Steve Sidwell: ‘I wanted the tears to happen. Then I was done as a player’

Much-travelled midfielder reflects on career as a Premier League player and on the tough decision to call it a day earlier this year

“I’ve been with my wife since we were kids at school and she had never seen me cry, ever,” Steve Sidwell says as he remembers the spring evening this year when he sat next to her on their bathroom floor. Sidwell cried for a long time, his tears leaving little marks wherever he looked, as he finally accepted that his career as a professional footballer was over.

He had joined the Arsenal academy 26 years before, aged nine, and played in the Premier League for Reading, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Fulham and Stoke before joining Brighton in 2016. Sidwell helped Brighton gain promotion to the Premier League last year but he had been injured for the whole of their first season back in the top flight. A varied career, which saw him work under managers as different as Arsène Wenger and José Mourinho, had ended and Sidwell felt overwhelmed.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2oHT6Cs