Bannigan ready to start from scratch
STUART BANNIGAN admits his career is back to square one.
The Partick Thistle midfielder is on the comeback trail after missing 15 months of football with a knee injury.
It looked like he might leave the Jags last summer, with clubs like Aberdeen taking an interest.
Bannigan had indicated he was ready to move on, but then decided to sign a new two-year deal with Thistle.
They knew he was suffering a knee problem. But nobody expected him to miss all of last season.
He’s now ready to go again, but realistic about the situation he finds himself in.
He said: “Partick Thistle could easily have shunted me and I could only have put my hands up and said: ‘No problem at all’.
“I can’t thank managing director Ian Maxwell and the manager, Alan Archibald, enough.
“They were great with me. I have to repay them on the pitch over the next couple of years.
“I need to start from scratch again and show what I’m capable of.
“The team was great last season without me. A lot of boys did really well, so I need to show I deserve to be playing.
“I hope I can make the side even better. But first of all I need to get in the starting line-up and settle myself in.”
Bannigan knew he had a problem when he signed the new contract last summer, but the seriousness of his injury took him by surprise.
He went: “We didn’t know what was happening with my knee at the start and probably wasted four or five months.
“The operation could have been done straight away, but it is what it is.
“I was running and I didn’t feel right even running in a straight line.
“When the specialist said I needed an operation, it was a weight off my shoulders. I knew I needed it done.
“Realising I was going to be out for another nine months, on top of the four or five that had already passed, was hard.”
Last season was a bittersweet experience for the 24-year-old.
He could only watch from the stand as Thistle achieved a top-six finish for the first time.
He went on: “You’d see the players coming off after a great result and want to be part of it, but you know you’re not.
“That’s when the reality hits that you’re not involved at all.
“Now I’m desperate to be starting games again.
“We need to make sure people don’t look on our topsix finish as a fluke.
“It can’t be a one-off. We need to try and do it for two or three years in a row and establish ourselves as a topsix side.”