Danson rejoins hockey programme after 18-month recovery from head injury

Captain Alex Danson will return to training with the Great Britain hockey squad on Monday, almost 18 months after suffering a serious head injury which she says caused her to “lose my identity.”

Danson, pictured, who was a member of the GB hockey team which won gold at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, has not played since captaining England in a World Cup quarter-final defeat by the Netherlands in August 2018 due to long-term concussion as a result of banging her head against a wall while on holiday shortly afterwards.

Now she will aim for an international return as GB build towards the tokyo olympics in July of this year and she posted a message on Instagram expressing how important it is to cherish such opportunities.

“Every moment we have whether as a hockey player or in life, is a gift,” she wrote.

“I’m not who I was, I have a richness of experience that only these last long months could have given me.

“I was determined that I would take more from this experience than it would take from me, I have. These moments are truly made by the people you share them with, I can not wait to be back with you all.”

Following her injury Danson suffered months of headaches which forced her to spend hours in a darkened room and it was more than a year before she was able to run for half an hour at a time.

“I’m still not 100 per cent but with time running out before the Tokyo Olympics now is my last chance to see what I can do,” she added.

Danson, 34, who has yet to play under new coach Mark Hager, added that 2019 represented the first time that she had failed to play a game of international hockey in her 17-year playing career.

“The last 18 months have tested me to perhaps my limits, with my health, isolation and inability to do the things I used to do with such ease,” she wrote.

“I am delighted that I am able to return to the place [where] I’ve spent more time in my life than I have at home.”