Inside tearful Leeds United team meeting as Stuart Dallas reveals date request for team-mates — YEP 10/4/24
Newly-retired Stuart Dallas will remain in rehabilitation at Leeds United until the end of the season and has given his team-mates a preferred completion date.
By Graham Smyth
On Wednesday Dallas announced to the world his retirement
from the professional game, due to a complex 2022 knee injury and femoral
fracture, but not before standing in front of the Whites squad and staff to
inform them first. Not wanting to distract from the promotion push, the
Ulsterman consulted initially with boss Daniel Farke before deciding when to
deliver his news. Farke was happy for Dallas to operate on his own terms and it
was agreed that Dallas would tell the team on Wednesday morning before their
preparations for Blackburn Rovers at home began in earnest.
"I didn't want that to be a distraction to the team and
I spoke to the manager the other day about this, that if he had said to me
'Listen, I want you to announce it at the end of the season', I'd have happily
done that," Dallas told the YEP on Wednesday afternoon. "But he was
adamant that he wanted it on my terms as well. So I didn't want to announce it
between the two games or even before the Coventry game and we think this is the
right time, but I didn't want it to be a distraction to the team and I don't
think it will be because obviously they're professionals and I'm hoping it
might help them a bit and spur them on."
Having wrapped his head around the most difficult of
decisions after two tough years of rehabilitation and seven surgeries, the idea
of telling his friends in the dressing room weighed heavily on Dallas.
"Jesus, it was hard," he said. "I knew it was
gonna be hard. I think the last couple of days I've been really, really nervous
about it because these are the people who I spend the most time with, apart
from family, every day I'm with them. The relationships I have with them, we
speak about Coops and the relationship I have with him, but other players who
I've been with for a long time you know Patrick [Bamford] and even the likes of
Illan [Meslier] and Pascal [Struijk] who have been here around it and the younger
players that have come in, players who I haven't even had the chance to play
with, new players. I'd like to think that I have a really close relationship
with every player so it was difficult to stand up there and speak in front of
them. There was a few tears at the start and when I got that out of the way I
was able to speak.
“I said to them 'you boys have been part of this journey
with me', because they probably don't know, they haven't realised it, I know
for a fact they haven't realised that but you know they've got me through it.
Times when I'm when I've come in when there's days that have been really really
hard and difficult because practically for two years, I've been in most days
and they have got me through it. The positive energy within the group is
incredible. The relationship I have was not just one, two, three, four or five
players, with every single player, with every member of stuff, they have got me
through it. They haven't realised that.”
As he stood before them to announce his decision Dallas felt
indebted to the staff members, too. He has credited the Leeds medical team for
the work they did to help him get healthy for life after football, let alone
the efforts to try and resurrect his career from the wreckage of a devastating
collision with Jack Grealish. And Farke's side of the backroom have come in for
praise from Dallas too, including the manager.
"The staff have been phenomenal with me as well,"
he said. "We spoke about the players earlier, but the staff, Daniel, the
way he has dealt with it from when he came in, it's not easy for a manager
coming in and not having a player available to him. But in other circumstances
you know some managers just put you to the side and don't involve you but the
way he has kept me involved with the team, the space and the time that he has
given me, he's not put any pressure on me to get back and that has helped me a lot.
He's kept me involved with the group, with him and his staff and I'm really,
really grateful to him for that. I'm disappointed that I haven't been able to
play for him because I think that if I had been fit and available, it would
have been nice to do that. And just all the staff around the place, even the
security man on the gate I have a good relationship with them the groundsmen, I
enjoy everybody's company, they enjoy mine and I'll miss that. You know what I
mean? The medical staff, the sports science staff, everybody who has helped me,
the kitchen staff, everyone has played a major part in my career here at Leeds
and it was hard to stand up there in front of them."
Although the emotion did spill over for the 32-year-old, he
was able to deliver a message to the rest of the players. His rehab work at
Thorp Arch is due to carry on to the end of the current campaign and he has no
desire to be working at Thorp Arch beyond the first week in May.