I don’t know if before reading this it might be necessary to make a pact similar to the one you make when you pick up a science fiction book. The agreement is that you understand that what happens isn’t real, but you accept that under different contexts, things work differently.
In football’s inescapable bubble, it’s obvious that our needs and struggles are particular, but that doesn’t make them unreal. That’s why, perhaps, it’s hard to empathise with such privileged suffering—I’m writing this under a mortgage-free roof, for instance— but I’m aware of my luck just as I’m aware of my pain. My life is a constant effort to balance both sides, and that’s why I write, so we can reflect together.
For those of us who were taught that football is the only way of life, this restraining order the body imposes on us when we’re injured goes straight to our heart.
My list is long: I tore my ACL in 2019, had pubalgia at 16 for months, sprained both ankles, numerous muscle injuries, cracked ribs, meniscus issues, and now a sesamoid injury (I didn’t know it existed either), and two or three concussions. Those I don’t quite remember.
Some of us footballers have a longer list of injuries than that, some shorter, but generally, this would be a standard CV for many of us. Elite sport is the unhealthiest sport, they say. I won’t argue. And that’s when we’re unwell. Even when I’m fine, especially after a game, I wake up with a hunch on my back, dragging my feet across hoping that when I get to the bathroom my back is straight, trying to get more vertical with every step. A shower and a coffee dress me up as a high-performance athlete.
The exhaustion isn’t just physical. The emotions I feel in 90 minutes leave me drained for hours, sometimes days. The joy of a goal, the pain of a stomp, the frustration of a mistake, the torment of conceding, the rage of an unfair decision, the bipolar noise of the stadium, the final whistle. And then I beg Miss Adrenaline to please give me a break at night because in a few hours, the shower and the coffee expect the miracle they pull off every morning. They don’t always make me a footballer, but they do mean I can at least walk.
