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Islington-born Danny Granville was relatively unknown outside of the
Abbey Stadium when he left Cambridge United to join Ruud Gullit's
Chelsea in March 1997 for a fee of £300,000, and it is a measure of his
impressive talents that in little over a year at Stamford Bridge, and
after just 12 league starts, Danny's stock rose by £1.3m. The young
left-back made his debut as a substitute in an experimental Blues side
which was beaten 3-0 at home by Arsenal as Gullit chose to rest his
stars ahead of the following weekend's FA Cup semi-final, and was the
beneficiary of the Dutchman's late-season rotation policy as he
regularly rested players in the build-up to Chelsea's victorious Cup
Final clash with Middlesbrough.
Danny's meteoric rise continued apace
and he was in the Blues' starting line-up at Wembley for the Charity
Shield clash with Manchester United, but Gullit then signed Blackburn's
Graeme Le Saux on the eve of the new Premiership season and it quickly
became obvious that Danny's opportunities would be limited by the
Channel Islander's return to the Bridge. A superb goal, his only strike
for the club, in a European Cup Winners Cup clash with Slovan Bratislava
sealed victory for Chelsea in their first match of the competition, but
the highlight of Granville's career came when he replaced the injured
Le Saux for the Stockholm final against Stuttgart.
The match, best
remembered for Gianfranco Zola's superb winning goal, was a personal
triumph for Danny who, despite the illustrious company surrounding him,
was the best player on the pitch. He even displayed maturity beyond his
years in the final minute when he refused the opportunity of a shot at
an open Stuttgart net from the halfway line (the goalkeeper had been
left stranded from a corner that had been cleared by the Blues),
preferring instead to run the clock down with the ball at his feet.
Surprisingly, that proved to be his final game in a Chelsea shirt, as a
month later it was announced that he would be packing his European medal
away and joining Leeds United for £1.6m. (Kelvin Barker)
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