'You ask why is life being so cruel? Why me?': Ex-Portsmouth and Bradford man Callum Johnson on retirement heartbreak at 29

Callum Johnson’s farewell consisted of five paragraphs - the love letter of a 21-year football career crammed into 177 words.

While an emotional former Pompey defender had agonised over his parting words long into the early hours, spanning several nights, the decision to retire at 29 had become straightforward.

After emerging through the ranks of boyhood club Middlesbrough, the talented Johnson rattled up 247 appearances by the age of 26, during productive spells with Accrington, Fleetwood, Ross County, Mansfield and the Blues.

However, a torn hamstring sustained at Doncaster Rovers in August 2023 would brutally reshape his footballing destiny.

Over the course of the next two-and-a-half years, Johnson suffered 14 muscular injuries, all down his left side, with persistent hamstring, calf and groin problems devastating his career.

Then, last month, the three-time League Two promotion winner released a self-penned statement via current club Gateshead and across social media. It was over.

‘This was it, my life laid out in a few paragraphs’

‘I wanted to be a footballer from the age of three. The first time dad took me, he put me on the floor and I just ran off, racing around like a headless chicken, smashing into people like I didn’t care,’ Johnson told The News in his first interview since announcing his premature retirement.

‘I was better than everyone else, even though I had never played football before. I came back after an hour, my cheeks were bright red, and I wanted to join in the next session. They were aged 5-7, so dad said I couldn’t go, those boys were too big. I wasn’t happy, shouting “I want to do it”.

‘Everything in my life was about being a professional footballer, everything. The ups and downs, going through the Academy system, becoming a professional footballer with the club I supported. I had spent 21 years associated with professional football clubs - now I’m not that any more.

‘When writing that statement, telling people for the first time that I was retiring, the finality hit me like a lightning bolt. This was it, my life laid out in a few paragraphs. Talk about low points.

‘For two or three nights in a row, I stayed up until 3-4am writing it and then spent a ridiculous amount of time changing it in the morning. I didn’t want help from anyone, this had to be written from my heart, my words. I wanted to thank everyone - and I was teary.

‘I am not an emotional person, my girlfriend Bethany will back me up on this. I cried when my grandma passed away, I cried when my grandad passed away, I can’t have actually cried more than five times in the last 12 years.

‘Those evenings writing my farewell message to football got me, though. I had a lump in my throat, I was close to crying, so close. I held it in. Just.

‘Those thoughts about retirement are running around your head when in those dark places. You are constantly getting injured, constantly asking yourself the reason why. Why is this happening to me? Why is life being so cruel?

‘I knew I could help clubs, I was one of our better players, I just needed to be fit. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t for long enough.’

Johnson was aged eight when he signed for the club he supported, Middlesbrough, progressing to earn three Checkatrade Trophy starts for their Under-23 side in the 2016-17 season.

Yet it was at Accrington where his football career began to flourish, with a successful loan spell becoming permanent in January 2018, the 21-year-old costing an undisclosed fee. With Johnson a starting XI fixture, they captured the League Two title that campaign.

During three seasons at the Crown Ground, the right-back missed just six league games as he totalled 118 appearances and one goal, before being snapped up by Pompey boss Kenny Jackett in a £100,000 deal in September 2020.

Certainly there were no tell-tale signs of the injury problems which would, ultimately, tragically curtail his career.

£100,000 transfer to Portsmouth

Johnson added: ‘My strength was I could play 40 games a season, while being able to perform solidly every week with very few mistakes. I could whack out those games.

‘I came in from training at Accrington one day and I looked at my phone - there was a message from my agent telling me everything had been agreed to move to Pompey. I was buzzing.

‘Our manager, John Coleman, told me I could leave as long as I played the next match for Accrington, which was against Burton in the Carabao Cup!

‘I played the full 90 minutes, was involved in an equaliser scored by Cameron Burgess, and we ended up losing on penalties. All the time I was thinking “Please don’t get injured, please don’t get injured”. Thankfully, I didn’t.

‘I did okay against Burton, but I didn’t go flat out considering what was at stake - and the move to Pompey went ahead as planned. Back then, though, I never, ever got injured.

‘Then, in a 1-0 victory at Oxford United (February 2021), when I set up Harvey White’s headed goal for the winner, I suffered what I thought was cramp and played on for the full 90 minutes.

‘After the game, I asked our physio, Bobby Bacic, for a massage on my calf. He told me they couldn’t because I still had loads of blood flowing in it. Then he asked “Are you sure it’s cramp?”.

‘A scan would show I had damaged the soleus muscle in my calf, putting me out for seven games, which included the Papa John’s Trophy final at Wembley against Salford. As it was during Covid times, with the match behind closed doors, I wasn’t even allowed to attend.

‘At the age of 23, that was the first proper injury of my career, yet I still played 46 times that campaign for Pompey. Then I made 39 appearances during a season-long loan at Fleetwood in 2021-22.

‘However, it all changed in August 2023 - with my first hamstring injury.’

In the 23rd minute of Mansfield’s League Two trip to Doncaster, Johnson was forced off with a hamstring issue, putting him out of action for a month.

After a cameo off the bench against Colchester marked his comeback, another injury set-back dictated it wouldn’t be until mid-November 2023 before the defender reclaimed his first-team spot.

More agony was on the horizon, though, when he sustained a grade 3C hamstring tear on New Year’s Day 2024 at Stockport, ruling him out for three-and-a-half months as the Stags finished third in League Two to secure promotion.

14 muscle injures in two-and-a-half years

Released on a free transfer after just 16 league outings that term, injuries continued to blight Johnson at Bradford the following year, with 14 appearances in his first and last Valley Parade season.

By the time of last month’s retirement announcement, Johnson had suffered 14 muscle injuries in two-and-a-half seasons - traced back to August 2023 at the Keepmoat Stadium.

He said: ‘After two or three injuries you think I’ve had a bit of bad luck here. After five or six, it occurs to you that something is wrong, we need to seriously find out what it is.

‘When it gets to nine or 10, the mindset is I really need to fix this problem if I want to continue being a footballer. Unfortunately, I never could.

‘There were hamstring tears, calf tears, groin injuries, all down my left side and all linked to my first bad hamstring injury for Mansfield at Doncaster. I never really recovered from that properly, it was always lingering.

‘The T-junction joins two or three muscles together and, at that moment, the tendon had torn towards the bottom of my hamstring. As a result, a lot of muscle mass had been lost in that area and never returned.

‘After that first occasion, I kept on getting tingles in the same area of my hamstring for months, I knew something wasn’t right. Then my calf started going after I had moved to Bradford.

‘I tried everything, I saw specialists, changed my diet, took ice baths every day, bought recovery boots which had a compression pump, underwent regular massages every day, used a cryo chamber. I invested heavily to try every single thing I could do.

‘Sometimes I thought “I’ve actually got over it here”, which was the worst bit about it. It wasn’t like I was reinjuring myself in rehab, I was returning into the first-team fit, getting up to speed, playing well. Then it happened again, making it even harder to come to terms with.

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‘In my last season at Mansfield, a lot of lads were getting injured, the manager Nigel Clough put my case down to a bit of bad luck, I was part of that curse, I’d get over it. Then I went to Bradford for a fresh start and did my calf in the off-season and then again in pre-season.

‘My first appearance for Bradford came seven-and-a-half months after I had joined then. I marked it by scoring with a header in a 3-1 win at Aston Villa against their Under-21s in the Vertu Trophy.

‘The manager, Graham Alexander, had eased me back in with a 45-minute outing, playing as a right-sided centre-back. I was comfortable, I did well, the fans clapped me, everything was class. I went on to play nine successive games, I was building up and building up - then my calf went again.

‘In all my comebacks, everything felt all right, the game takes your mind off things. Then afterwards you would get the odd niggle, such as walking down the stairs, and I would be panicking and on edge. What’s that? It’s a mental block, I’m actually okay because I was so used to not being okay.

‘However, when you get a muscle injury, you know about it, you don’t make it up, you just know. By the end, I could recognise what grade tear I had just suffered, that’s how used to it it was, I’d had that many.

‘Six hamstrings, two groins and six calves in two-and-a-half years. That’s how many.’

Having moved back to near his childhood home in Yarm, bordered by the River Tees, Johnson continued his football in the north-east with Gateshead in July 2025.

At the age of 28, it signalled a final shot at maintaining a playing career which had dwindled to three league starts in the previous 18 months.

‘I wanted to give it one more chance. It wasn’t to be’

Signing a one-year deal with the National League club, it was the former Middlesbrough man’s first foray into non-league football, yet, with his injury reputation, offers were understandably in short supply.

Then, following 11 appearances for The Heed, he tore his hamstring in the second half against Solihull Moors in November - and was ruled out for the season. As it turned out, it would also prompt the 29-year-old’s retirement from football.

He added: ‘I wasn’t going to get a Football League club any more with my reputation, so I dropped down and went to Gateshead back home. I didn’t want to have any regrets, I wanted to just give it one more chance. It wasn’t to be.

‘I had decided not to say anything to anyone about retirement. Instead I’d officially announce it, get it off my chest, so everyone knew at the same time. When I did, it was a weird sort of relief, not a nice feeling.

‘I don’t want people feeling sorry for me, the best messages I got were from former team-mates who said “I really enjoyed playing with you”. I don’t want people saying “I am gutted”, I prefer people’s positivity.

‘After what happened to me, there was the question of why would I even want to stay in football? Perhaps I could do something completely different, I was quite bright in school.

‘Then I sat back and realised I don’t actually know anything else - and still have a lot more to give. I have three career promotions, I have a lot of information that 99 per cent of people don’t - that’s when I decided to stay in football.

‘I’ve set up my own coaching business - CJ Pro Coaching - based in Stockton-On-Tees and offering one-to-one sessions, while I am helping out in Middlesbrough’s Academy, looking after their under-14s, under-15s and under-16s.

‘They have said there’s a role for me, although we haven't yet decided how it will work because I need to balance it with my business. Having passed my Uefa B Licence in February, you need to wait a year to try for the A Licence, so I will also be applying for that.

‘I believe I have a lot to offer on the coaching side, I’m just looking forward to seeing where it takes me. I’m still only young, it might give me a bit of a head start, many players won’t be coming out of the game to coach until the age of 35.

‘As a footballer playing matches, you want more and more. How many games can I play? If you didn’t have that mindset, you wouldn’t have reached there in the first place.

‘I aspired to play in the Championship when Middlesbrough were there, then at Pompey I wanted to get promoted into the Championship. I always wanted to get there, that was my goal.

‘Now I have different goals. For 21 years I was a footballer, it’s all I have ever known, all I ever wanted. This is a completely new chapter in my life.

‘Although it’s still football, it’s a different job, a different job title, and different challenges. And that excites me.’

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