INJURY HELL LEFT ME INCONSOLABLE ...IT WAS A RELIEF WHEN I RETIRED
KIERON DYER EXCLUSIVE: DAY 3
Breaking my leg in 2007 was the beginning of a long, debilitating, dispiriting process that killed my career. it led to the West Ham hierarchy trying to shame me, because i played so few games for the club.
i’d tell any young injured player to get the best person available to look after you.
West Ham didn’t feel it was necessary to do that. i wish i’d taken control and stuck up for myself.
You start to hate yourself because you can’t get back to doing the thing you love — and you get slammed by the press, owners and fans.
after i left West Ham, joint chairman David gold said i had cost the club £16million in fees and wages. That was a classy touch.
When gold and David Sullivan bought the club they talked about the extraordinary wages West Ham were paying and how one player who had barely played ought to have the decency to retire. The arrow was pointing right at me.
West Ham fans would say what a waste of money i was. i didn’t score a goal for them in four years and didn’t play four or five games on the trot, ever. But you know what? every time i went out there, they were brilliant with me and i will always remember that.
it kills me that they didn’t even see a fraction of what i once was.
earlier in my career it got to the stage where i was embarrassed to say i had an injury. i once played on at West Brom with an injury just so i didn’t have to walk off the pitch. i’d rather play with a hamstring tear than face the walk of shame. it happened more than once too.
after the game i asked for a massage on the hamstring, trying to convince myself it was just a bit tight. i tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. i was out training the next week with a grade one hamstring tear and newcastle boss graeme Souness was going mad at me, because he could see i wasn’t putting everything in.
‘kieron,’ he was yelling, ‘you have to train how you play because we need you to get match toughness.’
i knew i couldn’t do that. i was inconsolable and embarrassed and cried all the way to the physio room.
Later at West Ham i felt my thigh pop with my last kick of training. My heart sank. i was in pain but it was nothing compared to the dread, disappointment and embarrassment flooding over me. i couldn’t tell the physio so i said my thigh was tight, even though i knew i’d pulled it.
i was trying to convince myself too. On the morning of our first game of the 2009-10 season we did a fitness test in the hotel corridor. Stabbing pains were shooting through my thigh with every stride i took but somehow i passed and played with a grade one tear in my thigh.
a couple of years later at QPr, i played in a friendly and felt my big toe give way. i didn’t even signal to anyone. i just put my head in my hands and started crying.
i hobbled to the physio’s room, weeping. i was inconsolable. neil Warnock dashed in and could see i was distraught. He was so upset for me that he cried, too. i think that says a lot about the kind of man he is.
after QPr, i knew it was over. i wasn’t sad when i stopped. People ask if i miss playing and the answer is that i don’t. not because i didn’t love the game, but because in the last five years of my career, i was never fit and always doing rehab.
it was miserable. i got used to missing football. it’s not like it all came to a sudden stop. i was delighted that i didn’t have to feel embarrassed in front of my family any more. i was relieved i didn’t have to feel embarrassed about myself in front of the fans any more. i was delighted i wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of the physios any more.
i’d had enough of letting people down. When people pour scorn on players like Darren anderton, Michael Owen and Daniel Sturridge because of their injury record, i don’t think they realise how much embarrassment there is when you injure yourself.
I played on hurt rather than face walk of shame