For any footballer to retire from the game it’s a sad time.
Most if they are lucky get to be paid to play the game they love at the top level for 15 years or more if they are lucky.
But, by then, they have at least had a career to look back on and can live with the knowledge that they lived their dream.
So when one hear’s about a player retiring at 21 - before he has had a chance to stake his claim in the first-team and live the dream, it’s especially sad.
Sam Hutchinson is now no longer a Chelsea footballer.
To close followers of the goings on at SW6 it’s not a surprise that Big Sam has had to call it a day yesterday.
A knee injury that occurred three years’ ago just would not go away -finally putting pay to a very promising professional career.
The statistics will show that defender Sam started one game for Chelsea and made three sub appearances.
What won’t be really understood is the pain and agony Sam has has to endure just to get back onto the pitch after operations, physiotherapy and many many hours in the gym.
Sam joined Chelsea as a boy aged nine but leaves his pro career a man.
He was born in 1989 in Slough.
Chelsea has said they will look after him. I’m not sure what that will entail specifically but he plans to take coaching qualifications and go to university to study sports science.
If he decides to return to football, he will know that he had the best grounding a young player could possibly have had - going through the Chelsea academy system.
Good luck Sam from all at Chelsea-Mad.