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Nine years on ….”Why did this happen to me?”

BBM Sept 17 (2)Former West Ham and England striker Dean Ashton has revealed that he tried to forget about being a footballer altogether after his career was ended by injury.
In an interview marking nine years since his last appearance for the club, West Ham’s former record signing told Blowing Bubbles magazine that total shutdown was the only way he could cope with the pain of his career ending at the age of just 26.
“Rightly or wrongly, I didn’t speak to anyone at the club – I took down everything on the wall that even reminded me I’d ever been a footballer and didn’t watch a match for a year,” said the 33-year-old former Crewe and Norwich striker.
“I forgot about being a footballer altogether. That was my coping mechanism and I think it did me some good.”
The turning point in Ashton’s career came when he broke his ankle on his first England call-up, in August 2006, after just half a season at the club, an injury from which he never fully recovered – and which still haunts him to this day.
“I still hate what happened to me. I look at players I grew up with like Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka and James Milner, who are still playing, and think: ‘why did this have to happen to me?’. You can’t help thinking these things but you also you can’t dwell on them. You have to get on with living.”
Read more of Dean Ashton’s interview, including his memories of the 2006 FA Cup final, playing for England – and his Upton Park fairytale farewell – in the latest edition of Blowing Bubbles: http://www.blowing-bubbles.co.uk/read-our-latest-issue.html
 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

3 comments on “Nine years on ….”Why did this happen to me?”

  1. We all remember it all too clearly , Dean . It was horrible . Obviously for you personally it was a nightmare . For us as Fans it was a really bad day . You could very well have been our best ever player of all time , in fact , you were on your way to being exactly that . We love to see our club players representing England but sometimes the price is too high .
    Andy Carroll also got injured for England , don’t forget .

  2. Was with you all the way Kev, until you mentioned Dean Ashton and AC in the same sentence that is!

  3. technically he did it in different sentences.

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