Former Dons midfielder still struggles to walk after career threatening injury

Former MK Dons midfielder Alan Smith admitted he could have retired in 2006 after a career threatening leg-break he suffered at Anfield.

The then Manchester United man suffered a broken leg and dislocated in an FA Cup game against Liverpool, blocking a shot - an injury Sir Alex Ferguson described as the worst he had ever seen.

Spending seven months sidelined, Smith returned to the fold at Old Trafford before making a move to Newcastle United in 2007.

But in January 2012, both he and Dons stunned the footballing world by announcing a loan deal until the end of the season - a deal chairman Pete Winkelman described at the time as the biggest move in the club’s history.

Signing on a permanent basis the following summer, Smith spent two seasons at Stadium MK, racking up 83 appearances before moving to Notts County, eventually hanging up his boots in 2018.

To this day though, Smith admitted he still struggles to walk and has been told recently to stop running. But his love for football drove him to play on beyond 2006 and drop into the lower leagues to continue his career.

“I knew with the injury it would be touch and go whether I could carry on playing – the surgeon said that,” he 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.

“Most of people I have played with, and managers, have respected me for staying in football when it would have been easy to walk away.

“But I dropped down to the Championship, dropped down to League One and dropped down to League Two.

“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 contributed I wanted to keep playing.

“The injury made me a better person after doing so well so young.

“I learnt at any time, football can be over. I am lucky through sheer grit and determination I carried on playing.

“The good people I met lower down the leagues probably drove me on to stay in football longer. But by the end, the day-to-day training was doing more harm than good.”

He added: “I get out of bed and can’t walk properly, my ankle is stiff all the time.

“I went for a run in the summer and managed to do a couple of miles but stopped and started walking because my ankle was hurting. I went back last month and the surgeon said, ‘I don’t want you doing any straight-line running’, just because it will damage the joint.

“It is always difficult to walk away but when you see someone and they don’t want you running, you know it is the right decision. I have no regrets, for me I see retiring early being the easy option.”