Reality TV or Football League? Danny Lloyd prepares to face Jamie Vardy - the man whose show he rejected

Exclusive interview: Peterborough star Danny Lloyd reflects on the highs and lows of his life, both on and off the pitch, as he prepares to face Leicester in the FA Cup on Saturday

Lloyd wants to prove to that he made the right decision - in front of Vardy himself (Getty)

Last May, Danny Lloyd was selling bins for a living, for the waste disposal firm, Biffa. After a fine season with part-time Stockport County in the Conference North, he appreciated this was a moment of opportunity, that he was at a crossroads.

In another world Lloyd would have enrolled at Jamie Vardy’s V9 Academy, in an attempt, at 25, to finally become a Football League player. It was a seriously considered option: to spend a week in June trying to impress scouts including Vardy at the Etihad Campus, in a scheme which aims to rediscover non-league talent and promote them into the professional ranks.

Instead, Peterborough United made an offer to sign him, they got him for nothing and eleven goals in 21 games later, pending selection for both players, Lloyd will face Vardy in the FA Cup fourth round. Meanwhile, Lloyd's teammate, Alex Penny, is a V9 Academy graduate, though he is more likely to be a substitute on Saturday afternoon.

When asked about his rise, it is not long, indeed, before thoughts meander towards that other world, the one where he is framed in a reality TV show rather than performing in a live unscripted drama, with the possibility of taking a starring role.

“The Next Jamie Vardy featured on Sky and now here I am possibly playing against him in front of the BT cameras a few months later. It’s really mad,” Lloyd says. “Don’t get me wrong, the academy is a brilliant idea and it’s great that Jamie hasn’t forgotten where he’s come from. I’ve played against him once before in the Conference National when I was at Lincoln and he was at Fleetwood. Non-league is just as tough as they say, but it’s a much better standard than most people recognise. I’ve always wanted to be in the Football League, though. It’s been my dream.”

The dream was realised. Then came the cold reality. Just before Christmas, Lloyd was one of five Peterborough players placed on the transfer list. The transition into the professional game had not been seamless, he was not in the starting XI every week, and Peterborough, a club known for its efficient record in trading, recognised they could make a quick profit on someone signed recently for free even though the manager, Grant McCann, did not really want him to go.

A few days later, after a serious injury to McCann’s first choice winger Gwion Edwards in a game at Fleetwood, Lloyd was introduced as a substitute and reacted to the opportunity by scoring a late winner. The next game, he scored twice against Bury, then again at Bradford, and at home to Doncaster. An offer of around £150,000 from a rival League One club followed but Peterborough rejected it and suddenly Lloyd was not on the transfer list anymore. Since, his presence on the left of an attacking three has been key, most recently in the 3-1 victory at Aston Villa in the last round of the cup, contributing an assist, and on Wednesday night he scored again at former club Lincoln in the Football League Trophy.

With Jack Marriott topping the Football League’s goalscoring charts and his achievements increasing the number of scouts monitoring Peterborough matches, there are now suggestions the word is really out about Lloyd’s hypnotic abilities as well. If the new rumours are true and offers are made from clubs placed higher rather than below, the sum of money involved in a move to the Championship, for example, would inevitably be a lot more lucrative than it potentially would have been only few weeks ago.

Lloyd has settled into life at Peterborough (Getty)

Lloyd’s ascent reflects the unpredictability and ruthlessness of football: how opinions as well as fortunes can change quickly. Listen to him speak about his life and you realise this episode is an extension of what went before: that also, he is now at an age where he knows better to meet triumph and adversity. Lloyd’s path from the Anfield area of Liverpool involves rejection, tragedy, grief, recovery, risk and resurgence.

Inside eighteen months as a teenager, he was released by Blackburn Rovers and Stockport for being too small. He joined the youth system at Welsh champions TNS and it was on the way to his digs one Sunday morning when he received a call telling him to turn back to Liverpool. Aged 25, his brother Jon had taken his own life.

He tries to recall the blur of the period that came at him like a tidal wave. “I’d seen Jon on the Saturday night, we’d been for a Chinese with my dad. There was no indication of what was about to happen,” he says. “When I look back now, I didn’t appreciate the magnitude. I was a 17-year-old kid in the middle of a tragedy. It happened in the April and I didn’t play football again until September when I signed for Southport. When I think about that summer, I can’t remember anything that happened.”

The night before Jon’s first anniversary, Lloyd was involved in an accident, which left him in the spinal ward of Southport General Hospital. When paramedics found him in a farmer’s field, his seatbelt had snapped and the force of the crash had propelled him into the back of the car. Aside from a few cuts and bruises, somehow, he was left unscathed.

“I’m not a religious person but I like to think that divine intervention played a part that night, that my survival was something to do with Jon,” he says. “It could have been that I bounced around the car and landed fortunately but I like to think that Jon was watching over me. I like to think that he’s up there somehow giving me a helping hand: whenever the ball goes in off the post, it’s him nudging it over the line. It’s how I deal with things. Now, every time I score a goal I dedicate it to Jon by raising my hands to the sky. It just seems like the right thing to do.”

Lloyd played a key role in Peterborough's victory against Aston Villa (Getty)

It would take patience and determination to reach this point, seven years later. From Southport, he was loaned to Skelmersdale United. Two spells at Colwyn Bay were sandwiched by a period at Lincoln. Then came Tamworth and for three seasons, AFC Fylde, who were turning full-time in the Conference North when he decided instead to sign for Stockport – ironically one of the clubs that had let him go as a sixteen-year-old. Under Jim Gannon’s guidance, Lloyd was given a creative license and sparkled; combining a part-time income with a healthy salary at Biffa. This meant, however, risks were taken in jumping three levels to become a professional at Peterborough. Below the Championship, Lloyd’s financial reality is shared by the majority of footballers, contrary, perhaps, to an unhealthy perception that exists.

“Selling bins, I also earned commission, I had a pension, I had my car paid for, I received a fuel allowance, I got a phone and a laptop – it was a really good job, I was a manager, and I enjoyed it,” he explains. “Meanwhile, I was playing for Stockport and being there added a couple of hundred quid a week to my wages. I could have stayed and have more disposable income than I have now as League One player. Here, my basic wage has increased but my bills have quadrupled; you find that the extra money you earn disappears very quickly. But this was never going to be an opportunity that I was going to pass up. I had to take it. I know I’d have regretted it forever otherwise.”

Lloyd was given a three-year deal and this offered him some security; that the club had genuine faith that he’d succeed. He admits, however, that settling into a full-time football posed unforeseen challenges.

In another world Lloyd would have enrolled at Jamie Vardy's V9 Academy (Getty)

“I thought the physical toughness would be the hardest part to adjust to but it has been the mental. It’s something I didn’t really consider. At the start of the season, I didn’t play so much and I wasn’t used to it. Thoughts start to creep in, ‘Have I made the right decision?’ I was desperate to get into the team so for the first five or six days off we had, I went in to train – working on my own. I didn’t have a day off in two months.

“When I was part time and I had a bad game on a Saturday – when we got beat – I’d go into work on a Monday and get stuck in; to distract myself and get that feel-good factor back again – that I was doing well. By the time you train or play again on Tuesday, everything is fine. In professional football, the only focus is getting the next result and making everything right again. Particularly if you aren’t playing, you feel a little bit lost.”

“Of course, the competition for places is a lot fiercer as well but I knew that would be the case,” he concludes. “The calibre of the average player improves the higher up you go. When you’re in the Conference North there are one or two players in each team that you look at and think, ‘Bloody ‘ell, he could change the game – he’s the reason they’re doing well.’ In the Conference National, that number increases to three or four. You come into a dressing room like ours and everyone in our team from the goalkeeper to the number 11 can make a difference on any given day.”

For Leicester, Lloyd’s assessment should represent a warning. But then, defeating the odds is something Vardy in particular knows all about.