I saw the news the other week about Keith Senior, and how after a knee injury his season may be over. Now in Rugby League injuries happen all the time, infact pretty much every game has some injury whether it be the pro's or us morons at the bottom. Someone is gonna get hurt.
The one bit of advice I will give to anyone playing Rugby League, or infact any contact sport is this: "Get yourself some bloody insurance" because there is a one in 26 chance that this week will be your unlucky week.
One of my unlucky weeks, in fact scrap that, my unluckiest weeks came on a wet Saturday lunch time against a team in Barnsley. I had been playing open age on the wing for one year, and as usual we travelled with a scratch 13. One of our props was turning up in about half an hour and we'd have to survive until then without any subs.
The other team were well and truly up for it, and were running through the middle of us for fun. We didn't have a bad team but for some reason the Forwards were just not doing anything in defence. To be quite frank we were all shite that day, me included. In the first ten minutes they ran in 3 tries and we were camped in our own twenty metre line for nearly all of it.
Our fullback gave me a bollocking, they broke through our middle again and went in for a try, I slid in and tried to get under him to hold him up but didn't. Our fullback thought a better choice would have been to try and boot the ball out of his hands on the way down.......
Now thoroughly pissed off and getting embarrassed at getting owned like this on a Rugby pitch, I decided to let off some steam. I ran in front of the prop and took the ball in, instead of leaving him to take the pass. I was fed up of being camped on my tryline and wanted to show those forwards how to drive it in. With the first guy coming in at my side I decided to try and shoulder him off, except what I didn't see was his mate coming from the other side. What happened next I have no idea, I remember spinning around and landing on the ground with about 4 big fat forwards on top of me. I yelled out like a big jessie and tried to bend my left leg, but it wouldn't move.
My brother dragged the players off the top of me and I glanced down at my leg to find me kneecap on the outside of my leg. If you haven't already guessed it I'd dislocated my kneecap.
The usual stuff happened that goes on when someone is hurt, the refs stops the match, you get covered in tinfoil like a turkey and you get an ambulance to turn up about an hour later. When they did finally turn up I got introduced to gas and air for the first time. Bugger me that stuff is weird, whilst the paramedics tried to get my leg in a position to put me on the stretcher I decided to act like the biggest nobhead in the world.
At one point I turned over "Coach, Coach come here coach", he trundled over "Yeah what is it mate?" "Can I skip training on Tuesday?" Now to me I was suddenly the funniest guy in the world, I was asking the Paramedics would I be back for the second half, I was waving to the other team and generally just being a pratt. I was quickly put back in my place by my brother who walked up with a quick word in my ear "Bro, shut up your being an idiot go to Hospital and let us get on with the game."
And so I was carted off, with my knee popping back into place I then began talking absolute bollocks to anyone within 5 yards of me until the gas and air ran out about half an hour later. In Barnsley hospital I was put into a full-leg pot and sent on my way within an hour. I went to the only place you ever go when your hurt, your Mums. I pretty much didn't move from her sofa until about a week later when I could put pressure on my leg again. It was 9 months before I could play again, to be fair it didn't affect my performance. I was crap before I got injured and I was crap after I got injured so I can't claim it ruined my career.
However I didn't have insurance, which meant for the 4 months I couldn't work I lost everything else. My flat, my motorbike and my most prized possession my surround sound TV system (that was nicked by my Brother). If you could, do, or are going to play Rugby go off and get some insurance it costs twenty quid a month and when your unlucky game comes up at least you'll be ok financially.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot when my Brother met up with me at home he told me how after watching me get carted off in an ambulance he gave a team talk that William Wallace would have been proud of. "Awesome, so you won?" I said, assuming my injury had inspired my team mates into a monstrous performance. "No mate" he said "we got one try back and they ran in 7 more."
No comments:
Post a Comment