CHARLIE’S CHELSEA ANGUISH
CHARLIE MCINTYRE spent countless nights screaming in pain.
For a six-year-old football-obsessive, it was a tough lesson – that the embryonic steps taken with Chelsea’s academy could be his last.
Training at the club’s base in Cobham had exacerbated a problem that was eventually traced to his hip – and such was the progression of the illness that he would be using a wheelchair inside a couple of years.
But, fast forward 11 years and the 17-year-old from Southend will take his place alongside his colleagues in the wheelchair basketball in Birmingham after becoming one of the youngest members of Team England.
He said: “All I cared about was football and, when I was about six, I was travelling to Cobham to train with the kids in Chelsea’s academy.
“I can’t remember much now but I remember rinsing everyone – sorry about that, but I was quite good.
“By the same token, the other thing I remember was my grandad giving me a flask of coffee. I’d never dealt with one before – and I spilt the entire contents down myself.
“Those are my only two memories, apart from the agony I felt afterwards. It was horrible. I’d be up all night in floods of tears because of the pain from my knees and ankles.
“Initially, the doctors said it was a sprain. But I went in again and they diagnosed me with Perthes’ disease – effectively the ball joint in my hip disintegrates.
“Football might have been the catalyst for it to get worse, to be honest. I’d got two conditions in both hips and it was only ever going to be a matter of time before I ended up in a wheelchair.
“I started playing as a goalkeeper. So I was used to catching the ball and my hand-to-eye co-ordination is pretty good. It’s helped me massively to get where I am today.”