Disaster struck the pacy midfielder at the end of August 2007, just six days after winning his 33rd England cap against Germany, when he suffered a double fracture of his right leg in the League Cup second round tie at Bristol Rovers.

That was only Dyer's third appearance following his £6m return south from Newcastle United on 16 August and it looked likely to rule him out of the remainder of the 2007/08 campaign.

The Ipswich-born livewire, originally joined his hometown club as a schoolboy and won England youth caps, before making his debut on Boxing Day 1996 in a 3-1 win against Crystal Palace.

And after scoring a dozen goals in 113 league and cup outings for the Portman Road side, the eleven-times capped England Under-21 international was snapped up by Newcastle United for £6.5m in July 1999.

Dyer made his debut as a half-time substitute in the 1-0 defeat by Aston Villa on the opening day of the 1999/00 season and just one month later he won his first England cap in the 6-0, Euro 2000 qualifying victory over Luxembourg, as Alan Shearer bagged a hat-trick.

Although he missed out on Kevin Keegan's final squad for the 2006 European Championship, at the eleventh-hour he overcame an injury that had looked set to rule him out of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. He subsequently made substitute outings against Sweden, Denmark and eventual winners, Brazil.

Back in club football, Dyer was appointed stand-in skipper for Newcastle's League Cup tie with Everton in November 2002 and he responded with a captain's innings that saw him score two goals.

As his stature on Tyneside continued to grow, he was also named in the 2002/03 PFA Premiership team of the season.

On the international stage, he made a late substitute appearance against Switzerland in the Euro 2004 finals but, yet again, he saw his subsequent seasons punctuated by shin, knee and eye injuries, while a serious hamstring problem forced him to miss out on the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The subsequent arrival of Sam Allardyce on Tyneside, coupled with Dyer's desire to move south after an eight-season stint at St James' Park - where he scored 36 goals in 251 league and cup games for the Magpies - led to him joining West Ham United on a four-year contract.

Dyer made his Hammers debut in the 1-0 win at Birmingham City two days later and after coming agonisingly close to scoring his first-ever England goal in the friendly with Germany, he then impressed on his home debut against Wigan Athletic.

But just as he was finding his feet, that untimely broken leg, sustained just ten minutes into the cup tie at Bristol Rovers, looked set to rule the luckless midfielder out of action until mid-2008.