The Next Big Thing by Ryan Baldi

Author:Ryan Baldi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2019-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Long Goodbye

ABUDDING football career ruined by injuries is always a tragic tale. When the requisite talent, work ethic and resilience of personality are all in place to allow for the riches, glory and fame of life as an elite footballer, only to be cut down callously before ambitions are truly realised, it is a difficult hand to accept being dealt.

With a single, career-ending injury, however, comes a degree of closure, a brutal wake-up call that offers no alternative but to shut one chapter and move on to another. But what about when serious yet recoverable setbacks just keep coming, relentless and unforgiving? Progress is checked and plans put on ice, but the end goal of fulfilling a life’s dream remains in sight, a taunting carrot dangled just out of reach, which ultimately proves to be a crushing façade.

Football history holds many such stories, with some, like former Bayern Munich and Manchester United midfielder Owen Hargreaves, for example, still managing to fill merciful patches of good health with major club and international honours, a two-time Champions League winner with World Cup experience. Others, like former Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper Matt Murray, are unluckier still.

In fact, it’s difficult to think of a player who has suffered worse persistent misfortune with injuries than Murray. Before his first-team debut for Wolves, while still a teenager, he had suffered serious knee problems and gone before a surgeon’s knife on multiple occasions.

There was no respite once established in the Wolves side either, with whole seasons passing him by as he recovered from ligament tears, tendon ruptures and broken bones, in knees, feet and shoulders.

Murray was still only 36 years old when I spoke to him, an age at which it is common for goalkeepers to still be playing at a high level, yet it had been more than eight years since his official retirement, nine since his last appearance, and a decade since he was last able to complete a full 90-minute match.

‘I cried in the ambulance,’ Murray said, remembering the final injury that proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was a patella tendon tear, sustained in just his third game with Hereford United in League One in November 2008, having been sent on loan to Edgar Street to regain match sharpness after yet more knee trouble. ‘They said, “Do you want gas and air?” I said, “I’m not in pain. I’m just gutted.”

‘It’s so scary because you rely on your body. My second baby had just been born. My landlord that I lived with for six years of my life when I was a young boy had just had a stroke. My nanna was in hospital and she died. And my knee has just gone. It was all these emotions.

‘My step-dad followed the ambulance to the hospital. I remember ringing Robbie Keane from the ambulance, because he was my mate from back in the day. I said, “Keano, I think I’m done.” I just couldn’t get back.’

* * *

‘Although he

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