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13 november 2001
Big nose strikes again.

Three weeks now since the operation and the ankle is still quite sore especially around the heel, the surgeon who did the procedure did say it would be though. The good thing now (I'm told) is that the pain I'm getting now is different to the pain I was getting before the op so fingers crossed this has done the trick!

My days at the moment consist of 'Ankle Circuits' - walking on your toes, calf stretching, calf raises general mobility of the ankle etc., then going down the gym where I start with a hard session on the bike between 30 and 40 mins, then upper body weights and some groin work, then some sit ups in the afternoon with 1 or 2 more ankle circuits. The physio's at the moment are mobilising my ankle and just generally checking for swelling or bruising. I go and see the surgeon who did the operation next Tuesday and he will assess it then so I have to keep going as I am at the moment. He gave me a 6-8 weeks recovery time when he did the op so I may have 5 more weeks to go yet. Just gutted I lost 6 weeks with the misdiagnosis.

One of my best friends in the game had some awful news two weeks ago, Jon Whitney mentioned on the site (The Man section) has had to retire at 30. His knee will not stand up to full time or even part time football anymore, and he will have to have extensive reconstructive surgery of his knee. I was absolutely gutted for him, we are really close and talk often. He always finds the best in every situation though and I'm sure he'll bounce back. He's decided to go into the injury side of things in football, and I'm sure he'll pop up somewhere. The operation will cost some though and this is why the PFA are so important to the lower division players. Jon's injury is through football and being a member of the PFA they usually pay for such things and help him after with further education.

The players haven't heard anything more on moving, staying, merging etc., which is a relief for us. The only issue we've had to deal with is the PFA strike vote. The massive support the PFA got nationally was also reflected at our club- they are a superb organisation and the result of the voting wasn't a shock at all for me.

Some better news on the injury front is that Ards and Willo have both left Richardson Evans to go over to the Bank of England training ground where they are both doing one week with Steve Allen before training fully again. Great news for everyone at the club. I think we have missed both players recently and it will be great to see them back in the team.

Dean Blackwell, who has been struggling for quite some time with an old achilles injury had some tests on Friday and is allowed to start gentle running, not very much at all but still a step in the right direction. Alan Kimble (Chirpy to everyone at the club except me, I call him Twinny, his old nickname from Cambridge Utd) is at a similar stage to me, he has to be very careful not to let fluid settle on his knee so he is taking things really slow. Andreas Lund is struggling quite a bit with his knee, he has to get over his latest op before he can even think about returning to football, fingers crossed for him. So, at last the injury room is looking quieter, as it's been packed since August.

The results lately have been really up and down, when we score a few we seem to let a few in and when we let none or only one in we don't seem to be able to score! The side was disrupted once again with the Rep of Ireland's playoff match against Iran- KC and DC both missing from Fridays line-up. With the injured players returning I hope we can start putting a settled side out from Saturday.

Away from football, and the music is going well - we've finished another song and Trond and myself had a good article in this months 442 magazine. Chris Perry has joined the computer age and installed a PC in the studio with massive recording facilities, 128 tracks if anyone's interested. We have our first gig in December about 4 weeks away, so at least that will keep me occupied for now.

An incident happened on Sunday which Willo found quite amusing. After a nice Sunday lunch, enjoyed by Willo myself and our girlfriends, we decided we'd go to the cinema to try and catch the Harry Potter film. We were in my neck of the woods so Willo said he'd follow me. I got into my car in the car park, just about to set off and there was a thud and my car started rocking, I looked back and all I could see was a Mercedes bumper resting on the back of my car! The Big nosed git had only reversed into me leaving my car all dented and his without a scratch. He got out his car laughing! Cheers Willo!

On a final note, I was pitch side for the young Wimbledon Disabled FC game before the Grimsby match and was very impressed by the skills of some of our players. Also the courage of some of the youngsters and parents to not quit and keep playing the game they love. I sometimes think I'm a tough, no-nonsense player but I wish I had ten percent of the courage and determination that these youngsters show. Keep it up lads.

Gareth.