Shared Shirts: Clayton Donaldson

Scoring on debuts for both clubs, we caught up with striker Clayton Donaldson about his spells with the Tigers and Blades.

Signing for Hull City...

Released from boyhood club Bradford City at a young age, the striker impressed in a fixture against the Tigers which saw him catch the eye.

“I scored a couple of goals and Billy Russell called me up after the game saying he knew I wasn’t getting anything at Bradford and would I like to train for the week with the Under-18s,” said Donaldson.

“I trained for a week, did really well and the club offered me a two-year YTS. I was quite lucky in that sense that I did well against Hull City. It is little things like that I look back on that if I didn’t have my best game, the move wouldn’t have happened.”

Relationship with Theo Whitmore & Ian Goodison...

“I trained with them a few times and I remember in one of the training sessions, Brian Little used to mix the teams up and have little five-a-sides indoors if the weather or the pitches were rubbish,” revealed Donaldson.

“I remember being on one of the teams and I megged Gary Brabin. I got the ball, megged him and scored. That was the first time they saw me play. I had a really good session that day and they came up to me afterwards and they were calling me ‘baller’; they called me ‘Kanu’. It was because I was lanky, skinny and could do all these little tricks and score so my nickname was ‘Kanu’. They said, ‘you, Kanu, you good player.’

“They took me under their wing and from then on, they would always look out for me and look after me, asking me if everything was OK and they would clean my boots. I remember to this day playing against Ian when he was at Tranmere and I was at Crewe and he beat the life out of me! To be fair, he was a nasty player to play against and after the game he said, ‘I had to, because I know you’re a good player.’” 

Netting a brace on debut for Sheffield United...

Nine days after signing, the 40-year-old made his debut for Sheffield United away at Sunderland, scoring a brace and picking up an injury in an interesting first outing in red and white. Manager Chris Wilder also spoke positively about Donaldson’s performance post-match, saying: "Not bad for 50 grand that, is it? Not bad from Aldi...We are delighted to get Clayton. He's a good kid. I know a lot about him. I've tried to sign him enough times, I should know about him. He said yes to me eventually."

“I knew Chris had tried to sign me a few times and I had turned him down because I didn’t feel it was right for me at the time and to hear those comments after the game was pleasing,” said Donaldson.

“To score a brace on my debut away at Sunderland for your first game was a dream – it was a perfect start for me. I injured my hamstring in the final 15 minutes of the game and I had never done it before, so I felt all the stress got to my body and I kind of broke down. It was mixed feelings, buzzing with debut goals, but getting injured in my first game.”