Ex-EFL and non league keeper speaks emotionally on retiring aged 26

Ex-EFL and non league keeper Luke Coddington speaks emotionally on retiring aged 26 due to picking up a serious knee injury a few years ago.

His career comes to an end after playing for the likes of Chesterfield, Middlesbrough, Huddersfield Town, Northampton Town and Wrexham.

Coddington unfortunately ruptured his patella tendon in December 2019 when playing for Chesterfield in a league game against Yeovil Town.

He has since spoken with Derbyshire Times‘ Liam Norcliffe about the ordeal he went through and how he came to the decision to quit the game he so loves.

“On the day it had been absolutely pouring down with rain and I think kick-off got delayed it was that bad.

“I just remember that I passed the ball out to Buchs (David Buchanan), he passed me it back, I took a touch with my right foot and the ball just slowed down a bit in the water, it was stuck under my feet a little bit so I had to sort of dig it out, then as I have planted my left foot to kick it I just felt my left knee explode and I was like ‘what was that.’ It wasn’t very painful but I looked down and my kneecap was in my thigh and that obviously freaked me out.

“I had the operation within a couple of days and I spoke to the surgeon and he has said it was going to be about nine or ten months best-case scenario but he did say he had seen these type of injuries go either way recovery-wise and time-wise and if I would be the same sort of footballer again.

“Retirement never crossed my mind at that point. It was just about getting fit.”

Following a few months, Coddington was seemingly on the road to recovery, only to then suffer a setback in mid February 2020 just before the pandemic hit.

He went on: “I was going down the stairs at home, my right foot jerked forward about six inches and I just slipped off one of the steps and my back left leg overstretched behind me and I just heard a bit of a crunch. Straight away I thought ‘I don’t need this’.

“I had another scan and I had partially ruptured it again and I needed another operation. I had a metal wire put in my knee at the top of my patella and then down into my tibia going round my kneecap and then down past my tendon and into my tibia. That was only supposed to stay in for a maximum of six weeks but it ended up staying for four months because that was when Covid started. Obviously it was nobody’s fault, it was just the circumstances that we were in.”

In September 2020, Coddington, was back on the training pitch, however wasn’t 100%, recalling doing some shot-stopping.

He went for another scan around December time just to make sure everything was still fine after stepping up his rehab but the results were unexpected and eventually led to his retirement. He had been playing football since he was seven.

“I got the results back towards the end of January 2021,” he said. “The surgeon said the tendon fibres don’t look normal for what they should be right now. He sort of gave me a best-case and worst-case scenario, this is the situation you could find yourself in, this is what could happen if this happened, and put everything on the table.

“The way he put it was that he could not tell me what to do because he could not categorically say that I would never play football again, but he said that there is a high risk of this happening again and that it will impact my life basically. He gave me an option without giving me an option, but that made it easy for me. If he had said there is a 10 per cent chance that it might rupture again if you go back to football I would have said ‘maybe there is still a chance’ but he was talking like a 50 per cent chance that it will go again. So it was pretty much a no-brainer, to be honest.

“I went away to have a think about things. I obviously wanted to stay in football but I had to sort of weigh it up. If I got to 35-40-year-old and I could not run anymore or I could have pain in my knee constantly throughout my life. I was thinking if I put myself through this for another five years what is it going to be like? Is it going to go again? You have got to think that if you have a history of knee injuries and you are playing at the level that we are at, the risk outweighs the reward in some cases.”

He has now come to terms with retiring as it was out of his hands anyway before weighing everything up and being comfortable with it.

Social media users reacted as the ex-EFL and non league keeper speaks emotionally on retiring aged 26…

@SpireLegends: Great to hear from him. So many footballers suffer with their knees it seems.

Stu Middleton: Good luck to him in his future endeavours, didn’t look good when he did it (think Harry’s brother went off same game with a knee injury too), let’s just hope it doesn’t hinder him in too in his life adventures.

Paul Crookes: It didn’t look good for him when he went off but totally gutted for him especially only being 26 shows footballers can have such a short career