Why Dean Ashton's retirement is tragic news for him, West Ham and England

By Dan Silver in Mirror Football Blog

Published 08:12 23/08/09

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By Dan Silver

West Ham fans used to be inordinately proud when one of their own was called up to the England squad.

Theirs is a club with a proud tradition of producing players who would serve their country with distinction.

These are fans, after all, who still sing – with some justification – that their team won the World Cup.

On August 15, 2006, though, that special relationship changed irrevocably. 

Hammers supporters started that day preparing to cheer on another of their own who was due to don the Three Lions shirt for the first time in a friendly with Greece at Wembley.

A young striker, signed from Norwich seven months earlier, who was widely regarded as being the next great English centre-forward.

A natural finisher blessed with an imposing physical presence and an instinct for finding the back of the net.

A goal-scorer who had powered West Ham to within minutes of silverware the previous May by grabbing a brilliant brace against Manchester City at Eastlands in the FA Cup quarter-final, and who had become the first Hammer to score in the final itself for over 25 years.

A player whose future promised even greater things than his past.

The next Alan Shearer, no less.

And then it happened.

Dean Ashton's ankle injury, sustained during a coming together with England team-mate Shaun Wright-Phillips during a training session at Old Trafford, was so bad that John Terry later said you could hear his "scream from the other end of the pitch".

Those same supporters ended that day wondering if they would ever see their golden boy kick a ball again.

They did. But it was never the same,

Ashton took a year to get over that initial injury, missing the entirety of the 2006-07 season.

The season, you might remember, that West Ham didn’t so much flirt with relegation as take it out for dinner and then home afterwards for a coffee.

Whether they would have needed to have been bailed out by Carlos Tevez – a rescue act that cost the highest of prices – had Ashton been fit and playing is a moot point.

What isn't beyond doubt is that when Ashton did finally return in August 2007, he was a shadow of the player that West Ham had waved off to serve his country 12 months previously.

He scored 11 goals that season, but rarely looked completely fit. Or like he trusted that troublesome ankle.

Ashton made his long-delayed England debut at the end of that season in a 3-0 victory over Trinidad & Tobago. But rather than being the curtain-raiser to a glittering international career, it now seems likely to be regarded as a cameo.

The striker played just five times for his club in the 2008-09 season before breaking down again, turning his ankle in Gianfranco Zola's first training season as West Ham manager.

Ashton's ankle had never properly recovered from that injury sustained on England duty. And now, it seems, it never will.

Ironically, Ashton never got to play for Zola - the one manager who could have helped him become the world class striker he had always shown the potential to be.

Had things gone differently that day in Manchester, had Shaun Wright-Phillips been distracted by a team-mate, say, then Dean Ashton might well have been lining up with his West Ham colleagues Matthew Upson and Robert Green in South Africa next summer.

As it is, it seems the only World Cup football – or, indeed, any top flight football – Dean Ashton has to look forward to from now on will be of the televised variety.

And that makes this morning's news even more tragic.

Dean Ashton will, of course, be devastated. As will everyone connected with West Ham.

But Ashton's loss should be keenly felt not just in the East End, but also throughout the land.

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