James Chester: ‘Age football players are retiring, there is a lot of life ahead – I’m excited’

“This will be the most entertaining part of my day,” says James Chester. Chester is talking to The athletic From his kitchen. He has a busy week, announces his pension as a football player at the age of 36 and prepares for the next phase of life.

“I have to present an essay tonight,” he says. “I am writing a manuscript for PFA (Professional Footbalders’ Association, the players’ union in English football) the sports directors’ course I am at. ME and three others have to present our at. 17. It is a proper course that hosts Portsmouth University. I had to write the essay at the end of January.

“This appeals more than coaching does. It affects many topics that I found interesting, as a background control of players and being diligent when they recruit. Stuart Webber spoke About Norwich City’s politics (while he was sports director from 2017-23) with Brexit and had to find new markets, recruit players from South America.

“That side has always interested me.”

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It’s the last day of James Chester, the football player; Completion of an 18-year career spanning 12 clubs and 481 performances plus 35 matches for Wales’ national team. After his age, after turning 36 a few weeks ago, the feeling of a chapter closing may invite congestion.

“I probably had that thought five times,” Chester says when asked about retirement. “I continued to kick the can down the road. All I’ve ever known is being a football player. You can never imagine that the day is coming, but it would be DFT not to notice the differences in my body the elder I have been given.

“But The most important feeling is excitement. Age football players are retiring, there is a lot of life ahead. “

Chester expected this season to be his last. He signed for Salford City in the league two, English football’s fourth level, back in the summer, who worked for him practically-talt-they are based on half an hour’s drive from his home in Warrington, near Manchester-along reunite the defender with former Hull City- Teammate Alex Bruce, Salford’s assistant manager.

Injuries have become too frequent for Chester since he turned 30. After having a clean -up knee operation over Christmas and yet playing a league match this season and not at all since August, the time really feels to hang the boots.

“I had a conversation with Alex and the manager (Karl Robinson). Salford would know if I would be interested in going on loans (in the recent winter transfer window). At 36? No, please.

“But I was open to help if they could help me. We have come to a scheme where I will stay until the end of the season and be involved in training at the back of the week, help players, but after telling them about the sports directors’ course, they kindly go to let me shade people in this department also. “

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Chester was back at Villa Park on Sunday night and saw Aston Villa’s fourth round FA Cup victory against Tottenham Hotspur. He spent four years at Villa from 2016-20, a period he says was “the most entertaining” of his career.

After joining West Midland’s neighbors West Bromwich Albion, Chester continued to live in the jewelry quarter in the center of Birmingham. Such is the attachment he and his wife, Rea, have with the place, they remain reluctant to sell their apartment there.

Villa supporters have Chester, who performed 126 performances for the club, with high respect. There is recognition of his victim by playing through pain, despite knowing the longer term branches.

Villa’s championship play-off final victory nine months later against Derby County was a bittersweet moment. Although the signalized redemption and a return to the Premier League, after Wembley Heartbreak in the same fixture against Fulham 12 months before, Chester journalists told her afterwards that his “body had changed indefinitely.” He lifted the trophy with Jack Grealish that day, but had suffered a career -changing knee injury and was not involved after he had not played since January.

“Every time I’m back in Birmingham, it’s the most important topic of conversation,” says Chester. “Villa fans will talk to me about playing through the damage – this is how they want their club to be represented. Although it affected me, I would probably still make the same decision.

“T.He was a little weird. After games I would have a worker in my knee but I would go on training on Monday and have a good time. In the car on the way home from a 3-0 win over Derby County (in November), my knee was immediately hurt.

“The doctor saw that it was fluid irritating a ribbon on the edge of my knee. I continued to play without the pain disappearing. A later scan showed a bit of knee cartilage that hadn’t come yet, but began to.

“Every time I bent my knee and ran, caught cartilage, and it brought the pain. Because I continued to play, cartilage eventually came away, which brought a new problem with a lot of fluid in the capsule, which is the body’s reaction to protecting itself. There was so much fluid it became difficult to be mobile. “

Chester managed the pain for the rest of his play days, icing that knee after matches, but never trained fully again.

“I was aware that playing on may not have been the best decision but I was the only middle back”He says. “I remember a conversation with Dean (Smith, Villas Manager at the time) and the doctor in the office, looked at fixtures and saw how many were until January 2019 when the club could sign players. I just accepted playing through. “

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After “The Best Six Weeks” in Chester’s career and reached the European Championship semi -final with Wales in the summer of 2016, he received a call from Villa’s new manager Roberto Di Matteo. Despite being part of an excellent Wales Backlinie, he was out of favor at West Brom, a Premier League club at the time.

“Robbie said,” I didn’t realize you were available ” – he actually called me Jamie and I didn’t corrected him, so it continued until he got the bag,” Chester says.

“T.Here was a questioner whether I should fall to the championship (Villa had been relieved the previous season). But I remember I was trying on the shirt and it seemed right. “

In the second level for the first time since the late 1980s, Villa began to build from the ground up.

A 13th placed finish in Chester’s debut year was good during Pari, but Steve Bruce’s arrival after DI Matteo was fired in October, offering stability. Chester had worked with Bruce, a former centerback, at Hull, and they had shared a productive relationship. He played each league match in the following season, which was defined by the 1-0 loss to Fulham in the Play-off final.

However, there was little time to live; Chester got married the next day.

“I had been warned that if the bad result happened, I did not in any way got uncertain conditions for being in the mood,” he says. “When I look back, it did me a favor. I had no choice but to change my mood. “

This loss on Wembley not only meant that Villa was sent to a third consecutive season in the championship, but the financial risk that accompanied being outside the Premier League was huge. There was Flux at the executive level where the owner Dr. Tony Xia would sell up and urgent funds needed.

“It was me and Jack (Grealish) who had clubs looking at us,” says Chester. “It’s not something I had any interest in, but I understood the situation. I remember talking to Steve in the canteen after I received interest from Stoke City (another championship page) and the fee that was tied up would have kept the club going for another month. “

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The decision to retire has brought reflection to Chester.

He tells his time as a schoolboy in Manchester United after he joined at the age of eight. He remembers car trips with his parents, traveling to the training ground to learn if he had been offered a scholarship of 16 and anxiety by not knowing.

He credits former coach Paul McGuinness as an important influence and how a passing comment from strength and conditioning coach Michael Clegg – “Eat what you need not what you want ” – remained a virtue during his career.

And the more difficult days? “To play against (Chelsea Star) Eden Hazard in his pomp. We (Hull) were in a back three, and I was almost on the right back against Hazard. He tore me apart. I was pulled off after 60 minutes and was lucky to last for so long (Chelsea won 2-0 the day Hazard got the first goal).

“Then I played at Arsenal for West Brom. I was a left -back and Alexis Sanchez played when he could be bothered. And he was bothered that night. I got the pull at half-time (with Arsenal who won 2-0 thanks to two goals by Sanchez)! “

The latter were stoop at Stoke in the championship, Derby in the third -level League One and Barrow of League Two, with the last of his Wales appearances, coming in November 2018.

“With the career that some players have, you compare yourself to them and question whether there was more I could have done,” says Chester. “But playing in the Premier League, reaching a FA Cup final, playing in the Euro … If you had told me I would continue to achieve it, I would have snapped your hand off.”

(Topfoto: Neville Williams/Aston Villa FC via Getty Images)