Former Crystal Palace winger James Dayton: Why it was an easy decision to end my professional career

James Dayton called time on a full-time football career this summer, and the former Crystal Palace winger admits it was a fairly easy call to make.

The 32-year-old is now on Dulwich Hamlet’s books and made his debut in their 1-1 draw with Chippenham Town earlier this month.

Dayton played more than 300 senior matches for Oldham Athletic, Cheltenham Town, Kilmarnock, St Mirren and Yeovil.

But it was his most recent campaign at Leyton Orient that cemented his plans to drop down the football pyramid.

“My last year at Orient was probably one of the worst of my career – personally and playing wise,” said Dayton, who has recently started working for a tech company. “I was being offered the chance to stay in full-time football but the money wasn’t great and I also wasn’t in a great head space with it anyway.

“I sat down with my family and said I could sign a two-year contract somewhere but it would just be prolonging the inevitable. You’ve got to retire and start the transition soon anyway.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail but I’m financially so much better off. I love football and want to be successful wherever I go, but I’ve got two young kids and I’ve got to make sure I can put food on the table for my family and provide them with the lifestyle they are used to.”

Dayton featured 92 times for Orient and was part of Justin Edinburgh’s side which won the National League title in 2019. He broke his leg and dislocated his ankle the same month that the O’s were crowned champions.

Edinburgh had passed away by the time that Dayton was back fit. Former Palace midfielder Carl Fletcher lasted just 29 days in the hotseat before Ross Embleton took charge in January 2020.

Covid-19 aborted that season a couple of months later. Dayton started three of the opening five League Two fixtures last season – but clocked up just 49 minutes after a 2-1 loss at Walsall in mid-October.

“We weren’t in a great run of form and I went to see the manager numerous times to ask ‘why am I not getting a chance?’,” said the former Eagles youngster. “He’d always tell me he wanted me around the place.

“To see the group we had not get to where we should have got to last season – which was minimum the play-offs – was just annoying.

“I’d gone from playing nearly every game and performing to sitting on the bench – we’d be 2-0 down with 10 minutes to go and I’m not even coming on to try and affect a game late on.”

Jobi McAnuff replaced Embleton in February on an interim basis.

“We were team-mates for close to four years – he’d play one side and I’d play the other,” said Dayton. “He was a great pro. I’ve not got a bad word to say about him, other than that he never gave me a chance.

“We had a chat and he felt he couldn’t get the best out of me when I wasn’t up to match fitness, the last time I’d played an actual game was December.

“I wasn’t a bad egg or bad pro – I stayed true to myself and my standards. I helped get the club back in the Football League and my ending there was a bit flat. I found that gutting.”

Dayton played against Crystal Palace’s U23s in pre-season and reckons the latest generation of footballers are not ready for the cold and hard reality if they don’t make the grade.

He got a taste of it while on the Eagles’ books when he joined Crawley Town, then non-league, in 2008. “Wow” is his response when asked about then Reds boss Steve Evans.

“I remember after a game he was screaming in a centre-half’s face – he was 10 centimetres away from it – calling him every swear word and telling him ‘you’ll never play again, you c***’. He was spitting everywhere. I’m sat there thinking ‘is that what real football is like?’

“I call them dinosaurs. I look at the younger pros now and think ‘you’re completely different to what I was like’. I used to be petrified of Dougie Freedman and Clinton Morrison. Dougie’s boots would be spotless. Young pros now, they don’t give a f*** – ‘I’m here for me and that’s it’.

“I was there for me, but there is none of that fear factor now. The U23s often get more time to develop and it would’ve suited me more, I was always small and slight and those few more years might have allowed me to fill out and bulk up.

“For others they are just in the comfort zone. ‘I’m a footballer, I play for Crystal Palace’ – well you don’t, because you play for the 23s.

“What happens when they’ve got to leave that and go to a team where they just smash it long to a big centre-forward? Especially when they have had three years of passing the ball out from the back – now they’ve got to find a way to land on second balls and compete.”

Enfield-born Dayton needed a spell with the Glenn Hoddle Academy, based in Spain, before he landed a deal at Kilmarnock 15 months after his Palace release.

“I’m not being big-time but I had ended up going to Bishop’s Stortford – I didn’t even realise they had a football team,” he recalled. “I’d been used to professional facilities.

“That is what made me decide to give it a go with Glenn. It got me back in football and helped make the career I’ve had.

“I’ve won something at every club I’ve been at, bar Oldham. I got promoted at Cheltenham and Orient, we won the League Cup at Kilmarnock.

“I’d like to win the league with Dulwich. I came here because it is a big club for this level. There is no-one else in this league that gets the amount of fans we do at matches. Even in the National League there are 10 or 12 that can’t match the attendances here.”

PICTURES: ROB AVIS