I knocked out a fellow pro... and it still leaves me cold
IT WAS 10 minutes into a run- of-the-mill, end- ofseason game when it happened. Stoke were playing West Ham and a cross had just been whipped into the penalty area.
I always backed myself to get the perfect timing when attempting a bicycle kick but this particular day, in May 2013, it went horribly wrong. Rather than connecting with the ball, I connected with Matt Taylor and caught him flush in the face.
Matt was out cold before he landed on the ground. He lay there for a couple of seconds before the physios arrived on the scene but those few seconds seemed like an eternity. He never gave a flicker of coming round.
It was one of the scariest incidents I experienced on a pitch.
Fortunately, Matt regained consciousness. Other than concussion, a cut to his face and a black eye, he was fine, and I was able to see him in the dressing room afterwards. But the worry that I had inflicted serious damage to a fellow professional stayed with me all through the game.
Watching the dreadful events at Goodison Park last week, when Andre Gomes suffered a potentially season- ending injury, it made me think of some the incidents in which I have been involved, and I can understand exactly how Son Heungmin would have felt.
We all know Son was upset. He reacted with class when scoring for
Tottenham in midweek and everybody knows he did not go out to shatter Gomes’s ankle. Let’s be honest, though: the man who deserves most sympathy is the one who went through an operation and is now on crutches.
You cannot underestimate the effect an incident of that nature will have on a squad, and it will be interesting to see how Everton react today, when they face Southampton at St Mary’s. Episodes such as last week’s are not easily cleared from the mind.
The worst incident I ever saw happened in a training session. It was May 2016, at Stoke’s Clayton Woods base. A tackle from our defender Dionatan Teixeira shattered Stephen Ireland’s leg. I will not go into the details other than to say Phil Bardsley who was closest to it was almost in tears.
Dionatan ended up requiring counselling. We consoled him in the same way Son was consoled by his own players, and Everton’s, last Sunday. No right-minded footballer would ever go out of their way to inflict such pain and that’s why Seamus Coleman went into see Son after the game.
The impact for Stephen Ireland, however, was huge. He was never the same player after that and we can only hope that the implications for Gomes are not as severe. It was encouraging, then, to hear Marco Silva, Everton’s head coach, raise the prospect of him playing again this season.
I appreciate this might not be an uplifting column but sometimes it is unavoidable to talk about something of this nature. Dreadful accidents happen such as this at some point every season and they will continue to do so in the future. These are our occupational hazards.
Only in the rarest occasion, however, can you attach blame. Son did not go out to ruin Gomes’s season. We all know his character and we have all sung his praises over the last few years but none of that will matter to him. Nothing will have stopped him replaying the incident in his mind.
My collision with Matt Taylor was a fraction of what happened at Goodison Park but it still leaves me chilled. Believe me, it is your worst nightmare if you are responsible for inflicting major damage to another footballer. Son would do anything to go back in time. So too would Andre Gomes.