One Of Ireland's Favourite Sons Forced To Retire On His 34th Birthday

Giovanni Trapattoni can rest easy. The guitars in the Republic of Ireland camp won't be under threat anytime soon.

One of Ireland's favourite sons, and one of those players who seems to get better every time he doesn't play - Andy Reid, has confirmed his retirement from football.

Reid, who turns 34 today - confirmed to the Nottingham Post that he will be hanging up his boots for good. Reid has failed to overcome a longstanding groin problem that has seen him on the sidelines for Nottingham Forest for the last two years.

His last appearance for Forest was in September 2014 against Derby, and there were signs in 2014 that we were actually going to see the best of Reid:

The difference between Andy Reid two seasons ago and Andy Reid now is amazing, what a guy #nffc pic.twitter.com/vI3s7CHNGi

— Isaac Johnson (@IsaacJohnson95) January 7, 2014

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Reid had a magical left foot, and was a completely different type of player than anything the Republic of Ireland had at the time. Unfortunately, he had issues with his weight, and going to bed when Trap told him to which limited his Irish caps to just 29. His last cap was in a friendly in 2013 against Latvia under Noel King- ten years after his debut. It was his first international appearance in six years.

The highlights of his career were probably with Nottingham Forest, both at the beginning and end of his careers. There were some good times with Charlton - but he ultimately only made 38 appearances for the Addicks in two seasons.

The most frustrating thing about it was, throughout the whole period, I could get back to around 60 or 70 percent, I could do a full rehab programme, a mini pre-season, and then the last bit: the explosiveness, the sharpness, kicking the ball and the instinctive things that you need to be able to do in football, the things my game was all about – that's when I'd break down

It got to the stage where I'd had that many false dawns, that it started to take its toll on me, in my head as well as on my body. The hard thing was making the actual conscious decision, but towards the end of last season I knew that was it.

[Nottingham Post]