MILESTONE TURNS TO MISERY FOR ARNOLD

IT IS your 600th game for Wimborne Town. It is a derby against a play-off rival and nearly 1,000 fans have packed in.

A high ball sails across the pitch and you go up for the first challenge of the game. No quarter given or expected – bosh, then ouch.

Magpies legend Scott Arnold knew right away that his big day was done. Try as he might to carry on, a broken forearm suffered in that first-minute challenge means that match 601 will have to go on the backburner just as momentum builds behind the push for an instant return to Step 3 under October appointment Tim Sills.

“They set it back and pinged a diagonal ball up for their striker, I went up with him and snapped my forearm on the back of his head,” recalled Arnold.

“I tried to carry on for the next five minutes but knew right away that something wasn’t right. I then tried my first proper sprint and my arm felt like jelly, it was horrible. The bench took one look and said it was broken – you couldn’t make it up, could you?

“I was absolutely gutted.

It was a massive derby and a great occasion so to get it cut short like that was horrible.

“As I walked around the pitch and people were shouting ‘I spent twelve quid to come and watch you and you only last two minutes’, that was funny in its own way but it was also really gutting to walk around, see the occasion and fantastic crowd and have to come off like that.”

Arnold, who turns 38 in

February, is in a plaster cast beyond his right elbow and faces an anxious wait to see whether he requires surgery – he is due to visit a specialist on Friday.

“Hopefully it is a straight break and after six to eight weeks in a cast I can get back to playing,” he added.

“We are going really well this season, we are at the right end of the table and I want to be a part of it.”