ACOUPLE of weeks back we saw the start of Rangers' injury crisis when Chris Burke went over on his ankle in the Scottish Cup semi-final against St Johnstone. I say we saw it, more accurately you did, as I couldn't face the slow motion replay back in the TV studios. Like most players I know the sickening pain of that particular injury only too well and could have done without the close-ups thank you very much.
This may make us players and ex-players seem like a squeamish, cowardly bunch, but that would be an unfair judgment in my experience.
A few years back while training for Kilmarnock I went up to head a cross ball – no, honestly I did – not knowing
that the brick-like skull of Gus MacPherson was coming in from my blind side. The next morning when I woke up from the ensuing operation that rebuilt my cheekbone the smiling surgeon's first words were: "Ask the question then." What question would that be? I replied through a drug-induced haze. "The first one that comes to mind." I thought for a moment and then said "OK, when can I play again?"
He laughed and explained that nearly all footballers were exactly the same, the minute they woke up they were thinking about getting back to work. Not whether or not the procedure had worked, or even when they could have some painkillers but when they could put themselves in the firing line again. I managed to talk the good doctor down from eight weeks to just under four for my return, explaining that I didn't head the ball that often anyway.
This relaxed attitude to operations isn't down to bravery but more the routine nature of hospital visits for those involved in the game. I reckon I was pretty lucky during a 19-year career, only suffering a handful of those grotesque ankle twists, a torn cruciate – thank you Stuart Pearce and Brian Rice – Gus's Glasgow kiss, a cracked fibula against the USA by an ex-pat Scot called Kinnear and a recurring hip problem I blame on Jimmy Johnstone. I slavishly followed his training routines from childhood, but the peerless Jinky famously had cast iron hips – unlike my own, I have discovered since the end of my career.
I haven't even reached my 45th birthday and I am writing this from a hospital bed in Birmingham following my second major hip operation. The left one was an unqualified success nearly three years ago and with any luck in a few months' time I will have dispensed with crutches, walking sticks and surgical stockings to venture back into the heady world of hill running and maybe even the odd five-a-side game.
The surgeon has warned that my return to jogging just three months after the first operation was maybe pushing it a bit considering the recommended time before donning the trainers is actually a year. He knows however that professional footballers, and probably most pro athletes, are not keen on waiting longer than necessary to get back to fitness. It is something that is built into your psyche throughout the career.
Strangely, I found this up and at 'em attitude less prevalent in some of the foreign players I came across. I remember sweating away on a rowing machine in the Tranmere Rovers physio room, being amazed at my teammate Ivano Bonetti. He was insistent that he would only be available for selection when he was 100% fit again or at a push maybe 95%, if it was for a crucial game. I was looking to play at somewhere around 60%. The questions remain, whose attitude was the right one and when does bravery become stupidity?
My history isn't unusual and, as with most sports professionals, the medical professionals despaired of me. I had my appendix out on a Sunday and played a first team game the next Saturday. My cruciate ligament damage at Everton saw me back in the first team after three, not the recommended six to nine, months. If I hadn't pushed it then I wouldn't have played in the FA Cup semi and final that year: I certainly thought it was worth it, if a tad risky. The cracked fibula playing for Scotland in the US didn't stop me joining up with the Euro 92 squad two weeks later in Sweden. If you ever want to see the evidence of the extent of the damage, watch the build-up to the third goal against the CIS. I ran the length of the pitch with the ball before dribbling past Kuznetsov, only to be upended in the box. Gary McAllister scored from the spot but the only reason I went on that run at all was because the pain from the cracked bone in my right leg didn't allow me to pass the ball any more than about 20 yards. Dribbling was the only option and, on this occasion, happily the right one.
The surgeons aren't always as judgmental as you might expect though. After Gus MacPherson had accidentally rearranged my face on the Killie training ground, the medic wanted to know which games I was aiming to be back for. I told him the first was against Celtic and he immediately said I had no chance of being fit for that one, as after only three weeks the cheekbone would not be fully knitted together yet. I informed him that the game after that was against Rangers only three days later, to which he casually said that there would be absolutely no problem by then.
Maybe it was my west of Scotland background, but the fact that his name was clearly of southern Irish extraction made me think there was some sort of agenda there. The first ball that came to me against Rangers did of course arrive at my head but the bone survived and the injury was all but forgotten.
Earlier today here in the hospital, the nurse asked me why the growing number of ex-footballers she sees coming in for hip operations, seem so unconcerned, so fearless when they arrive to face the scalpel. The closest analogy I could come up with was that we think of our bodies as machines you need for your work, like a computer or a car. Sometimes you have to stick them in for repairs and maintenance and after a few of these services you just get used to it and treat it as a mere inconvenience.
She handed me my zimmer frame and said over her shoulder as she left the room: "If you drive too many miles in your car and don't take care of it, then it ends up getting scrapped early." Sobering thought, that.
The full article contains 1143 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
