Veteran defender Michael Dawson admits he is unsure what the future holds as his Nottingham Forest contract comes to an end.
The 37-year-old will not be offered a new playing deal by the Reds, although boss Chris Hughton has said the “door is always open” for him to take up a new role at the club.
There has been no word over whether Dawson plans to hang up his boots, however, or whether he will look to pursue his media work.
But regardless of what comes next, the centre-back says he reflects on his time in the game with pride - from coming up through the ranks at the City Ground, to winning the League Cup with Tottenham Hotspur and achieving promotion to the top-flight with Hull City.
“Everyone talks about winning things, but I look at my career and think, ‘it’s been successful’,” said Dawson.
“I’m at that age where you’re thinking of your next chapter. Where will I be in the summer? Will there be opportunities? What will it be, will it be playing, will it be media? We don’t know.
“But success is when you look back on your own individual career: Have you won anything? I won the League Cup in 2008, which was a massive success. I won promotion to the Premier League and got four England caps.
“The promotion from the Championship to the Premier League was probably my biggest achievement and my best day as a professional footballer.
“Success is what you take out of the game, in my opinion. You’ve got players who have gone on to achieve better and with more ability, and players with less ability.
“I always say, there were players more gifted than me and technically better than me who went out of the game.
“I would class myself and my career as a success because I’ve stayed in the game for 20-plus years and enjoyed every minute of it, and I’ve got to a stage where the next chapter is.
“Success can be defined in different ways - from winning things or staying in the game. For me, it is 20 years in a career and playing just short of 600 games.”
Dawson returned to the club where it all began when he put pen to paper for his second spell at Forest in 2018.
He has been hampered by injuries, while in the season just gone, he did not make a single appearance - being included on the bench just once, in the penultimate game against Sheffield Wednesday.
Asked to sum up his career, he told The Gold Dust podcast: “I’m very happy.
“When I started out, from the age of 10, going to Nottingham Forest, leaving home at 16 to become a YTS, when I walked out of my mum and dad’s house, if you’d have said to me then that I’d still be in the game 21 years later, I’d have said, ‘where do I sign?!’.
“I’ve had ups and downs, and knockbacks - from nearly being sold to being told ‘you’re not going to play in my plans’, to injuries. But I’ve always fought back. I’ve always had that grit and determination, and inner belief when other people maybe doubt you - that can happen in any walk of life.
“I can’t ask for anything else out of the 20-plus years I’ve had as a player.”
