Sam Hutchinson returns to playing at 37 after Chelsea injury, depression and heart surgery

Sam Hutchinson signed a two-year contract with non-league Farnham Town this summer and made his debut at the Memorial Ground on the opening day of the National League South season. The 37-year-old former Chelsea defender resumed competitive football after a major heart operation and a long career that has included spells in the English Football League and abroad.

A product of Chelsea's youth system who joined the club as a seven-year-old, Hutchinson made his first-team debut at 17 under Jose Mourinho and captained England at Under-19 level. He was diagnosed with a chondral defect in his right knee after a reserve-game injury at Aston Villa, retired aged 21 in 2010 and later sought treatment for depression at the Priory. Hutchinson came out of retirement in December 2011 to re-sign for Chelsea but made only six senior appearances for the club.

After leaving Chelsea, Hutchinson went on to play more than 200 games in the Championship, most notably for Sheffield Wednesday, and had overseas spells with Vitesse Arnhem and Pafos. His English clubs since include Nottingham Forest, Reading and AFC Wimbledon, and the article notes he is a father of three still playing at 37.

Hutchinson scored the winner for AFC Wimbledon at Grimsby three weeks before the club's 26 May 2025 promotion play-off final victory at Wembley, but did not start another game for 11 months after that goal. Recalling the match at Blundell Park he said: "Throughout the first half my chest was getting increasingly tighter and I was in so much pain," adding: "I felt dizzy and my hands started sweating." He described being diverted to hospital on the team coach and subsequently transferred to a cardiac unit.

The player said medical staff told him he had suffered a heart attack; he spent five days in hospital and had successful heart surgery. Hutchinson said: "I was put me in the back of an ambulance and I remember hearing the blues and twos," and: "I was told I'd had a heart attack." He added that "A branch of an artery was blocked 75%. I had an angiogram, external and had a stent put in by a specialist. The one thing that the professor - who had looked after both Tom Lockyer and Christian Eriksen – said was my situation was nothing like theirs. "It was a blockage and it was all fixed, there was no need for a defibrillator to be fitted." John Terry contacted him during recovery and Hutchinson was well enough to attend Wembley to watch AFC Wimbledon win promotion.

A month after his hospital treatment AFC Wimbledon announced Hutchinson had signed a one-year contract extension once he was given the all-clear to train, though he made only a handful of appearances in 2025-26 and the club announced he would be leaving in May at the age of 36. "Sam played a pivotal role in getting us over the line, not only with that iconic goal at Grimsby but his performances leading up to that," said an AFC Wimbledon statement, external announcing his departue.

Farnham Town's opening-day home crowd of 1,178 at the 2,200-capacity Memorial Ground watched Hutchinson make his debut in a 1-0 defeat to AFC Totton, after the Surrey side rose from the ninth-tier Combined Counties League to the National League South with three straight promotions. The club had struggled to attract crowds around 400 three years earlier, and Hutchinson has been part of a side that won four of their first eight National League South matches.

Hutchinson said: "I'm loving it," and added: "Part-time football suits me after all that I've been through with my health. "I have to go back every six months for tests and I have been told I will need further heart surgery when I finally stop playing football. "But the specialists are happy for me to carry on for now." He is scheduled to line up for Farnham at Cirencester Town in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup on Saturday (15:00 BST).