THE hands that helped to restore injured football stars to fitness are now available to patients at a North Yorkshire hospital.

The physiotherapy service at the Friary Hospital, in Richmond, recently signed up a specialist who this time last year was working for a Premier League club.

David Annison has been at the Friary since the turn of the year, but for the previous six years he was a musculoskeletal physiotherapist working for his hometown team of Sunderland AFC.

Mr Annison, 30, gained a sports science degree at Leeds University where he became interested in sports physiotherapy, and later completed a masters-accredited degree in physiotherapy at Huddersfield University, where he met an influential physiotherapist involved with Halifax Rugby League Club.

“I became head physio for Halifax and worked in the NHS in Huddersfield in a musculoskeletal role, while I was there my CV was spotted by Sunderland Football Club. I was invited for an interview; got the job and was there for six successful years,” he said.

Mr Annison, who also runs two GP clinics for patients in the more remote parts of the area, says the injuries elite sportsmen have tend to be different to those he sees at the Richmond hospital and have to be treated differently.

“Professional footballers suffer from repetitive injuries as they are training every day and playing 90 minutes of competitive sport once or twice a week so their muscles go through a much higher volume of load which cause different injuries to those I see here.

“My patients are usually older than the sportsmen but that being said you still need to assess the patient and give them advice and exercise to restore normal function.”