I'd Love To Play On But I Just Can't

MATTY Fryatt can’t remember the exact moment his career came to an end. There was no gruesome leg break. No awkward twist.

- Chris Dunlavy

“I was just jogging over the halfway line,” recalls the 31-year-old, who was playing for Nottingham Forest away at Birmingham in November 2014 when he felt an odd twinge in his achilles.

“I thought ‘Hmm, this feels a little bit uncomfortable’. After the final whistle, I never thought anything more about it.

“On the Monday, I went to training. I started warming up and suddenly thought ‘Hang on, I can’t run here’. I thought it was tendonitis, a month out at worst. I was never right again.”

Fryatt, who played in the Premier League for Hull and scored 134 goals in 406 games for the likes of Leicester, Walsall and Forest, announced his retirement on Thursday. It was, he admits, a relief after three years of mental and physical anguish.

Two major operations. Countless minor procedures. Comebacks that stalled in infancy or never got beyond the gym. Even now, nobody can tell Fryatt exactly why his achilles simply stopped working as it should that afternoon at St Andrews.

Unbearable

“I had two years of operations and rehab, all to get absolutely nowhere,” he says. “The achilles is still knackered.

“Pushing off hurts. You can’t propel yourself forwards. So does landing on it. The more often your foot impacts the ground, the worse the pain becomes.

“It was unbearable – like tendonitis, but ten times worse. You’d feel like screaming. It didn’t even allow me to break into a jog. After a few minutes, you’d be thinking ‘I can’t do this anymore’.

“You’re angry. You’re frustrated. But the overwhelming feeling is disbelief. You’re thinking ‘How can this be happening?’.

“I’m a professional sportsman. I’m a fit person, my body is honed. But suddenly I can’t even do something as basic is running.