Judge: My hell over leg break
ALAN JUDGE has revealed the full extent of the injury hell that may well have cost him millions as well as a trip to Euro 2016.
The 29-year-old Brentford midfielder saw his world turned upside down by a horror tackle from Ipswich’s Luke Hyam in April 2016 and only returned to first-team training last month.
He had just won his first cap for Ireland, and was voted in the Championship team of the season for that campaign, but a double leg break put paid to a near-certain move to the Premier League.
Judge admits seeing ex-team-mates Andre Gray and James Tarkowski in the top flight made his fitness battle even harder.
He said: “I saw Andre playing in the Premier League and James playing there. No disrespect to Brentford, but I knew that I was also going to be playing there shortly.
“Myself and the club had a mutual agreement that I would stay until the end of the season.”
And speaking in the Brentford fanzine Thorne In The Side, Judge added: “I was on the bench for the Euro 2016 play-off qualifier against Bosnia for Ireland.
“And the thing that did do was give me a place in the Championships if I worked hard and continued to perform.”
On the reaction from Ipswich, Judge said: “No, I wasn’t happy.
“Luke texted me. It was one of those things.
“He knew it was a bad tackle but I didn’t want him getting abused about it. He is going through a hard time at the moment (with a long-term knee injury).
“And boss Mick Mccarthy said it was a perfectly good tackle in his post-match interview – he hadn’t seen it, he was just watching the ball. However, Mick rang and apologised.
“The pain is like having the worst headache ever and multiplying that by a hundred.”