation from the Premier League and, after a quiet start to the next season, Sturridge departed to Leicester for £375,000 in January 2001. He remains Derby’s top Premier League goalscorer with 32 strikes to his name.

During his brief spell at Filbert Street the striker managed seven goals in a quarter century of appearances but the club’s poor form and revolving door of managers saw Sturridge move to First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers in December 2001. He scored on his Boxing Day debut and racked up a frankly ludicrous 21 goals in 30 appearances, including an absolute worldy against former Leicester strike partner Ade Akinbiyi’s Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, as Wolves finished third in the league. Although they lost out in the play-offs they continued their strong form into the 2002/03 campaign, buoyed by the arrival of Denis Irwin and Paul Ince, and Sturridge’s ten goals helped Wolves gain promotion to the Premier League via victories over Reading and Sheffield United in the play-offs. Injury denied Sturridge all but five games in a season that saw Wolves finish bottom of the league and continued through the next two campaigns. Ironically Sturridge moved to Queen’s Park Rangers to alleviate the club’s own injury crisis in March 2005 but only managed eleven games across two seasons and failed to find the net. After a brief spell at Kidderminster Harriers was also curtailed by injury Sturridge retired from professional football in 2007.

Dean Sturridge scored 104 goals in his career, eight fewer than his nephew but nearly double those managed by his brother, which should put him firmly in mid-table in the Sturridge league. Without the injuries, however, he might well have scaled heights far beyond those of his nearest and dearest. After all his form in Derby’s promotion to and establishment in the Premier League attracted not just the interest of Arsenal but a lucrative contract at the one and only Harchester United where he spent the first series of Sky One’s elite footballing drama as a £5m rated striker. For all of young Daniel’s threats to rebuke inferior barbers in the Perth area it could be argued that he was fortunate to have enjoyed his prime at a time when both Liverpool and England lacked the quality his uncle went toe to toe with in the Premier League’s 1990s heyday.