Chapter 3
Around 10am, I decided to try and quell my nerves by jogging. But within 20 minutes of me hitting the streets, I felt it for the first time in nearly 2 years. The pain shooting down my hamstring. My knee ligaments straining under the force. I don’t know why my body decided that particular day to start playing up, I never had any problems at Fulham, participating in training on a daily basis.
So I decided to head back to mine and Alice’s apartment. I gingerly walked back up the road, fearing my knee was going to explode. And suddenly not only was the self doubt and the nerves flooding back, now I had to deal with the fear that the injuries that had ended my playing career were returning.
I got to within sight of my new front door. When, as if the fates were seriously against me, I heard the familiar sound of tires squealing, followed by that sound I had heard 5 years ago.....metal connecting with metal and the crumpling sound that ultimately followed. I shot round and looked over as 2 young boys emerged from the slightly shorter Fiat Punto. They were lucky to escape any serious injuries, I should know.
Suddenly, promoted by the noise, and sounds that ruined not only my playing career, but also many of my personal relationships, I found myself unable to think of anything else, but that terrible night of October 17th 2005............
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Chapter 4
Part 1
October 17th 2005
The worst 24 hours of my life.
The day had been like any other, I’d woken up in my London flat with my fiancé Hannah, I’d gone for my morning jog, before switching on Sky Sports news and watching the headline from the passing weekend replay over and over. And whilst Hannah was at work, played on the Xbox.
At around 5 oclock that evening, just as Hannah was arriving home from her model shot, I was heading out the door to the hotel where I would meet up with the rest of the Fulham team. Aged only 20 I was already being tipped to make the England squad for the 2006 world cup, after a number of impressive performances for the team I had been with since the age of 14. That Monday night we were away at Charlton, so we traveled as a team to the Valley. The short coach trip, was made seemingly longer, when manager Chris Colman came and sat next to me. He told me that Sven himself was going to be there that night, to watch the game. To cast an eye over me with a view of picking me for the next England squad.
Suddenly my body was overcome with nerves, and as we warmed up I could feel tightness spreading through out every muscle in my body. But come kick off, I was feeling better, relaxed almost. The game didn’t start very well, and for the first half an hour, Charlton dominated and I wasn't playing very well. It was my mistake that lead to Charlton grabbing the first goal through Collins John. But that goal seemed to spark us into life and soon, I found myself at the center of every move, the ball was coming to me every time we had it. But we couldn’t score and half time trailed 1-0.
The second half started and 2 minutes in, we broke on a counter attack. Danny Murphy had the ball on the right, he played into me, about 40 yards from goal I knocked out of my stride and then past 2 oncoming players. Now 30 yards away from goal, I looked up and struck the ball perfectly, the ball flew from foot, and toward the goal, but as it did, Matt Holland came crashing through from behind, taking my right leg away from.
The ball flew past Dean Kiely, but it crashed against the post. As I fell to the ground, clutching my knee, the ball fell at Danny’s feet and he slotted it home, making it 1-1. The traveling fans started to celebrate, but I didn’t.
I laid there for what seemed to be an eternity, Matt Holland, standing over me, the only thing protecting from what seemed to be the brightest flood lights in the world. Eventually I was helped off the pitch. My game over 47 minutes old.
The physio examined it on in the changing room, and decided I needed to go to hospital for a scan. Little did I know at the time, that as I left The Valley that night it would be the last time I left a football ground as a Professional player. Whilst that was bad, it wasn’t the injury that ended my career, it was what was going to happen in around 2 hours time that would result in this day becoming the worst day of my life.........
Chapter 4
Part 2
October 17th 2005
The worst 24 hours of my life.
Whilst this day was already turning out to be the worst day of my life as a player, the worst was yet to come. But I didn’t know that as I sat on the edge of my hospital bed, an ice pack strapped to my knee and the team doctor telling me, whilst the Initial results suggest it was only an impact injury, they wanted me take it easy for the next few days until the swelling had gone down. I sat back, and turned on the tv, we had drawn the game with Fulham, 1-1, they showed the goal Murphy had scored and the injury I had sustained. Didn’t look that bad when I watched it back.
Hannah arrived to pick me up at around half 10 and with the help of some crutches I was in our Ford Fiesta driving back to our flat. We were driving away from the Royal hospital in Chelsea as I glanced out of the window over the Thames and towards the Glass Mill on the other side. London was looking lovely that night, the October night making the lights along the Thames stand out.
Unknown to me, and Hannah, A Land Rover discovery was coming up Beaufort Street as we came to the junction with the Battersea Bridge. Our lights were green, his were red as we turned and out of nowhere the Land Rover, tires squealing came shooting out across the junction, slamming into the side of us. The car rolled almost instantly. We rolled 3 times before coming to rest against a tree on the corner of Cheyne walk. I was told that I was unconscious instantly and that’s what saved my life. But not my career. I remember waking up, as car was rolled back onto its remaining three wheels, the fourth laying next to me in the road.
A Paramedic forced his way through the crumpled window, shouting something. But I couldn’t respond. I tried so hard to open my mouth, but couldn’t. All I could do was blink, and feel the searing pain coming from my right leg. I struggled my head downward to see blood pouring from my knee. One of the paramedics must have recognized us as all I could hear was him shouting at Hannah, I rolled my head to my right only to see more blood, all over Hannah’s face, torso and legs.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, and whilst I can’t remember seeing any of it, I heard the paramedics shouting that Hannah had a weak pulse but she was still alive. The next thing I remember is slowly rolling my head over again, as Hannah was pulled from the wreck, by fire fighters and paramedics. And then the fire fighters pulling me out, and that was when I saw the damage to my own body properly for the first time. My knee torn to shreds by the entangled glass and metal, but at that point my mind didn’t seem to care. All I could think about was Hannah. How was she? Where was she?............The paramedic gave me something and once again I drifted out of consciousness.
I woke up in The Royal Hospital, this time a host of doctors in front of me, but again, my brain didn’t want to know, all I wanted to know was where was Hannah? Was she ok? But rather than tell me the doctors put me under again. I’m told that I was under for a further 8 hours and was operated on.
I woke up and a doctor explained to me that there was nothing they could, my knee was shattered and a piece of metal had torn through the ligaments on both side of my right knee. Whilst I would walk again, me playing professional football would never be achieved again. And then something clicked in my head. There was nothing they could do? Hannah! I started shouting at the doctor and after he calmed me down, he told me that when Hannah arrived at the hospital, her life signs were already fading. And whilst she was awake, when she arrived, they had to put induce her into a coma to protect her brain from the swelling. She had broken her arm and her leg on her right side and shattered her pelvis on the left. She would never walk again, and would be permanently scared on her face where a shard of glass had sliced her cheek. But it was exceedingly unlikely to wake up from her coma, the damage already sustained to her brain was already too much. But she was still technically alive.
I was wheeled down to the room, where Hannah was on life support. The second the door opened I broke down. The nurse pushed me into the room the closer I got the more I just wanted to be alone with her. I demanded that they left me with her alone. Before the nurse finally left she opened the blinds and pushed me as close as she could to Hannah. I instantly grabbed her hand and squeezed it. But nothing, I had always seen on TV shows where they say talking to people in comas can help recovery so for the next 2 hours or so, I talked, I remembered how we’d met in school and been together since, the holidays we’d shared, the Christmases, Easters and general good times. But ultimately it came back to me telling her not to leave me, I was nothing with her.
At around 11:30 am on October 18th, finally Hannah responded. I was sitting there, the tears rolling down my checks as I finally came to terms with the fact that she wasn’t coming back to me, I looked out of the window as it started to rain. I squeezed her hand, and kissed it as I did, her eye flickered. And opened slowly. I hit the alarm to call the nurse. She smiled at me.
“shhh don’t try and speak”
She opened her mouth
“no, no don’t try to speak......NURSE GET IN HERE!!!”
She smiled again and took a deep breathe, as if trying to muster up the strength to speak out loud.
“NURSE!”
She gripped my hand so tight and tugged it, I leaned in close to her just as she whispered
“I love you”
Her grip loosened her eyes shut and the dreaded long heart breaking sound of the heart monitor rang out, suddenly I was pulled back in the chair and seemingly thrown into the corner of the room as a team of nurse and doctors rushed the room with their crash cart. I felt so helpless as I had to watch them trying to resuscitate her, I was pushed to the door, shouting at her not to leave me! The door slammed shut behind me and the nurse pushing the wheel chair! BANG! BAng! bang!
Present Day
August 22nd 2010
Rome
BANG! BAng! bang!
The knocking on our apartment door nudged me out of the memories that had just flooded my mind for the past half an hour, a small tear on my check.
Again with the knocking, I composed myself and realised the time, the knocking at my door could only be one thing, my driver was there to pick up and take me to the ground. Game time was only 4 hours away now.
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Chapter 5
Roma vs Palermo
I finished my translated team talk with a small piece of Italian, learnt from my lesson over the past month or so.
“si puo vincere questo! Possiamo vincere la leaguei!”
Whilst you read this, you may think I said it as fluent as I write them, but in reality it was struggled and stumbled. Translated I had just told my team that “they can win this and we can win the league”. As my captain for the day, Daniele De Rossi lead the team toward the tunnel, my usual captain, the injured Totti came over and put his had on my shoulder, he smiled at me.
“e Sempre meglio”.
He walked off to take his place in the stands, as he did; I looked over confused at my translator.
“It’s getting better” he smiled.
The crowd were in raptures as my team walk out to the pitch, I follow behind them in my black and gold training kit, I shook hands with Delio Rossi and took my seat on the bench. The game started well for us, and soon we started to dominate. We had 2 chances as van der Vaart goes close, and Benjani hit the cross bar with only 10 minutes gone.
We didn’t give Palermo a chance and the closest they came to our half was from a goal kick. The kick was headed back by centre back Mexes, he headed it wide to Motta, who knocked it past Balzaretti, he then crossed deep toward Baptista, who sturck it perfectly on the volley. Riesgo saved for Palermo,but he only parried it and van der Vaart is there to strike it first time and into the net! The crowd erupted as I jumped from my seat in the dug out. We were 1-0 up after 16 minutes! We completely dominated the game, Palermo only having one shot on target to out nine, but we just couldn’t get a second goal! But I was happy! We had made a winning start, and the self doubts were subsided for now. The only real down side to the game was the lose of second half sub, Eider Gudjohnsen, after just 30 minutes of his debut to a sprained ankle, it would keep him out of next week’s clash with Juventus.
After the press conference and the initial media reaction, all translated for me I headed home, happy with a good days work at my new home. I arrived home and turned on the tv, the Italian news was showing results from around the league. Of the three teams that were made favourites pre-season, ahead of us, only Inter had won (2-0 at home to Livorno) the other two, AC Milan and Juventus both drew, 0-0 and 1-1 respectively. I went out to the terrace and looked out over the roof tops, at the silhouette of The Stadio Olimpico bold on the horizon a small smirk on my face. Alice came out on to the terrace and grabbed my hand.
“Well done today”
I smiled at her, and brushed her hair to one side, I glanced down at the table where a picture of me and Hannah from 5 years previous sat, flickering in the summer breeze. After a quick glance, I leaned into Alice and we embraced in a long passionate kiss.
“I’ve got some tea in here” she said after our lips parted.
I told her I’d be in, in a second. As she walked back into our apartment, I picked the picture up off of the table, looked at it and smiled before folding it up and placing it my back pocket. I took a deep breathe and looked up, a star seem to sparkle as I looked at it, I smiled and exhaled before turning and going back into the apartment. A feeling of relief was suddenly big within my body, the self doubt, the fear of failure seemingly gone. But deep down I knew that next week would be the first real test. Next week we travelled to Turin, to face the old lady of Italian Football, Juventus. How long would this relief and new found confidence last!?!? My heart said all season, but my mind said it could crash to the floor this time next week!
