Tom Humphries visits Chelsea and finds Damien Duff with his feet on the ground and still refreshingly uncomfortable with the trappings of stardom

You have that place, don't you? That village. That hill. That stream. That beach. That postcard in your head. It divides you against yourself. You want to be the last tourist ever to visit that spot. You want it unspoiled except for your footprints. All tourism should end with you.

And yet you want the affirmation of other voices.

Or else it's some band. You heard them with 15 other people when they were raw and setting up their own amps. Half of your head loves them for their obscurity and half just wants to be in on the ground floor of a phenomenon.

You'd like to be the sad, lonely man in the corner who saw U2 play in the Dandelion Market. The guy who knew Bono when he was nothing.

And then there's Damien Duff. You can speak to a phone directory worth of people in Dublin who spotted him when he was still in nappies. You could gather a full tribunal worth of testimonies to his quiet decency, his shy good humour. The goals he scored for Lourdes Celtic. Or St Kevin's. Or Blackburn Reserves.

People always knew. You always knew. You were in on the secret.

And hence the dread.

The dread that Chelsea would spoil him. The fear that London would be the wrong place for a good man to go. The anxiety that somehow our hero would mutate from being our Duffer to being a creature of Planet Premiership. We couldn't bear him to be an all-singing, all-dancing cliché, a regular attender at cheesy nightclubs and a participant in the odd roast.

It was good when he was Damien Duff of Blackburn and Ireland. He was a secret between Lancashire and ourselves. We loved him and our knowledge of him and his old-fashioned bag of tricks. His lack of celebrity assured us that we had the inside track and the whole oblivious world of Sky Sports and tabloid soccer was wrong, wrong, wrong.

And now it's Chelsea. Mad World FC. Last Wednesday on the TV, when Damien Duff returned to top-level action, coming on as a late sub after a few weeks sidelined with a dislocated shoulder, the commentator sighed and purred and said the words "17-million-pound man". Then, a minute or so later, Duffer cut inside and laid a sublime pass out to his left and Gudjohnsen finished to the Watford net and you accepted for once and for all that the secret is out. This Duffer belongs to everyone.

The evidence is everywhere. He's on the cover of FourFourTwo magazine. He's selling Lucozade and car insurance. Adidas love him more than ever. Four of Chelsea's next seven matches are on Sky. He is omnipresent.

Now it's Thursday. The morning after Duff's return from the infirmary and we are in Harlington, hard by Heathrow. We are at the pitches of the Imperial College, where Chelsea FC train. You pull up and a swarm of yellow-jacketed security geezers with walkie-talkies descends. Their job is to protect the close to three dozen millionaires training inside.

It takes 10 minutes to gain entrance, a further few minutes to be shown to a canteen where, it is promised, Duffer will manifest himself presently. He is still training with the stiffs or the joeys, as they call the hobbling wounded. The players who played 90 minutes against Watford just did a warm-down this morning. All the others, Duffer included, had their legs run off.

It's Premiership life in here, in the canteen. Superstars sitting around reading about themselves in the tabloids. This morning's red-top story from the Bridge is that Joe Cole is leaving Chelsea. In one corner downstairs there is a camera and lights on permanently, set-up for Chelsea TV. An in-house journalist is working away on a laptop in a corner of the canteen.

Thirteen apprentices sit huddled at two tables, each of which is adorned with a gallon-sized can of orange juice. The apprentices have it that the gaffer has pulled Cole aside and told him he's not going anywhere. Further proof, note the apprentices, that all journalists talk crap.

And, as one, the apprentice kids look up when Damien Duff appears. He apologies for the yellow jackets who guard this bubble of a world he works in. He's still not used to it. Every morning as he hits the training ground a relay of walkie-talkies pass on the news. "Damien Duff arriving for training now. Damien Duff arriving now."

Embarrassing, he says.

Embarrassing. You're relieved to hear the words. Duffer is the same. No fuss. No fanfare. The scenery has changed but Duffer is unaltered. Not many Premiership stars can be embarrassed by fuss.

Virtually every morning he is late. As he passes through the canteen now Giorgio Pellizzaro, one of the Italian coaches, reminds him gently that he owes 75 quid for this morning's tardiness. A fiver for every minute of lateness.

You smile. Duffer has always been pegged as the football equivalent of the three-toed sloth. He insists, unconvincingly, that this is the first thing that has changed since he moved down here. His metabolism.

"At Blackburn I used to roll out of bed, come in . . ." He pauses, pulls himself up.

"Ah no. Shock, horror - I'm talking about bed in an interview again. Maybe nothing has changed. Anyway, I'd roll out and be in for 10. Here I have to get up around nine. I'm supposed to be in for 10 to train at half-ten, but with traffic I'm sometimes still getting here at half-ten. This morning it was 25 past.

"I blame the club. We all bought houses out in Surrey where they said the new training ground would be. Now they've changed their mind. We're stuck training here and living there."

He waves his hand at a windswept expanse of soccer pitches, stretching towards the humming world of Heathrow a couple of miles away.

"I don't sleep as much now. My ma was giving out to me for saying I slept so much. We train harder here and for the past while I've been around every afternoon, doing physio or running. The past 10 days they've put me through a mini pre-season - running in the mornings and afternoons on my own."

He shakes his head sadly and hunches over his dinner. Broccoli, spuds and a shoal of dead fish laid over the top. Good food but not stacked in the prodigious quantities that once led him to pronounce himself a "fat old yoke".

There is evidence of change in that regard. His face is leaner now, his shoulders stronger, his body fitter. When he dislocated his shoulder at Fulham on December 20th it was the first injury to punctuate his season. At Blackburn his hamstring betrayed him up to five times a year.

And his game has changed. This week, when he cut inside, down the middle, and fed the striker forward and left for a goal he reckoned it was the fifth such identical move he's pulled off so far.

"There's a difference because you could have any one of four world-class strikers in there looking for the ball, but I'm playing differently too. I'm more confident.

"I never really had that at Blackburn. I've always come inside but I've played that ball at least five times this season. I can't recall doing that before. At Blackburn I'd be head down and taking on as many as I could. I put the pressure on myself.

"All I want to do really is impress. At times, even here, I've taken one too many on, but I'm conscious of it. Hopefully they'll see the best of me here and see me get better."

The faithful at Stamford Bridge don't need convincing about the issue of improvement. Already a pattern has become evident in Chelsea's season. Despite having a squad the size of a Cecil B de Mille cast, Chelsea are a considerably better and more creative team when Damien Duff plays. His recent five-game absence coincided with a crimp in Chelsea's season that included two league defeats and a two-all draw with Watford.

If Damien Duff never improves that'll be fine with Chelsea. They love him just the way he is.

He'll improve though. He's determined that there are better things within himself. He has decided, too, that he has found the environment in which to mine that potential. To protect himself from his narky hamstrings he works every afternoon with a physio doing exercises especially designed to pre-empt such injuries. He's fitter, faster and stronger.

"This has been a freak of a season for me. When I did the shoulder, I could hear the big clunk and I knew. It was sore. They took me in and gave me some morphine and put the joint back in place. It was more frightening than anything else, but there's instant relief once it gets popped back in. Usually by now I'd be on my second or third hamstring injury."

The world is well but he is keen not to come across like your favourite uncle who once went to America and spent the rest of his life explaining to everyone how things were better there.

He had a love affair with Blackburn, after all, and it took a lot to wrench him away. While the media world debated whether he would stay or go and the clause in his contract regarding transfer fees became the most celebrated clause since Santa, Damien Duff's head was elsewhere.

"Pat Devlin was dealing with all that crap, thank God. I was just hoping to go to America. I've never been in the States and Blackburn were heading off.

"Took me a week to get me head around the idea of going to Chelsea. I travelled down here three times and in the end we were just getting on a flight to America when Graham Souness gave me an ultimatum. Get on this plane or sort out this transfer.

"My bag was on the plane and everything. As far as I was concerned I was going to America, at last.

"I know now I made the right decision. Graham Souness had been asking me every day that week. I was putting it off, shrugging my shoulders at him. I was just dying to go to America. I just wanted to see the States.

"I don't know what sold me on this place. It wasn't this training ground. I suppose it was the size of the club, the new owner, the size of the squad we have now. People wondered was there pressure signing for 17 million. Nearly every day after I signed though there was somebody signing for 16 million. It was just exciting."

Two days later he was on a different plane, flying to Malaysia with Chelsea. Nothing in Damien Duff's environment would be quite the same again. Except himself. He brings his art to a different stage now. Playing at Stamford Bridge rather than Ewood, does he feel the difference?

"Well, obviously it's full. It was brilliant at Ewood there. I had great years there. Loved it. When Blackburn came to Chelsea this year the fans gave me a good reception. Then I got taken off at half-time, which was a bit embarrassing, but sure."

The lad who lived in a little house in the Ribble Valley lived first in London in an apartment in the cosmopolitan chaos of Chelsea Harbour and just before Christmas moved to a football community in Surrey. Frank Lampard lives across the road. John Terry, Wayne Bridge, Glen Johnson and Joe Cole are all neighbours.

So how crazy has life in London's fast lane got? Well, his mam and dad, his brother and two of his sisters were over for a fortnight at Christmas. And he's discovered musicals.

"Yeah, that's a thing I like about London. I love the musicals, the West End shows. Brilliant."

This, of course, is the sort of disclosure which could hang a young player. Premiership life is supposed to be about golf and chicks. You feel you should warn him.

"That's a big gay thing, isn't it, Duffer? The musicals? You might get the Graeme Le Saux treatment."

"Mmmm. Yeah. Well, we all went to Mama Mia. That sounds even more gay, doesn't it? Abba?"

"What else?"

"The Rod Stewart one. Queen. The Lion King."

"Hmmm. Les Miserables?"

"Nah. Sounds too hardcore."

You offer the chance at redemption. Last movie you went to? "Oh Jaysus. Cold Mountain. A soppy one. But I went to Lord of the Rings with me girlfriend and little brother at Christmas when they were over. Then the house was quiet again and there's a little cinema down the road, so I went, like a weirdo, on my own to see a love story."

And in fairness it should be told that life isn't all West End productions and Nicole Kidman weepies. He took his girlfriend to see Arsenal v Blackburn down at Highbury. He went out to QPR v Blackpool as well because his pal Jonathan Douglas was playing for Blackpool. They lost five-nil.

Besides that his life has its customary monastic quietness. He keeps himself to himself. He retains the same set of friends he's always had. Still tells interviewers he loves his family to bits. Is still the same quiet, decent Duffer.

"I don't be out looking for all the hullaballoo."

Mention of the ads, especially his acting debut in the Lucozade promotion, causes his eyes to roll heavenward.

"Blame Pat Devlin. I'd do none of that. Oh my lord, I'm cringing thinking of it. Oh well. Five years ago I couldn't have imagined ever doing something like that. You have people saying, 'here, do these things, pay a few bills for yourself, just try it'. It's not me. Never will be me but it comes with the territory. I don't really want to do them but - well, shit happens."

It does. It does. Most surely it does. In the Premiership it happens more often than elsewhere. He's learned that the hard way. While he was at Blackburn an opportunist told a tabloid Damien Duff had beaten him up outside a nightclub. The story was so incredible that it staggered rather than ran across a front page and then just died.

Moving to London and to Chelsea, however, brings a young footballer closer to the epicentre of tabloid creativity.

"I've learned long ago that they can be bastards," he says. "They'll take you out of context or make up stories. You watch what you say and watch where you're seen. At the start of the season they said they had pictures of me out drinking, out on the beer before we played Liverpool in the first game. This paper were ringing the club up. The club were asking and they had me half believing it myself. I knew I hadn't been but you start racking your brains. Turned out to be rubbish."

And since then it's been a path of roses. Champions League football has thrilled and suited him. The home and away wins against Lazio were special nights.

His personality insulates him from a lot of the pressure, but he noticed quickly how things are different at a big club. A loss is likely to bring Roman Abramovich to the training ground. Two losses in quick proximity bring the owner and plenty of suits. The papers are full of rumour. The canteen air is thick with rumour. Faces are strained.

It doesn't happen often though, and for Duff the past six months would be ranked as well nigh perfect were it not for business elsewhere.

"Switzerland. Basel. That night. We were shit. We lacked even a bit of fight. No spark. No nothing. We were just crap. I don't know why. Maybe we thought about it too much. We went out without a whimper. We disappointed all the people who travelled. We were a disgrace really. I don't know why. I can't figure it out.

"I came back to Chelsea and for two or three weeks I couldn't get into a gallop. Macedonia and Turkey weren't nice but Basel was the first time I've felt like a big player in the Irish team and I was disappointed."

And finally he has put his finger on what has changed about him. Not club or price tag. Just the tense. He's not future anymore. He's present tense. This is his time and he is aware of it.

"I'm 24, nearly 25," he says, "and at that age you're not potential anymore. You have to do it. For Ireland, it's time guys like Robbie and meself played a bigger part on and off the pitch. We have about 100 caps between us, myself and Robbie. We have to take a bit more on."

And he talks easily now. About Saipan ("A freak. No balls. No kit. Unbelievable.") About the FAI ("Tight-arsed. We only get one cap each year with all the games we played in written on it. The England lads get one cap for each game, but that's us, isn't it?") The Genesis report ("We all got sent one. That thick it was. We all threw them in the bin. You believe it when you see it.")

For the future he is optimistic. He has seen Andy Reid and Liam Miller play often. Admired both and noted that on occasions when the Irish under-21s play the senior team in training Miller has just bossed the game in a way that's almost frightening. With so much coming through the future can't be bleak.

He has made a resolution about Ireland. He just wants to win as many caps as he can. Friendlies. US Cups. Mickey Mouse tournaments. Whatever.

Chelsea would like him to have an operation on his shoulder this summer. It will cost three months and three months would cost him a US Cup trip with Ireland. He wants the caps and he still wants to see America. Unless his shoulder pops out again he'll defer the operation indefinitely.

Caps. He's yearning already for the next World Cup, is sanguine about the chances of getting there. He's been speaking to Marcel (as he calls the great Desailly) about France and Marcel has been pointing out that himself, Thuram, Zidane and Lizarazu will retire this year. A little spark of a daydream plays in Duffer's head.

"We'd love to do it for Brian. I've always loved working with him, he's always got the best out of me. I love him to bits and love working with him and that was the worst of Basel. We didn't get Brian to a major tournament. He deserved better."

And Duffer? Same old homing bird. He flew home last Saturday, just for the night. Just to see his family and his girlfriend. Stayed in on Saturday night.

"It's worth travelling 1,000 miles for Sunday dinner with me mam, the family and girlfriend," he says.

And this life of his? Still simple.

"At Blackburn the training ground was beautiful and the pitches were beautiful and I loved it. We were all on the way up. Here at Chelsea this training ground is a bit of a shithole but I can't wait to get in every morning to train. It's never a job. I wake up every day and think I'm a lucky bastard. I play football. I get paid so much to do it. It's brilliant."

He's winding up when the Chelsea physio nicks a word. Duffer's afternoon already belongs to a physio and a shoulder specialist.

"C'mon down when you're ready. I'll give you some magic, cure-all massage."

"Can you start with my brain?"

The physio laughs. "No need Duffer. I'm sure of that."

Tomorrow his New Year starts in earnest with another "lights, cameras, action" production. New year, and the future tense doesn't exist anymore. Everything is present tense and now.

It takes a smart man to appreciate that and a genius to love it.