Sheffield United legend Billy Sharp has announced his retirement from football at the age of 40.<\/p>\n
Sharp, who played for Southampton, Nottingham Forest, Leeds United, Hull City, Scunthorpe United, Reading, Doncaster Rovers and Rushden & Diamonds during a 22-year professional career, during which he scored 299 goals.<\/p>\n
He had been a free agent since leaving Doncaster at the end of last season, when he signed off in style in his final game with a hat-trick against Peterborough.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to hang my boots up. I’ve given it a good ride. I’ve got a long way, got to 40,” Sharp told Sky Sports. <\/p>\n
“I wanted to go out on my own terms. I’ve seen many friends get taken away by injury and things like that.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to go out with a bang and luckily for me, I got a hat-trick in my last appearance.<\/p>\n
“I’m maybe not the most talented player, maybe not the most liked on the pitch but that’s because I love football. I’m passionate and I think I’ve got every single bit out of my career. <\/p>\n
“I’ve made memories in football that will last me a lifetime.”<\/p>\n
A boyhood Blades supporter, Sharp made his Championship debut off the bench against Watford in November 2004.<\/p>\n
He went on to become club captain and an important figure in three promotion-winning campaigns – from League One in 2017 and the Championship in 2019 and 2023.<\/p>\n
In three spells with Sheffield United, Sharp scored 129 goals for the club and became a Blades icon.<\/p>\n
He was also part of the Southampton side that won promotion to the Premier League in 2012.<\/p>\n
He enjoyed a brief stay in the MLS with LA Galaxy in 2023, after which many thought retirement loomed – but the ageless Sharp returned to his native Yorkshire to extend his career, firstly with Hull and then Doncaster Rovers.<\/p>\n
Sharp scored a dramatic late winner against Bradford City to secure promotion to League One for Rovers in 2025 before his spectacular ending to last season which meant he had scored EFL hat-tricks in his teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. He did score a fourth against Peterborough which would have taken him to 300 career goals but it was ruled out for offside.<\/p>\n
“It would have been lovely to have got that 300th goal on that day but I’ve had an unbelievable career,” he said.<\/p>\n
Sharp has joined Baller League team N5, which is led by former Arsenal and Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann to play six-a-side football but he also has one eye on management having completed his coaching badges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheffield United legend Billy Sharp has announced his retirement from football at the age of 40. Sharp, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-799153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}