Hines hangs up his boots
Less than two months ago, I reported that Zavon HInes had left Chesterfield for Bromley after an injury plagued year with the Derbyshire club.
He made his final league appearance for Chesterfield against Bromley and went straight into their side after making the move. In that final appearance for Chesterfield, rival Bromley boss Neil Smith said: “I thought Zavon Hines was outstanding today. I thought he was the highlight of their team. When you come near him you always worry what he can do.”
On signing him, Smith said: “It’s a fantastic bit of business for the club and there’s been a lot of hard work behind the scenes to get the deal done. Zavon is a top quality player with the experience we need and did very well playing against us last week.”
A week and a half after playing against Bromley, he lined up for them against Gateshead in the National League. That was on 8th December but injury kept him out until Boxing day when he was used as a substitute at Sutton United. That was the first of five sub appearances between then and 8th January, since when he’s not been involved.
Today came the explanation from Hines himself via Twitter. He wrote: “The past few weeks have been the toughest of my career. I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life and even now as I write this message I’m still in tears. But after getting medical advice and with a broken heart, I’m going to retire from professional football immediately.
“Mentally and emotionally, this is so difficult for me but I had a choice to make. I’ve been honoured and blessed to play for some historic and massive clubs in my career and I’m truly grateful.”
Zavon celebrated his 30th birthday four days before the end of 2018, but he has suffered a number of injuries in recent years, starting with a cruciate injury he suffered while at Dagenham & Redbridge.
He was with us for just one year after signing from West Ham with his only starts coming in League Cup games against MK and Cardiff. He made a total of 13 substitute appearances in the Championship for us, the last of which coming at Southampton in February 2012, coming on for Ben Mee in a 2-0 defeat.
Soon afterwards, he was shunted out to Bournemouth on loan with manager Eddie Howe saying at the time: “We don’t lose faith in Zavon. He hasn’t been given too many opportunities to play. We do have a good striking department and he has found chances hard to come by. This is a chance for him to go to a good club and to play some football and hopefully he can show everybody what he is capable of and then we can take it from there.”
He returned to Burnley for pre-season training but on 17th July we confirmed he was leaving the club. He went to Bradford City initially and has since played for Dagenham & Redbridge, Southend, Maidstone, Chesterfield and finally Bromley.
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