Rhoys retries but is not forgotten

The retirement of Rhoys Wiggins might not hit the fans with a huge amount of surprise as the former Sheffield Wednesday player didn't really have an impact on his more recent return to AFCB that was hampered by the knee injury that never cleared up. His open letter to the fans though on retiring revealed that it was not just his ill-healing knee that he had been battling with and having had an accident that resulted in fracture skull.

Not a lot of headlines followed Rhoy's attempts to rehabilitate while the Cherries carried on their Premier League games. He was an important player when he first played for Eddie Howe back in 2008-9 on loan and in 2010 and when he signed for the club permanently in 2010 AFCB were pushing for promotion to the Championship.

Wiggins style was always to attack and he set the mould for Eddie Howe's wing-backs in the players that followed him. Like Charlie Daniels Wiggins had a long part of his career with Charlton Athletic and I always felt that Charlton were the club that AFCB were always keen to try and catch in terms of success on and off the pitch. 

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Now Wiggins has sadly decided to call it a day at 30. I expect Eddie Howe sees a lot of his own career's sudden end akin to what has happened to Rhoys. The signing from Sheffield United in 2016 always seemed a hand of friendship to a player that had perhaps been left behind after the sudden rise of AFCB, but even then Rhoys didn't get the games he would have so wanted in the Premier League and his period at Birmingham City ultimately cut-short his playing career.

Hopefully, Rhoys still wants to come and see some games at Dean Court as I'm sure he will be appreciated and as other fans have already said - we wish him the best of luck going forward.