'Portsmouth was the best year of my life - then I suffered my worst': Ex-Rotherham and Colchester man Sean Raggett
The popular central defender has made 18 league starts since winning the League One title with Pompey in April 2024
Handed the microphone on the Southsea Common stage, Sean Raggett led renditions of a chant which had become iconic.
‘Raggett for England’ was soon sung in unison by thousands of Pompey fans gathered, marking an emotional farewell for the departing central defender, who had established himself as one of the club’s great cult figures.
The following day, John Mousinho informed the former Norwich man that his five-year Fratton Park career was over after 239 appearances and 17 goals. In truth, Raggett had suspected as much before those title-winning celebrations.
Inevitably, a League One champion wouldn’t be short of offers, yet it was Rotherham which proved the most attractive option, signing in May 2024 for a club he had previously served on loan.
Yet injury has subsequently devastated Raggett’s career. The cartilage in his left knee has worn away, passed off as wear and tear from an almost 500-game football career.
Since leaving Pompey two-and-a-half years ago, he has made just 18 league starts and is presently with Colchester in League Two.
As ever, though, the warrior in Raggett won’t be beaten.
‘The injury would have happened anywhere, even if I had stayed at Pompey’
‘I had gone from the best year of my career at Pompey to definitely my worst year,’ the 32-year-old told The News.
‘It’s not about Rotherham, the injury would have happened anywhere, even if I had stayed at Pompey. It's one of those things, unavoidable.
‘It’s the way my body is, the way I run, it puts a lot of pressure on that part of the knee. I have exactly the same on my right, the same spot where my cartilage has worn down, but I’ve got no pain in that knee, which is strange.
‘It has been tough, but I am pretty level-headed. I’ve been very fortunate to not have had many injuries in my career and now - when I’m 30-plus - I suddenly have a knee problem. Even then, it’s still better than some who are struggling.
‘Look at Tino Anjorin, what a player by the way, his career has been hampered by injuries and he’s 24. I would rather it start to hit me once I have got over 30, with a good 13-14 years of my career under my belt.
‘Bar one season when I broke my ankle twice, I previously never actually had any bad injuries, especially at Pompey. I’m pretty fortunate really.
‘I’m approaching my 500th career game, yet have only played 36 times since I left Pompey. If not for the knee problem I would have easily cleared 500 a while ago, but I will get there.
‘There’s nothing I could have done, though, completely unavoidable.’
Two knee operations
Following a Fratton Park release at the end of his contract in May 2024, Raggett was weeks later recruited by Rotherham, soon followed by former Blues team-mate Joe Rafferty.
Having been relegated from the Championship, manager Steve Evans had embarked on an ambitious summer clear-out, with the capture of two mainstays from League One’s reigning champions regarded as a huge coup.
However, after starting the Millers’ opening two matches, Raggett began to suffer from the knee issues which have subsequently blighted his post-Fratton Park years, requiring two operations.
The former Norwich man had missed one Pompey match through injury during the title-winning 2023-24 campaign, totalling 44 appearances and three goals.
Yet he featured just 11 times in his maiden Rotherham season as they finished a disappointing 13th, costing Evans his job.
‘It’s essentially fake cartilage which isn’t as strong’
Raggett added: ‘I had quite a few options after leaving Pompey because it had been such a good year. I chose Rotherham, which was one of the most attractive.
‘Unbeknown to me at the time, though, I had a knee issue going on where my cartilage was getting worn away. It had been caused by playing game after game over the years.
‘I felt it pretty much as soon as I went to Rotherham, I began getting a bit of pain. I had it scanned and you could see my cartilage was hanging, worn away.
‘It wasn’t a big incident which had caused it, no tackle or freak moment on the pitch, it was something which had gradually got worse and worse and worse.
‘I have a high pain threshold, but I don’t ever remember being in pain with it before. Considering I never had any injuries at Pompey, my knee would never have been scanned, there was no need to. So it wasn’t picked up.
‘My problem was I tried to play for as long as I could with it at Rotherham. I would play a few games and then come out of the squad, then I played again. It would look like I kept getting injured, when really it was the same injury, I was just trying to manage it.
‘Eventually it got to the point where I needed an operation on my left knee. They carried out a microfracture procedure, involving drilling loads of holes to create the cartilage. It was a big operation.
‘Then I had an operation on my other knee, which was just a clean up, putting me out for three weeks, which was fine.
‘My left knee is okay now, but not the same as it was. It’s essentially fake cartilage which isn’t as strong. It won’t last as long, but should still see me through for the rest of my career.
‘I can still run, I have to be very good with maintaining my strength on that left leg because the knee is weaker. That makes it more important to build all the muscle around it, stopping it from really affecting me too much.’
Having undergone an operation in February 2025, optimism was high when Raggett returned for the 2025-26 season, starting three of the Millers’ opening four League One games.
However, a calamitous own goal in a 2-2 draw against Wigan in August 2025 prompted his jettison from the first-team. The centre-half would start just one more league game during the remainder of his New York Stadium career.
After featuring just 13 times during the first half of the campaign, Raggett was loaned out to League Two promotion challengers Cambridge United in February 2026.
Despite helping them finish third to book a return to League One, he made just three appearances and, come the summer of 2026, was left without a club.
‘The truth was I needed to get out of Rotherham.’
He said: ‘I loved my time at Cambridge, it’s a great club, we got promoted, I received a medal, although I didn’t play much.
‘Neil Harris was straight with me on the phone: “Come here, use your experience and raise training standards. The boys are flying and if it carries on then you probably aren’t going to play much. That could change if we go on a bad run, but we’d love you here”.
‘I hadn’t played much for Rotherham in the first half of the season because of injury, so I told him I’d join. As it turned out, I didn’t really play, yet loved training and it was a great group of lads.
‘Cambridge is a lovely place, I lived in Trumpington and my missus and daughter came down to visit at weekends. When you go out on loan, you don’t pay for accommodation either.
‘I had a really good time there because Neil Harris was honest with me. If he had told me “You’ll come in and will be playing”, I would have left there feeling a bit annoyed. As it was, I knew the situation.
‘I was briefly injured for 3-4 weeks because of a tackle in training, but, apart from that, I was fit during my time there and made three appearances.
‘The truth was I needed to get out of Rotherham. Nothing against Rotherham, but obviously it had been a bad time for me with the injuries - and sometimes you just need to move on.
‘It was great going to Cambridge, you’d like to think you can use your experience to help people and get them over the line to promotion to League One, which we thankfully achieved.’
Released on a free transfer by Rotherham after 24 appearances and two goals during an agonising two-year stay, Raggett joined Colchester in July.
It reunited him with the Cowleys, who had first recruited the centre-half from Dover Athletic in August 2016 when managing National League Lincoln.
Their paths would cross again when Cowley was appointed Pompey’s interim head coach in March 2021, with Raggett already at Fratton Park.
Signing a two-year deal with the League Two club last summer, it marked the fourth time he had worked with the Cowleys over the last decade.
And with nine outings so far this term, Raggett is hoping he can once again flourish under their guidance.
‘I count myself fortunate with my career’
‘Although I had low times at Rotherham, we moved to a village called Wickersley there and loved the place. We had a really good time outside of football living there for a couple of years,’ added Raggett
‘Danny Cowley first rang me in December (2025) and wanted to bring me into Colchester when the transfer window opened in the January. Would I be interested?
‘It didn’t quite happen. The Colchester owner is trying to sell the club, they got injuries elsewhere, plus the budget situation - so they couldn’t bring me in after all. Instead I ended up at Cambridge for the rest of the season.
‘I knew I would probably go to Colchester in the summer instead as a free agent - and that’s what happened.
‘My wife is from Colchester, all her family live there, I know Danny and Nicky, so as soon as summer came around, there was nothing else really. The only other one I maybe would have liked is Gillingham, where I‘m from, but they didn’t come in.
‘It’s nice to be back playing again, I feel good. The injuries have definitely had an effect on my body to how I used to play, although, as you get older, you do play slightly differently.
‘I am still aggressive and on the front foot, but you need to adjust your game a bit as you get older, not necessarily to do with the injury.
‘I was playing non-league football at the age of 22 and was going to sign for Barrow or Lincoln. If I had signed for Barrow, I could have played my whole career in non-league. Thankfully, I chose Lincoln.
‘It can work both ways. It can always be a bit better - but it can always be a lot worse as well. That’s the same with injuries and, overall, I count myself fortunate with my career.’
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