Matt Smith Quotes

Up until the age of 16, I was very focused on sport - I played a lot of football. Then I tore my ACL and had to stop playing.

I once thought I would never be able to kick a ball again.

I hurt my left knee playing left tackle. I had surgery on my right knee.

I fell and broke my pelvic bone in three places. So, I'm still sort of an invalid now.

My own basketball background was ripping up my ACL in a lawyer's league.

I had a hard time at Chelsea mainly because I was injured much of the time. Every time I recovered from one injury I seemed to get a new one and it set me back again.

Am I ever going to be able to play football again? What's going on with my career? I was just thinking things like that. You've got tears going down your eyes. You've got your trainers right there and my parents right there. I was just thinking, "Is this it?" I didn't know what a knee injury was. I'd never felt pain like that.

Even when I was young, playing college football, and I injured my knee, I bounced right back.

You can't go out to the mound hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane.

There have not been many occasions when I have bowled pain free and generally you are not 100 percent.

Any injury is tough, and it is a little bit tougher when it is the hand that you have to catch with, but it is football man. I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's football. Guys get hurt all the time.

I was told as a teenager I'd never box again. I had a really bad wrist injury; I couldn't even shadow box for six months. I went through surgery just to try and manage it.

I got injured just before we filmed 'Ninja Warrior,' which stopped me playing football with my mates. I haven't played football since. I'm crocked now, my back has gone and I feel like my body has packed in.

I was on my way to becoming a Hall of Famer and having my name in the rafters, but three surgeries in 14 months, that is not good. I wasn't the same player.

I lived on being a quick player and my hamstring was breaking every time I made a quick move. I wondered what the hell was going on.

That's football. It's going to happen. Guys are going to get hurt.

It is terrible to be injured; you want to return to playing football.

It's hard to see a player go down and it's hard to see him get hurt.

I was playing college football, and I hurt my knee very badly my senior year, and I didn't want to get a real job.

Getting a tear in my ACL in 2012 puts a lot of things in perspective about being able to play the game.

I damaged my hamstring at the London Olympics and had to stop training for five months. At times, I thought my career was over.

Unfortunately, my football career wasn't very long. The reason I finished playing was because I fractured both ankles in a matter of months.

I had to have help getting up these stairs because I've been tackled by so many lions and tigers. Really. I'm like an old football player.

I damaged my Achilles tendon, so I can't run.