Monday, 26 May 2025. A date etched in the memories of AFC Wimbledon fans after their side won promotion to League One by beating Walsall at Wembley in the play-off final.
It was Hutchinson’s winner at Grimsby three weeks earlier that ensured the Dons made the play-offs.
He did not know it at the time but the defender-turned-midfielder would not start another game for 11 months after scoring at Blundell Park.
“Throughout the first half my chest was getting increasingly tighter and I was in so much pain,” recalls Hutchinson about that game at Grimsby.
“I felt dizzy and my hands started sweating.
“I was rapidly going downhill but then our centre-back won a great header, the keeper tipped it on to the bar, and it dropped down to me to tap over the line.”
While AFC Wimbledon’s travelling fans celebrated the goal wildly, Hutchinson felt so unwell his only thoughts were finishing the game and making it home to his wife and three children.
It would be several days, however, before he returned to the family home in Ascot.
On the journey back to London, his condition deteriorated to such an extent that a decision was taken to divert the team coach to a hospital in Nottingham so he could receive treatment.
After tests Hutchinson was quickly transferred to a nearby cardiac unit.
“I was put me in the back of an ambulance and I remember hearing the blues and twos,” he recalls.
“My blood levels had spiked so much, I was in a really bad way. A couple of the paramedics knew who I was because I had played for Nottingham Forest a few years earlier.
“They said: ‘You can thank us later for saving your life.’ I was told I’d had a heart attack.”
Hutchinson spent the next five days in hospital and had successful heart surgery.
“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, his former Chelsea team-mate, was among those to reach out to Hutchinson during his recovery, while the player was well enough to visit Wembley to watch AFC Wimbledon win promotion.
A month later the Dons announced he had signed a one-year contract extension after being given the all-clear to train again.
However, Hutchinson was limited to just a handful of appearances in 2025-26 and in May – 12 months after that game at Grimsby – it was announced he would be leaving 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.
Some may have decided it was the perfect time to retire from playing after what he had been through.
Hutchinson, though, had other ideas.
