‘TERRY CLASH PROVED TO ME THAT I’D RECOVERED
Bbegun. EING tackled by John Terry was the moment Liam Boyce knew his career in England had finally
It had looked to be over before it had started.
Bought as Burton’s record £500,000 signing from Scottish Premiership club Ross County, Boyce was badly injured in the last pre-season friendly at Shrewsbury.
It was party time for the Shrews - the club open day, families were there, kids running around and a band called The One Hit Wonders were playing.
Boyce wasn’t even a one hit wonder.
He ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee as he and Shrewsbury’s Toto Nsiala went for the ball.
That was July and he didn’t play again for seven months until he came on as sub against Aston Villa two weeks ago and scored.
Stronger
“I heard my leg pop. It was like a funny bone pain. After a few days I got the scan and then I knew how bad it was,” he says.
“The club had brought me all the way here and now I couldn’t even play.
“I’d never had a bad injury, when friends phoned I was in tears. My daughter would be on the bed, she didn’t know what had happened, and I’m as sad as can be and she’s climbing all over me.
“But it’s not a career-ending injury like it used to be so I had to get through it. My body actually feels stronger now.”
Team-mate Shaun Barker, who has had his own horrific injury, helped, counselled and advised as Boyce, 26, made his way back.
“I’ve gone through nothing compared to what he’s done,” says Boyce.
Both Barker and Boyce played 45 minutes in Burton’s Birmingham Senior Cup defeat at Hednesford on Tuesday.
It gave Boyce, the top scorer in the Scottish Premiership last season, another run-out having played 18 minutes at Villa Park and 19 minutes at Ipswich last week.
And that’s against the wife’s advice.
“I wasn’t expecting to come on until maybe the Nottingham Forest game (yesterday),” he explains.
“The physio was saying to me ‘look forward to that’. Then that Villa match, it was crazy. I surprised myself I scored because I hadn’t had even a shot in the league before.
“Now I want to play as much as I can and the people who know more about my situation are having to hold me back, keep me calm
“I’d never been to Villa Park , only seen it on TV, then I’m in the changing rooms, going out, seeing ‘European Champions’ as I walk out, scoring at the Holte End.
“It’s what you want happen, but it rarely does.
“My missus Leoncha didn’t want me to go on in the game. She said ‘Please don’t’ go on’ because she was worried for me, that it was too soon.
“She was watching Soccer Saturday and it came up that Burton had scored and she was thinking ‘No way’. Then she
up, jumping up and down.
“My phone was going mental. On for 20 minutes and I score.”
Boyce had two choices to mend his knee because the surgeon explained they could graft from the hamstring or the quad.
“The surgeon said if you are a quick player don’t get it from your hamstring. If you are strong, hold the ball up more, then you need your quads.
Challenge
“I’m not the Titanic, I’m not that slow, but I’m not the quickest. So I took it from the hamstring.”
When he came on at Villa he looked round for Terry.
“The first challenge I had since I came back from the injury was from him. Stephen (Bywater – goalkeeper) kicked the ball about 100 feet in the air and I was looking to see who it was.
“It was John Terry. And I’m thinking, ‘the last time I did this I did my cruciate’. He banged into me and it was fine. A good test for me.”
Boyce scored 23 league goals for Ross County last season, more than Scott Sinclair (21) and Moussa Dembele (17) got for champions Celtic.
The whole Boyce family are Celtic fans and they were watching the final game of the season looking for a win but praying Sinclair didn’t score.
Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts were all interested in buying him and Boyce was constantly on the phone while he was supwas posed to be on holiday last summer in Portugal.
But Burton had made their interest known from the previous January.
Michael O’Neill, Boyce’s Northern Ireland international manager, advised him to make the move to England and ex-Ross County team-mate Jackson Irvine, who had previously gone to Burton for £300,000, said he’d enjoy playing for Nigel Clough.
“Jacko said I wouldn’t get elbowed in the head as much as I do in Scotland!” says Boyce. “Nigel Clough wanted me to play the same way as I did for Ross County.
“I’m not the type for a through ball and then go sprinting after it. I’ll be six yards out and be the first to get to the ball and put it in the net.
“He wanted to play me to my strengths and that was a big reason for me coming.”
Burton played well but still lost Boyce’s debut at Villa and prior to yesterday’s game with Nottingham Forest were bottom of the Championship without a
Weapon
“But Inverness, they travel half an hour to training. Motherwell might do that too. There’s probably four or five teams.”
Burton were not expected to survive their first Championship season, let alone their second, but Clough uses that perception as a weapon.
“Ross County is far away, no one wants to travel up there,” says Boyce. “Everyone hates you. But you just use that to your advantage.”
When he went there from being a part-timer with homecity Belfast club Cliftonville four years ago, the first thing Boyce had to do was lose weight.
Forty-eight goals in 99 games later, he won the Scottish Premiership Golden Boot. Well, almost. Boyce waited and waited for the award. Turns out there isn’t one. His agent Stephen Whelan had one made especially and it’s in the Boyce family home in Derby now.
“I thought it warranted an award for what I’d done,” says Boyce. “I was so surprised there wasn’t a trophy.”
If he gets the goals that keep up Burton he might get another award especially made with grateful thanks. win since New Year’s Day. It’s a tough ask to stay up again, something that Boyce is learning about. “Hednesford, who we played the other night, were in the same league as Burton only 10, 15 years ago,” he says with some wonderment. Life in Scotland with Ross County and the over-achieving Brewers is not dissimilar. When Boyce trained at Ross County he didn’t have to get in a car and drive there with his team-mates, as is the daily commute from Burton’s Pirelli Stadium to St George’s Park. But they were the ugly ducklings of the Scottish top-flight. Not in terms of facilities, which are excellent, or in achievement with six successive years in the Scottish top flight, nor in friendliness, a quality matched by Burton. But Ross County’s stadium is in Dingwall near the head of the Cromarty Firth in the Highlands, 14 miles northwest of Inverness. “It’s small, smaller than Burton, but I always thought that helped. You were up there in the Highlands away from it all,” says Boyce. “It happens a lot in Scotland where the players jump in cars to go training, but we were one of the lucky ones. The chairman has put a lot of money into getting pitches around the ground.