TWO thugs who left a semi-professional footballer with permanent brain damage have been released from prison after less than four months.

Former Ramsbottom United winger Matthew Edgington, aged 26, was violently attacked outside a Manchester city centre nightclub in November 2009.

Two of his attackers were jailed for 14 months in March this year but have now been released on licence.

Matthew ’s outraged father, John Edgington, 62, said: “We desperately want to move on and this is a huge slap in the face.

“Nobody even told us they had been released. Matthew could have quite easily bumped into these lads in the street and it would have been a massive shock for him.”

Samuel Jordan, from Ellenbrook, Simon Parrott, from Swinton, and Lee Walne, of Brett Road, Boothstown, all pleaded guilty to assault at Manchester Crown Court.

Greater Manchester Probation Service confirmed that Jordan and Parrott were freed on July 11 on Home Detention Curfews (HDC).

Walne is not being dealt with by the probation service because his sentence was just six months.

The Ministry of Justice’s parole board, which made the decision to release the pair early, said they will be carefully supervised.

Mr Edgington, from Walshaw in Bury, had been drinking in the Panacea club in Manchester when the attack happened.

Parrott delivered a punch to his head, causing him to hit the ground.

He suffered a fractured skull, fractured eye socket and bleeding on his brain and was in a coma for weeks.