On the comeback trail

As I turned the corner, limping badly, Wembley Stadium appeared before me.  A sea of claret and blue shirts soaking up the atmosphere ahead of the Coca Cola Cup Final between Aston Villa and Manchester United.  I was still in pain from the cortisone injection I'd had a few days before, aimed to push my fractured ischial tuberosity back into place and allow it to knit.  The hard seats at Wembley weren't comfortable at all that day, but then they never were.  I didn't let that spoil my enjoyment of a rare trophy win.

It wasn't the first time I'd been in pain sitting down, owing to my injury.  It wouldn't be the last either.  As recently as the week before my operation I'd endured four long flights that offered me zero comfort and the same amount of sleep as a result.  Wooden benches, driving for more than a couple of hours, even riding a bike - all of these things brought dread and discomfort.  And it's little wonder after hearing what Mr Hoad-Reddick told me the day after my operation.

I checked into the Alexandra Hospital in Cheadle at 11.30am on September 5th, shortly after my last blog post.  In truth it's more like a hotel than a hospital - carpets in the corridor, a pleasant cafeteria with a large conservatory, and private rooms with a flatscreen TV and, importantly, Sky Sports.  A few hours spent lying on the bed, my fiancée Kellie sat in the chair next to me, were only interrupted by assorted medical staff bringing me some forms to sign ("we're not to blame if you die or we accidentally cut your toes off and sew them onto your face") and introducing themselves to explain what their role would be in my own cup final.  I was surprisingly calm considering what was to come, and it was due in no small part to every member of staff I encountered that morning, and throughout my stay.  They were excellent.

After a couple of hours of watching the Pink Panther and Top Gear, Mr Hoad-Reddick came to see me and told me I looked "petrified".  Perhaps I wasn't so calm after all...  He told me that he was weighing up two options, either an "L"-shaped incision below my right buttock, about 5x7cm in size, or a straight incision along my right buttock parallel to my thigh bone.  Either one, for me.  I'm not especially choosy when it comes to being carved up in my sleep.

Shortly before 4pm I was taken up to the theatre waiting room where I would give my details one more time and await the anaesthetic room prior to surgery.  I seemed to be waiting an age.  Perhaps the last operation had gone into "Fergie time"?  I was glad to have my toweling robe to keep me warm, as my surgery gown and one-size-fits-nobody paper underpants weren't going to do the trick.

My traditional Greek military slippers got plenty of smiles and comments too.

Nerves were certainly kicking in at this stage, despite the soothing sounds of Real Radio attempting to keep me relaxed.  Some of the tunes were quite upbeat but once The Lighthouse Family broke into "When you're close to tears remember, one day it'll all be over" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  I didn't have to choose as I was quickly led to the anaesthetic room and had my drip inserted.  I was looking forward to "counting down from 10" and seeing how far I'd get before conking out.  As it goes I didn't even get the chance to start.  Before they'd asked the question I was out.  I didn't even slide into it, it was like an off switch.  I blame the lack of sleep on that flight back from California the week before.

As I awoke a few hours later, surgery having taken longer than expected, I was greeted by Mr Hoad-Reddick's face (I presume the rest of him was still attached too, but I only remember the face) and the news that the piece of bone they'd removed was larger than expected.  Naturally, my instinct was to ask if he'd kept it.  In my post-op stupor I probably thought I could wear it on a necklace, Crocodile Dundee-style.  Sadly he'd thrown it away.  It was only the next day, after a sleepless night, that I'd learn the full extent of my surgery and the piece of bone that had been tossed into the bin (hopefully the green one, for recycling).

My discomfort all these years, the piece of broken bone that was mistaken for a pulled hamstring, was in fact the size of a large thumb - about 7cm in length.  It had pulled away in that fateful moment nearly 20 years ago and had retained part of my hamstring tendon, attached to it.  In the meantime it had been surrounded by scar tissue and fused itself to my sciatic nerve.  Thankfully, Mr Hoad-Reddick had decided to go in from the side, as the "L-shaped" option wouldn't have given him the access he needed.

It meant a c.20cm incision (look below if you're not too squeamish - too late, you've seen it now!) that allowed him to pull my butt muscles out of the way and cut the bone away from the nerve, and out of my body.  He removed the scar tissue too, and stitched the tendons that were attached to the fragment back onto the remaining tendon that was still where it was supposed to be.  It's no wonder I'd been in so much pain for the best part of 20 years, and also why I'd been able to feel it down the length of my leg - the sciatic nerve being twanged and tweaked by my errant bone fragment at regular intervals.

The incision was closed up with internal soluble stitches and surgical superglue.  Neat.

It's been three weeks since my last blog post, and since the procedure.  I'm still on crutches, and will be for another three weeks at least.  I've not started rehab yet as the hamstring still needs to heal, although the wound itself is looking good.  Thankfully the fortnight course of Innohep injections to my stomach, to prevent DVT, ended this week.  My stomach is bruised on both sides of my belly button, from all the jabs, and my right leg has wasted already as it's just not being used at all.  I've also gained some weight, although I rather suspect that's not so much to do with the operation as the amount of takeaways and goodies I've been munching through whilst doing even less exercise than usual.

It's been a learning curve since the op, as there are a couple of things post-surgery that nobody can prepare you for.  Firstly the fatigue.  I've had little energy and have been quite forgetful, unsure who I've spoken to and even managed to lose a pair of Noel Gallagher concert tickets that arrived the day after I got home.  The second is how dependent you are on others.  The notion of being waited on hand and foot sounds great.  The reality isn't quite so glamorous - not being able to carry anything, dress yourself or even get into bed soon gets pretty tiresome.  I'm incredibly grateful to Kellie who has had the patience of a saint for the past 21 days.  Longer than that, actually, because I'm usually a nuisance, but especially so in the last 21 days.

But it's all for a good cause, as they say, and that is the aim of scoring my first goal, pain free, since the first season of the Premier League.  That's before England's latest (injured) prodigy Jack Wilshere was born.  And the good news began with a brief phone call from Mr Hoad-Reddick a few days after my procedure; one that reduced me to X-Factor-esque happy tears.

Four to six months.  That's when he believes I'll play football again.  About the same time as the aforementioned Jack Wilshere, who had an operation on his foot today.  Although I doubt we'll be in the same team when we make our respective comebacks.  Three weeks and a few hours ago I was a man who could never do sport again, couldn't really live a normal life.  And now, all being well, in three weeks time, I'll be crutch-free and on the comeback trail.

Some players don't enjoy pre-season training.  They see it as a chore.  My pre-season starts as soon as the physio gives me the all clear to start hydrotherapy (hopefully in ten days time).  And you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be busting my arse from start to finish.  Although not literally, of course.  I've already done that once.

Just like Peter Withe

Twenty-three minutes to go until I set off for the Alexandra Hospital in Cheadle, and into the care of Adam Hoad-Reddick.

I'm not sure how I'd have felt when, with twenty-three minutes to go, Peter Withe scored for Villa against Bayern Munich in the 1982 European Cup Final.  It's likely to have been a mix of nerves and excitement.  Exactly like now.  I probably wouldn't have been hungry then, though, which I very much am now.  At least I can eat after the operation, if we're looking for bright spots!

The bag's packed, the scene is set and I'm pretty much ready to roll now.  I didn't know how I'd feel, and still don't now really.  A mix of jetlag from last week's two day California trip and nerves meant I was eating Alpen at 2.30am this morning.  Wonder what culinary delights await me post-op?

One thing's for sure, though.  I'm going into hospital as someone who can never play football again and I'll be coming out as someone in rehab, in the hope of playing my next game as soon as I can.  That's got to be a great result in anybody's eyes.

Anyway, the clock's ticking.  I'll be back soon with my post-match report...

Campioni del Mondo!!!

Sorry that it's been a couple of weeks since my last post.  Not only have Sky ruined football, they've also failed to provide me with internet for a fortnight and the notion of trying to write an epic blog on my Blackberry didn't fill me with joy.  Still, I'm going to have some time on my hands for the next couple of weeks so maybe I'll be more prolific then.

Tomorrow is World Cup Final day.  Well not really, but in terms of my football career it's just as big.  The operation is finally upon me.  I'm strangely not feeling that scared at the moment which, for someone who avoided going to the dentist for over 10 years out of a fear of needles, is quite an odd thing.  It's almost as thought fate has brought me to it and it's just the next logical step in trying to get this thing fixed.  Positivity is going to be vital if I'm going to find my way back onto a football pitch and score that elusive goal so today is about being excited rather than scared.

I'm also helped by the fact I've been reading Paul Lake's autobiography "I'm Not Really Here".  It's a powerful tale about a man with the footballing world at his feet (literally, not just in an imaginary parallel universe like me) who got a bad injury but one which, with the right diagnosis and correct treatment, should've been a blip rather than career-ending.  Sound familiar?  I wasn't expecting it to make me cry but some of the more poignant moments, especially the one where he has to tell his Mom that he can't play again, brought painful memories flooding back.  If you haven't read it already I'd recommend that you do.  It's quite the human story.

Paul now works as an ambassador for Manchester City, the club he supported as a child and went on to captain before his injury (ironically against Villa).  Prior to that, and in the immediate aftermath of the premature end to his career, he studied and worked as a physiotherapist having been inspired by his own experiences on the treatment table.  Strangely, or not, that was my first port of call too.  I was doing ok in science at school and Biology was my favourite of the three so it seemed like a logical step.  Sadly, at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, doing "ok" at science wasn't good enough to allow me to study Biology at A-level.  I wasn't driven enough towards physiotherapy to prompt me to change school (although I did try it) so I needed to pick a subject at which I was better than "ok".

CDT, or Craft, Design and Technology to use its full title, was a subject I could label myself good at, and one which I really enjoyed.  I'd never made the link between taking a bottle of Tipp-Ex to copies of Roy of the Rovers as a kid before drawing on my own kit designs and the prospect of a career as a designer.  I was lucky to have the mentorship of three great people at school - Bob Metcalfe, Dawn Webster and Jon Holden encouraged and cajoled me towards following design at University, the latter two in particular spending vast amounts of time helping me to create a portfolio and develop my A-level projects to a high enough standard that I'd actually pass.  A public thanks for that...

At school I was designing boats and motorbike security devices so I'm not quite sure how I wound up studying fashion in Manchester.  Actually, that's a lie.  I chose fashion because I wanted to meet girls and Manchester because I liked the music scene up there.  As good reasons as any when you're 18, lets be honest!

Even in the formative stages of my fashion degree I hadn't realised that people could really make a living designing football kits.  It didn't really occur to me that it was an option at all until we were briefed on a sportswear project and I began to really flourish at what I was doing.  Four years of support and tutelage from Delma Barlow (who completely understood how to get the best out of me), and latterly seeing an inspirational talk by her husband Vic, and I was all set to embark on my life creating clothes rather than just spending my student loans on them.  Another public thanks is deserved here too.

But football was never going to be far from the action, it seems, and within weeks of starting work designing sportslifestyle product at Puma in Surrey I was heading over to HQ in Germany for the next stage of my career, focused entirely on designing football kit and trainingwear.  It was a dream come true and I was completely driven and inspired by my experiences with injury.  If I couldn't play football myself I could at least design products that would make it easier, more pleasant and even enhance the performance of those who could.  Those who really HAD made it to the top as well as those who played every Sunday morning just out of a love for the beautiful game.

I'll never forget the first time I saw VfB Stuttgart run out into a Bundesliga game wearing my design.  It was like a virtual reality experience.  But these experiences kept coming and coming - being a guest of UEFA at a Champions League final, presenting a Bulgaria kit concept to Hristo Stoichkov and working with one of my personal design icons Neil Barrett.  I thought things had reached their zenith when I had the opportunity to spend an hour in the company of Pelé, being trailed by a camera crew as I ran him through Puma's offering for the 2006 World Cup.  I won't lie, I shed a tear shortly after my time with him had ended.  After everything I'd been through with regards to football I'd still achieved a dream and met the greatest footballer of all time.

Little was I to know then that a little over twelve months later on 9th July 2006 at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, even though I wasn't there in person, I'd get as close as I possibly could to achieving the dream outlined in the first post of this blog.  Fabio Grosso replaced me in slamming home the decisive shootout penalty to win the World Cup, and it was for Italy rather than England, but he was wearing the kit that I'd designed as he became a national hero -

As Fabio Cannavaro lifted the trophy I had a massive lump in my throat -

I'd never in a million years have got so close to that magical moment as a player, but as a result of having lost the opportunity to play I'd followed a completely different path in life and had somehow managed to be a part of football history.  And it still feels weird and embarrassing, arrogant even, typing that here.  My role in Italy's victory was entirely fortuitous, a by-product of working for the right company at the right time.  Being privileged to have the chance to design that kit owes a huge amount to luck, the right place at the right time.  But design it I did (with lots of help from Bryony Coates and Sam Stephenson plus several others - cheers guys) and the psychological impact on me was massive.  It closed a chapter in my life.  It felt like fate had taken me to that moment and my injury was the catalyst.

So perhaps that's why, right now, I'm not nervous ahead of my own World Cup Final.  It's just another part of the story, another twist in the tale.  It's been such a ludicrous and surreal journey so far that something as mundane as an operation is a fairly straight forward addition to the list of anecdotes.  Will it work?  Will I play football again?  Will I strangely miss the injury, like a hostage released by my surgeon Adam Hoad-Reddick from years of captivity?  AIK Stockholm Syndrome...

There's only one way to find out, though, and find out I will.  I'm sure I'll be nervous tomorrow, or maybe even tonight, but if/when I am I'll try to suspend my disbelief and - as I have on so many of the weird and wonderful moments that can somehow be traced back to the occurrence of that fractured right ischial tuberosity - view it in the words of the title to Paul Lake's incredible book.  I'll just be thinking "I'm Not Really Here".