A MARATHON EFFORT, JOE!
Robins ace runs London gauntlet after injury hell
WINGER Joe Grant was flying high for Bracknell Town when he ruptured his ACL in a game against Uxbridge in September 2021.
It meant more than a year out for the 27-year-old while he worked through the painful rehabilitation programme to set foot back on a football pitch.
Today, Grant will channel that resilience on the cobbles of the capital as he joins thousands of runners taking part in the London Marathon.
And as he passes the world famous landmarks like Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace, it would be no surprise if Grant thought back to the horrific injury he’s fought so hard to return from.
“I was literally just running, the defender went to shield the ball out, I planted my foot, and it just, it just ruptured straight away,” Grant told The NLP.
“You could sort of hear it, sounding like 10 carrots snapping at one time. I just knew instantly I’d done something pretty bad and yeah, obviously it turned out to be my ACL.”
The Robins winger was sidelined for a total of 13 months while he underwent an intense rehabilitation process.
However, the former Slough,
Hayes & Yeading and Hartley Wintney forward kept the faith and never lost sight of his aspirations.
“I didn’t want to give up and obviously my motivation was to come back,” Grant added. “I was having a pretty good season, and I wanted to get back to that level again, so it didn’t cross my mind to give up at all.
Honoured
“This was when we were in Step 4 and we were flying. We were winning every game, and we were going for promotion.
“Having a good team around you was fantastic. I went to watch every single game so I still felt part of it. That helped a lot. We were still doing well and obviously we got promoted at the end of the season.”
After watching his Robins team-mates complete a hugely successful season in Southern Premier South from the sidelines, Grant was eager to return to action and play a key part in Bracknell’s next campaign at Step 3.
“I got straight back into it,” he said. “We got to the FA Cup first round in that time when we played Ipswich.
“Then we went all the way up to play-off final, but unfortunately lost in the last kick of the game.
“I had a pretty good season. I was top scorer and obviously the team did well too.”
But Grant’s talents extend beyond kicking a football. After such a difficult period of his footballing career, he has now become an inspiration off the pitch, running the London Marathon for the Children with Cancer charity, a cause close to his family’s heart.
“One of my dad’s best friends, his daughter, suffered with cancer for the majority of her childhood,” he told. “When I was looking through the charities, I thought that’d be a lovely one to run for and part of the reason as well. Whilst I’m young and able I thought, why not do something where I’m still capable to make a change or do my part.
“So, I thought, yeah, I’ll apply for Children with Cancer UK. I didn’t think I’d get anywhere close but with it within a week they came back to me, and they said they’d love for me to run for them. I was buzzing and I’m honoured to run for them.”