James Collins announces retirement

At the age of 37, former Cardiff City, West Ham, Aston Villa and Ipswich Town player James Collins has announced his retirement from professional football.

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All good things come to an end 😢… This will not come as a surprise to most people as I haven’t played for a season now, but today with a heavy heart I’ve decided to officially retire from football… after a lot of thought I believe this is the best thing to do so I can draw a line under my 20 year career and move on to my next chapter in life. I would like to thank all the players and fans at all the clubs I played for @cardiffcityfc @avfcofficial @ipswichtown ❤️👍🏻 Also all the players,staff and fans of @fawales as a boy to play for my country was a dream and I’m very proud to have gone on to get 51caps and loved every second 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 But I must save a special thank you to all players,staff and incredible fans of @westham a team that will forever be in my heart… I spent 11 years at this wonderful football club and still think about it everyday, A club where I had the best time of my life for such a long time and gave my all everyday… without @westham and you amazing fans my life wouldn’t be what it is today… I hope one day in the near future I can pull on the claret and blue one more time and thank you all properly ❤️⚒ Finally I say thank you to my amazing family without all of your love and support through the good time and bad nothing I achieved in the game would have been possible xx Love you all xx Thanks Ginge

A post shared by James Collins (@gingercollins19) on Oct 17, 2020 at 4:09am PDT

Having come through the youth setup at Cardiff, Collins left the Welsh club to join West Ham in 2005. Four years later, he moved on to Aston Villa but went back to the Hammers in 2012. He spent the following six years there and was released upon the expiration of his contract in the summer of 2018. In January 2019, he joined Ipswich for the remainder of 2018/19, and was without a club since the summer of 2019.

The centre-back played a total of 279 games in the Premier League, 188 for West Ham, and 40 in the Championship of which 34 were for Cardiff. He also has 51 international caps for Wales to his name.