Darlington striker Purewal stays positive in fight for fitness

How about the one who finished the match and then drove for three hours having ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament?

“After the game I drove down to Coventry,” recalls Darlington striker Amar Purewal, who is approaching a year since sustaining what’s widely regarded as the worst injury in football.

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“With ACLs you need to get your leg fully straight as soon as you can afterwards, with driving I had it in a bent position.

“They had two inexperienced physios at the match and I don’t think they’d diagnosed a cruciate before. It wasn’t until three weeks later when I saw a different physio that he suggested I should go for a scan. Twenty minutes after the scan I got a call to say I’d ruptured it.”

A failure to initially diagnose the injury set the tone for a layoff which has seen the 25-year-old suffer a handful of setbacks and complications which have delayed his return to action.

Footballers can recover from such an injury in six months, which has led fans to ask when Purewal will return. Will he return at all? He was not included in the team photograph at the start of the season, something that could easily have been misconstrued.

“That was when I was having an operation to get rid of scar tissue,” he explained.

“I’ve had three procedures, one major one and two keyholes because of scar tissue and fluid above the kneecap.

“I had my ACL repair done in February and then I saw the surgeon again in June and he said that I couldn’t fully straighten my leg. There was scar tissue there. So he did the procedure again, a keyhole clearout, and he had to give me blood thinning tablets because the first time I had it done I had a clot in my calf.

“The medication didn’t quite work, so it needed to be done again. That was four weeks ago and the results were better. It’s still swollen, but it’s not as big as it was.

“I’ve found it mentally difficult because I’ve never been in this position before. I’ve spoken to Paul Weldon about it as he did the same injury and had his operation done by the same surgeon. I’ve had a few complications, but the surgeon has been top class. He’s given me his number so I can ring if I need to.

“The person who has helped me the most is my mam. She’s been really supportive and positive, I couldn’t have got through it without her. Every time I’m down she gets me up, she’s taken me to appointments and got me everything I’ve needed.

“She’s got my spirits up, because there’s been some down days.”

It is while attending Darlington games, something that he has done a lot of in 2015, that Purewal has to remain upbeat.

He said: “I don’t mean to sound nasty, but you get a bit sick of people asking you how long you’re going to be out for because I don’t know the answer myself. I try to be positive. I’m hoping for December, that’s what I’ve always had in my head, but I’m not going to bang on about it because you just don’t know.”

He was in the stand for Tuesday’s win over Ramsbottom United, Darlington’s fourth win in a row which kept them in second place in the table, which is also where they were, albeit a division below, when Purewal sustained his major injury.

The timing was cruel. Playing against Radcliffe Borough, the last game before Christmas, Purewal was in scoring form and a couple of months earlier had reached his 50th goal for the club by netting a hat-trick in his 100th game.

“I’d scored 13 in 16 games. It’s always the case, you’re going well and then you’ll get an injury,” he says.

“We were piling the pressure on because it was 2-2, we were going for the winner. Their lad cleared down the pitch and swang his leg through the ball. I’d tried to get in front of him thinking I could win a penalty, but he kicked the back of my calf and I went down.

“You know when you’re watching a match and you see someone go down and you’re shouting at them to get back up? Well I thought about that, so I just limped around the pitch for the last few minutes and finished the match.

“And then I drove to Coventry afterwards. I don’t think that will have made it any worse, it was already a complete rupture.”

Why Coventry?

“I’ve got a lot of family down there. I’m not from there, but my big brother and my two sisters are from there and I was brought up to support Coventry.

“I was born in 1989 and in ’87 they won the FA Cup. I saw a fan recently in the bookies, I went over and had a bit craic with him, you rarely see one up here!”

Purewal, who travelled to Coventry’s game with Wigan earlier in the season, is heavily involved with a football coaching company in Sunderland with his brother, Arjun, a former Darlington player, and he has a programme of daily exercises to stick to in his fitness fight.

He regularly meets Darlington’s physiotherapist, while he also goes swimming in an attempt to hasten his recovery.

“It’s called AP Coaching, we couldn’t go wrong with the name for that one!,” he said. “We do coaching and we also go into schools and do PE lessons, after-school clubs and breakfast clubs.

“That’s what I’ve been doing, and watching a lot of football and cricket. I’m in the gym every day, trying to get physically fit, so I’ve bulked up a little bit.

“I’ve just been given the go-ahead to do a bit of bike work, so I’ll see how I go.

“I’ve always got faith in what I can do. It’s about proving my fitness now. It’s not the case that I’ll be flying as soon as I’m back playing, I need to be given time. It might need four or five months, but my contract is up at the end of the season!

“It was a long time between me doing my injury and the end of last season. By the time it got to May it felt like my goals had been in a different season.

“Not playing in these games in a higher division, I feel like I’m missing out. I’m wishing I was out there all the time at every game.”