Many will be shocked by former Blackburn Rovers star's ninth-tier drop | OneFootball

Few would have expected him to drop so far following the season he had

Many Blackburn Rovers fans will have been shocked to learn where Elliott Bennett has wound up playing his football this season.

The wideman had a remarkable career in professional football, rising as high as the Premier League, now plies his trade for ninth-tier side Shifnal Town.

That’s despite playing a full League One season for Shrewsbury Town just last season, helping the club avoid relegation in the process.

But a brief look at his social media profiles shows that the 36-year-old is busy setting up his post-football life.

Bennett had an incredible professional career

Starting out at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Bennett played back-to-back Premier League seasons for Norwich City before dropping back to the Championship with Rovers later in his career.

He turned out 192 times for the Ewood Park outfit — the most for any club in his professional career — scoring nine goals and providing 19 assists, sticking with the side when they dropped into League One and playing a key role in getting them back to the second tier.

In total, Bennett made 600 professional appearances, commemorating the feat on the pitch with a specially printed shirt which he later posted on social media.

Shifnal Town move may come as a shock

He celebrated that milestone with Shrewsbury, his last professional club, before announcing his retirement from the professional game on social media.

At 36, Bennett had reached a fairly standard age for professionals to step away from the game and begin to focus on other things, so it may come as a shock to some that the former Rovers man still clearly feels able to put in 90 minutes, and has opted to do so as low as the ninth-tier, with West Midlands Regional Premier League Division outfit Shifnal Town.

It's clear Bennett still adores the game and wants to be involved in some way, and Shifnal makes sense when you break it down.

The pressure and intensity will be much lower than the professional game, he describes himself as a ‘Telford boy’ so is local to home with Shifnal, and his brother, Kyle, is also at the club.

Away from the spotlight playing the game for a living, Bennett can now just enjoy his football.

Bennett is now focusing on his post-football life

Another motivation for stepping away from professional football for Bennett appears to be to free up some of his time, partly for his young family, who he regularly posts about, and also for his new business venture.

In the bio of his Instagram account, Bennett offers people the chance to follow his journey via another page, ExclusiveBuildingLtd.

The building firm is involved in residential construction in the Shropshire area and appears to be the project that Bennett is now putting his time into away from football.