'WE WERE ALL UNITED AT BLADES'

THERE'S never a good time to suffer a career-ending leg break, Basham but Chris takes comfort in the fact he was 35 when disaster struck.

- Chris Dunlavy

"I'm actually okay with it," insists the centre-back, who announced his retirement at the end of August, ten months after his left ankle grotesquely gave way during a Premier League match for Sheffield United against Fulham at Craven Cottage.

"If I was younger and something like this had happened, it would have been hard to come to terms with. I think I would have been pretty worried about the future, maybe scarred by what happened.

I don't know... I just think it would have been horrific.

"Don't get me wrong, it's still hard to take because I thought I would have carried on for a lot longer. But I've had a good career. I've got great memories. And it's not like there was a difficult decision to make it was obvious to me and everyone else that I was never going to play elite football again."

Basham has endured four surgeries since that fateful day in west London, with a fifth and hopefully final -operation to come at the end of this month.

"I knew it was bad when I did it but I just didn't think recovery would have taken this long," he admits.

"When they said 18 months I thought 'Well, maybe a year', but it took me so long to get walking again, absolutely ages. I still can't run, and I haven't worn a pair of boots since it happened.

"Obviously you miss playing and training. But it's the everyday things as well. Driving. Messing around with the kids in the back garden, playing a round of golf. I don't think people realise how tough it is when that stuff gets taken away.