Features

Ashton the latest victim

Author: John Harris
Date: 21/12/2009
Football betting

In recent days, West Ham United striker Dean Ashton and John Kennedy of Celtic have both been forced to retire from professional football due to persistent injury problems.

Ashton's ankle injury picked up while on England duty in 2006 forced him to bring the curtain down on his promising career at the age of 26.

Can West Ham avoid relegation without Dean Ashton? - Latest Football Betting

Earlier in the season, Kennedy - also 26 - called time in his career following a long-running battle with knee problems.

Professional football is littered with examples of players whose bodies have let them down.

Below we look at a group of leading names whose premature retirements were a loss to the game.

Marco van Basten (Aged 28)

The three-time European footballer of the year had a glittering career but he probably could have played on for another five or six years.

His career was ended by an ankle injury in the 1992/93 season while playing for AC Milan just when as he was hitting his peak.

The Dutchman scored 218 goals in 280 appearances for Ajax and then Milan but is perhaps best remembered for his spectacular goals in the latter stages of Euro 1988.

Brian Clough (Aged 27)

Clough is best remembered for his managerial genius but as a player he scored an incredible 251 goals in 273 games for Middlesbrough and Sunderland before his career was ended by a cruciate knee ligament injury.

Had he remained injury free then Clough would surely have finished his career with more than the two paltry England caps he earned prior to 1962.

Steve Coppell (Aged 27)

The tricky Manchester United winger made a club record 207 consecutive appearances but a knee injury picked up while playing for England in the build up to the 1982 World Cup forced him onto the scrapheap.

Norman Whiteside (Aged 26)

Whiteside packed a lot into his early career after besting Pele's record as the youngest ever footballer to play in a World Cup when he represented Northern Ireland in the 1982 finals.

He scored winning FA Cup Final goals for Manchester United, but was dogged by injury from his early 20s and called it a day in 1991 shortly after moving to Everton.

Derek Dooley (24)

Sheffield's favourite footballing son played and managed Wednesday and also spent time as chairman at bitter rivals United.

On the pitch he set the current club record of 46 goals in one season for the Owls before a double leg break in a league game against Preston in 1953 ended his career.

To make matters worse, the leg had to be amputated following an infection in a cruel twist of fate.

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