Martyn explains ankle problem

Nigel Martyn has explained the ankle injury that forced him to end his 19-year career.

Former England keeper Nigel Martyn has explained the ankle injury that eventually forced him to end his 19-year career as a professional goalkeeper.

Martyn, who made over 200 appearances for both Leeds and Crystal Palace, missed the second-half of last season because of an ankle problem that had dogged him since November.

The 39-year-old admits that he had begun to think about retirement long before his announcement last week, after a CT scan revealed a serious ankle injury.

Martyn will undergo surgery in the near future to fix his damaged ankle, which he hopes will allow him to live his life to the full during his retirement.

"I had a few weeks knowing that was the probable outcome so I guess I was expecting the worse but when you're told it's still not the nicest news in the world," Martyn told Sky Sports News.

"I've got a stress fracture of the talus bone which is right in the middle of the ankle. It normally cracks across the neck but for some reason mine has cracked the full length of the bone and it's just not healing.

"So it's in for an operation and hopefully get a couple of screws into it to keep it together.

"I first started getting pain around November time. We did an MRI in November and it didn't really pick up anything at all so just continued playing with the pain getting progressively worse and worse until the end of January when we played Chelsea at home in the cup and I could barely run let alone do anything else.

"I actually had an operation to clear out the joint, which didn't seem to make any difference so we decided to have a CAT scan and the crack showed up very clearly on that."