“I get out of bed and can’t walk properly.”
Alan Smith has been speaking about the long-term effects of a horrific injury he suffered playing for Manchester United at Anfield.
In February 2006, Smith broke his leg and dislocated his ankle in an FA Cup tie against Liverpool.
The former Leeds United forward was attempting to block a John Arne Riise free-kick when he suffered the horror injury that almost ended his career.
Smith retired at the end of last season after four years with Notts County.
He has revealed that he never fully recovered from the injury over 12 years ago and that it changed him completely as a footballer.
The 37-year-old said that he continued playing through the pain barrier because he still loved football.
“I knew with the injury it would be touch and go whether I could carry on playing. The surgeon said that,” Smith told The Mirror.
“It would have been easier to walk away and people remember you as a top Premier League player. But I didn’t want that, because I loved playing football. Your love of it makes you go through the pain barrier.
“Loads of people would say to me, ‘Why I am bothering?’ Whether I was earning £500-a-week or nothing, if people felt I could still contribute I wanted to keep playing.
“But by the end, the day-to-day training was doing more harm than good. I couldn’t compete at a level I felt I could easily before. I get out of bed and can’t walk properly, my ankle is stiff all the time.”
Smith joined Man United from Leeds in 2004, costing £7m following Leeds’s relegation from the Premier League.
The move was controversial at the time. Smith came through the academy at Leeds, he was a fan favourite and had previously said he would never play for Man United.
At Old Trafford, he went from playing as a centre-forward to playing in central midfield and was touted as a long-term replacement for Roy Keane.
“I loved it at Manchester United though, it was intense and I saw it as a great opportunity to learn from some of the best of the players,” Smith said.
“I was probably a bit of annoyance to them because I wanted to learn and put myself against them in training. I remember my first pre-season I would sit and talk to the best players, like Roy Keane.
Keane spoke highly of Smith in his second autobiography.
“Alan Smith came in from Leeds, and started really well. I got on well with Smudge. One thing that struck me about him was that he never drank. That made him stand out, a bit. He’d still have a late night with us, and a crack and a laugh. He’d stay to the bitter end. I’d stopped drinking by this time, so we’d often end up chatting together. We were the only two left capable of holding a conversation. He moved from being a striker to playing in midfield. I think he was struggling to get a starting position as a striker.
“The manager might have been looking at him as an eventual replacement of me, but I never felt my place was under threat from him. I remember playing against him in a few practice games, and thinking, ‘Yeah, he has a chance.’ But he never quite kicked on. It wasn’t that he didn’t reach his potential; he just didn’t get the breaks. Or the breaks he got – injuries – were the ones you’d never want.”
Smith still had an eventful career after his injury. He won the Premier League with United in 2007 and the Championship title with Newcastle United in 2010.
He famously scored on his first start for United following his lengthy lay-off, finding the net against Roma in a 7-1 win at Old Trafford in the Champions League.
He left Newcastle for MK Dons in 2011 and finished his career with Notts County in League Two.
