‘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.
“I was just jogging over the halfway line,” recalls the 31-yearold, 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.
“I’m watching everybody out on the training pitch, twisting and turning, jumping for headers without a care in the world. And I can’t jog 50 metres and back without collapsing in agony.
“People have far worse things wrong in life. I’m not looking for sympathy. But as a sportsman you can’t help but rage at your body. You’re like ‘Come on – why are you doing this to me?’.”
Even after a first operation failed, Fryatt remained upbeat. But when a second yielded no improvement, doubt hardened into pessimism and eventually solidified into grim acceptance.
“That was the moment I knew,” says the dad of four. “After my second major operation, I was on the treadmill, thinking ‘This is a bit uncomfortable’. But I gritted my teeth. I’d be watching the clock, thinking ‘Just get through it, just get through it’.
“Next thing, someone says ‘OK, let’s move on to running outside’. Out on the grass, I knew I was still struggling. I was thinking ‘Is it psychological? Is it a natural part of the process?’.
“Then you realise it’s getting worse. I walked in to see the physio at Forest and basically had to tell him that second operation had done absolutely nothing. If anything, I was worse than before. I remember him looking at me like ‘Are you for real?’. But I was.
“I realised then that things looked bleak. The injury was bad enough but, on top of that, time had caught up with me.
Bleak
“I’d gone from being in my late twenties to my early thirties - the prime of your career, really - without kicking a ball. Without even jogging. To step up and play competitively again would have taken years.
“Eventually, you have to stop punishing yourself. You can’t keep
on pushing, pretending you’ll come back. You can have all the belief you want, but sometimes it’s about being realistic. “As much as I’d love to keep trying, and as much as I’d love to play, I’ve just got to accept it isn’t possible. My body won’t allow it.” For Fryatt, coming to terms with his injury was about perspective. On the one hand, looking back with appreciation, not regret. “I’ve got to be grateful for the years I had in the game,” he explains. “I’ve scored in all four divisions, played in an FA Cup final. And I honestly remember every single goal, even if was just a consolation. Playing football was something I did for fun as a kid and I ended up doing it for a living. I’ve been incredibly lucky.”
On the other, it is about looking forward with optimism, and appreciating things could be much worse.
“Over time, I have improved,” he says. “I’m not in the state I was a year ago. I could play on a small pitch, though it would probably be walking pace. Maybe the odd jog. I’m not going to be left in a wheelchair or anything dramatic!”
And whilst coaching is the ultimate aim (Fryatt has completed his badges), the Nuneaton native would also like to use his experiences to help others.
“Whenever I’ve called on help from someone – which I don’t tend to do – they’ve been very supportive,” he adds.
Supportive
“It has made me realise it’s best to talk about these things. When you’re in that situation, you don’t know the answers. Nor does anyone else. It can be a lonely place, and I think it’s important that people realise there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
“Yes, I’m never going to play professional football again. But I feel so much better having come to that realisation.
“There’s a perception that injured players should only hear about people who recovered. I’ve often thought ‘What’s the point in little old me coming out and saying anything?’.
“But, on reflection, I know I’d have liked to speak to someone who had struggled like me. To say that whether you recover or not, it’ll be OK in the end. That it isn’t the end of the world, even if it feels like that at the time.
“If I can be there to give that kind of advice - even if it’s just little bits and pieces - that’s the best thing that could come from my injury.”