JUST two years ago Marc Tierney’s Bolton Wanderers career was running smoothly.

The Prestwich-born defender had arrived on a free transfer from Norwich City, was the tough-tackling type that Dougie Freedman had been looking for, and a charismatic young man who looked destined to become popular on the terraces too.

But that all changed on September 29, 2013, when a typically robust touchline challenge with Yeovil Town’s Shane Duffy, now at Blackburn Rovers, resulted in an horrific injury that would eventually change his life forever.

It was the kind of challenge he’d thundered into many times before but the damage caused – breaking his fibula, talus bone and rupturing ligaments – was more akin to a motor accident than a football injury and has left him unable to walk unaided.

After undergoing a fifth operation to fuse together the bones he broke that afternoon, Tierney has now announced his retirement and is weighing up his next move.

“It’s coming up to two years now but at the time you think ‘worst case scenario six months, worst case scenario a year’ and then you realise it won’t happen at all,” said the former full-back, whose last full game for Bolton came in defeat at Brighton, coincidentally the opposition for the Whites this weekend.

“My injury was a freak where I broke my leg and a particular bone in my foot that you probably only break in a car crash.

“I remember Googling it and I couldn’t find anyone who had suffered it. And these days it is really rare for a player to retire through injury.

“There are a lot of things I have had time to think about while I have been sat around. Now it’s about putting them into practice once I am back on my own two feet.”

Tierney has got involved with the North West Football Awards, which will be held in November, and continues to keep his eye in with some media work.

He intends to look into coaching once rehabilitation is done on a fifth operation – the four previous ones had been funded by Wanderers but the most recent partly by himself and partly by the PFA – but in the meantime is keeping himself busy outside of the game.

“I’ve had a passion for classic cars, I would go and do my badges but I have got to hang fire until I am walking unaided again and this is definitely right,” he explained. “Even general life has been put on hold.

“I got my hands on an old Bentley that needed one or two things doing and then I would bring it back to life and move it on to a good owner.

“Maybe I’ll get a chance to drive one first once this boot comes off,” he pointed to the incongruous contraption that has followed him around for much of the last two years.

“I am not a mechanic, I just know the right people,” he continued. “A couple of mates in the trade who are willing to come on board.”

Tierney also saw some of the darker aspects of football during his time with Oldham, Colchester United, Shrewsbury Town and Norwich City.

“One thing I have realised and I have been in every league, there are always people on the outside trying to get a bit of money off the lads who don’t know any better,” he said.

“Sometimes there is an ulterior motive behind the people that come in. Knowing the pitfalls of being a professional. People come in and look after your finances but sometimes there is an ulterior motive.

“It’s a case of ‘I’ll look after your money, give it to me and I will invest it’. You see lads after they have finished playing and they haven’t got any money because that investment.

“What I have learned as a football I would like to pass on. Either as a coach, maybe as an agent or someone who has provided a service.”

Wanderers fans can still vote for Tim Ream and Zach Clough in the MBNA North West Football Awards by logging on to northwestfootballawards.com/voting – polls close on October 16.