EVERY footballer will tell you he knows the exact moment when Old Father Time told him to retire. His call to me came at the end of a 2007-08 season during which red-hot strikers like Jon Main had been getting too quick for me.
Main's came last Saturday, sitting on the bench for 90 minutes without getting the call to step over the white line – nor, more importantly, the urge to want that call – as Thamesmead Town crashed out of the FA Cup at the second qualifying round stage.
“I've not got anything left,” the 32-year-old told me this week. “I was an unused sub and that's probably what was the final part. I was watching a bad game of football and I remember beating teams like Sittingbourne on my own, but now I can't even get in the side to play against them.”
Main doesn't mean that disrespectfully to Ryman Premier strugglers Thamesmead, where manager Keith McMahon has been “good as gold with me”, nor Sittingbourne. It's just fact.
I always rib him about only being able to score against me via the penalty spot at Ware, on another dark day in the Cup for him when my Ryman One North side came from that goal behind to beat his Tonbridge Angels 3-1 in the fourth qualifying round at Wodson Park.
Nadir
At the time Main was semi-professional football's hottest property. He scored 68 times in 86 starts for Tonbridge after finding his feet at VCD Athletic and Cray Wanderers earlier.
He'd got 44 the year before and spent time on trial at Wolves, MK Dons and Swindon, but would go onto earn legendary status at AFC Wimbledon after a £25,000 move to Kingsmeadow; his and Danny Kedwell's partnership the cornerstone of the Dons' rise towards the Football League.
Even after posterior cruciate, tendinitis and medial ligament injuries wrecked what should have been his prime years, the Main man still played a part in Dartford's rise – albeit on loan – and Welling's Conference South title success.
Unused sub at Bayliss Avenue in front of a crowd of 123 is a nadir for which he can be forgiven.
“I've been having to take painkillers for my knee at work, and I've just thought ‘I've got to rest it, because I don't want to end up with a limp or anything like that,” says Main, who works as an electrician for Margate captain John Beales.
“I know that 32 is far too young to retire, but I've just got to listen to myself. At Welling last year it was good for me, because I was a bit-part player so I didn't really feel the full effects of it. But I went to Thamesmead as a big name, if you like, and it's taken its toll in the end.
“I haven't completed one 90 minutes. I've only started about five, but it wasn't just my knee. Some days I didn't feel it. It was just the whole thought of ‘Oh, I've got to go to football', ‘I've got to travel to Wealdstone away'. I've just lost the hunger for it and had to be honest with Keith.”
After letting McMahon know, Main announced his retirement on Facebook and twitter.
The latter read: “I've retired from football today. I didn't do too bad. For someone who couldn't get in the school team to Non-League player of the year…achieved more than I ever could have dreamed of. Goals, trophies, promotions but more importantly met some proper people that I'll never forget.”
I ask him about the school team, and he laughs: “There were some proper players at Erith School at the time!
“I didn't realise it would cause such a fuss, but the amount of people who have left nice messages has been unbelievable,” Main adds. “My mates have been texting me saying ‘It's like you're dead!' I've been lucky to have played in some good teams though, and I've scored a few goals at some decent clubs.”
The main one being Wimbledon, where he scored 61 times in 91 starts while winning promotion from the Ryman Premier to League Two.
Regret
“I think I deserved a crack at League football, especially when I got those 40-odd goals for Tonbridge. My regret is actually going on trial, because I didn't enjoy it at all. I thought I deserved someone taking a punt on me.
“Saying that, I joined a League club in all but status with Wimbledon. And if I'd joined a League club from Tonbridge, I would probably never have gone to Wimbledon, so it worked out well in the end for me because the three-and-a-half years I had there, I wouldn't change for anything.”
Neither would the Wimbledon fans who welcomed him back to Kingsmeadow on his first Saturday of retirement for yesterday's game against Northampton.
Jon Main – a Non-League legend who's ‘Don' but not forgotten!
