A right-back by trade, a dependable presence, a fan favourite: nothing about Butterfield suggested he should be leading the line in an FA Cup tie. Yet there he was, pushed up front because Warnock’s wife had dreamt he would score.
“Neil (Warnock) came into the game and then mentioned that his wife had a dream that I was going to score so I was going to start up front. There were almost giggles in the dressing room, it was almost like a free hit for us all,” Butterfield says.
Warnock trusted the dream anyway. The first half was rough. “I remember the first half being terrible. I was terrible and I’m thinking I need to pull my finger out a little bit and start running around a bit.”
What followed was six minutes and 48 seconds of chaos - left foot, right foot, header - a perfect hat-trick that would follow him for the rest of his career.
“Suddenly the hat-trick happened so quickly. It didn’t feel real. It was just funny, a surreal moment,” he recalls.
But those six minutes tell only a fraction of who Butterfield was. He grew up “football mad”, but his path was anything but smooth.
“I was all over. I was a bit of a gypsy in academy football.” Peterborough, Nottingham Forest, Leicester - and finally Grimsby, the club that took a chance on him.
“I went on trial as a centre forward… and there was an opportunity through injury to play right-back in the first team.”
His debut arrived suddenly. “I had to jump in the car with the first teamers… And they said that I am going to start tomorrow.”
He would go on to make 124 league appearances for the Mariners, including a famous night at Anfield.
“It was madness… we massively rode our luck, but then Phil Jevons came up with an unbelievable winner.” Butterfield still calls it “one of the biggest achievements” of his career.
A contract mishap allowed him to leave on a free, and Crystal Palace moved quickly. “It’s like your first day of school, because the first thing you know is you’ve been signed to take someone’s place.”
But he found instant camaraderie with fellow new signings Andy Johnson, Shaun Derry and Dele Adebola. “We all became really good pals… it was unique that we all signed in a short space of time and remained friends.”
Palace became home. Across nearly a decade, he lived through promotions, relegation battles, and the club’s darkest chapter: administration in 2010.
Butterfield remembers the strain vividly. “It's hard because the club becomes split… The fans think the club is going out of business… the realism in it is you’re not getting paid.”
Some teammates couldn’t afford petrol to get to training. Yet he never considered leaving. “It never crossed my mind to leave Palace; it made me do the opposite and want to stay and fight.”
When his contract expired, he dropped to League One to join Southampton - a move that proved far more ambitious than it looked. “I knew they had a good set of young players, and I thought I could add experience to that.”
The squad surged, and Butterfield became a guiding presence. Under Mauricio Pochettino, he began to see the game differently. “He knew that I was a big character… so he brought me even closer even though I wasn’t playing for him.”
Coaching soon became the natural next step. At Exeter, Paul Tisdale trusted him to lead sessions. “I was taking some of the young players for an afternoon session… I was probably wearing staff kit more than the playing kit.”
From there came roles at Southampton’s academy and MK Dons, with all the highs and lows of the profession. The lifestyle was demanding. “You find you are on your own quite a lot, and you miss your kids growing up a little bit too.”
Now taking a break after leaving Eastleigh, Butterfield is clear about what he wants next. “I’ve always wanted to go at it myself. I do want the accountability on my shoulder; I want to feel the pressure.”
Opportunities may be rare. But then again, the last time he was thrown into something he’d never done before, he scored a hat-trick.
Ask football fans about Butterfield and they’ll mention those six minutes. Ask his teammates and managers, and they’ll tell you something else.
He was a true professional. A leader. Someone who kept a club alive during administration.
Someone who stepped up whenever and wherever he was needed - even if it meant playing striker because his manager’s wife had a dream.
Following this interview with Danny, he has ended his period away from the game, as he was appointed Assistant Manager at Hednesford Town FC alongside former Southampton teammate Kelvin Davis. The two were appointed in February of this year, with both contributing to the successful season of the club, which gained them promotion to the National League North.
This article was submitted by the author Jake Pearce into the Football Writers Association Hugh McIlvanney Male Student Football Writer of the Year competition, and resulted in being voted by judges as first place, winning the author the award.