The long road to recovery – nursing the stars back from injury
A football physio tells us what goes on behind the scenes when a players suffers his worst nightmare
FORTUNATELY, serious career threatening injuries are relatively rare throughout a season at a club – but statistics are no comfort to the individual concerned.
In recent months we have seen some big names who have dominated the headlines as a result of injury which necessitated hospitalisation and subsequently surgery, with all the concomitant complications and doubts that go with such disaster for a player.
We can recall over the years serious knee injuries to Alan Shearer, Micheal Owen and Paul Gascoigne, to more recently Alex Oxlade-chamberlain, a serious ankle injury to Arsenal’s Danny Wellbeck, and knee problems for Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk.
And in recent weeks we’ve seen serious knee injuries to Aston Villa’s Boubacar Kamara and to Wolves’ new striker Sasa Kalajdzic, the latter just 45 minutes into his debut.
There were probably many more who suffered similar injuries with less publicity, but who will no doubt also have feared “is this the end of my career?”
Injury is no respecter of position and is just as likely on the youth team pitch on a Saturday morning as on Sky Sports on Sunday afternoon!
The media reaction to such injuries is one of blazing headlines such as “Player shatters leg, could be out for a year”, or “Will not play again this season” followed by an in-depth article a few days later analysing the percentage chances for and against full recovery. Not the sort of stories the player wants to be reading whilst lying in hospital with his leg in plaster, feeling low enough already. The initial emotive reaction of team mates and staff is of support, which is of course a great help to players in this position. It’s importance cannot be overstated. However, life goes on and the club and players are in the business of playing football matches, fielding teams and training. The show goes on for the rest of the club, and it is left very much to the Club Doctor and medical staff to get on with the nuts and bolts of helping the player through the next few months of often boring, dreary grind of recovery and rehabilitation, with the inevitable reviews with the consultants – X-rays, tests, even further surgery, plus possible setbacks.
This is the time when the player is a patient and not an injured footballer.
The physiotherapist/sports therapist role at this time is to work closely with the manager and other staff on an agreed plan – always subject to the medical aims and controls.
There is a lot of waiting time following surgery or time in plaster, and strict academic treatment is not indicated. Not much changes day to day, and progress can only be measured in in weeks.
Being philosophical is not a strong point with most players, so they need a lot of support and encouragement, to take a positive long view, and not to listen to too many “experts”.
The physiotherapist/sports therapist has as his priority the demands of seeing to the current crop of running repairs, travelling with the team and other duties, which means that the long-term injured player has a lot of time on his own, getting on with body work, etc. on his own in the gym.
Most managers and coaches are good at keeping a player involved by having him travel with the team, taking part in club activities. But it’s not always possible, so when it’s not, they try to have a plan to fill the injured player’s waiting time.
A few days at home for a young scholar with his mom and dad might be one answer – he may be far from home, in digs.
A week in the sun is always acceptable, with a complete break from the rehabilitation regime!
But players are all very different, they do not come made to measure but ‘off the peg’, with different reactions to dramatic events in their lives – just as you’d find in any patient.
It is important to have a chat with them quietly sometimes, away from the dressing room banter. A club psychologist is invaluable at times like this to the type of players who want to to talk out their fears with someone divorced from the mainstream of club life.
Over the weeks of recovery the emphasis swings from the treatment of disability (hospital and treatment room) to the assessment of capability (track and gymnasium) with little punctuations along the way ... such as first day off crutches, first swim, first easy jogging.
Add to this little sweeteners and targets like ... “get your boots cleaned, we will take a ball out on the pitch next Monday.” It all helps keep the mood positive.
It’s hard work for everyone – long, slow and tedious, and not always immediately rewarding. It may take longer than was first forecast, and each progressive step may not go quite like clockwork.
But keep going, and you get there.
There are months of the often boring, dreary grind of recovery and rehabilitaion