SAM MUGGLETON, who sustained a serious injury when on loan with Darlington, will be sidelined for at least 12 months and may never play football again.

The left-back’s loan with Darlington lasted just two games in February, making his debut in the win at Blyth Spartans before playing in a 0-0 draw at home to Southport seven days later when he came off second best in a challenge with Marcus Wood.

Muggleton, 23, who was on loan from Chesterfield, was stretchered from the Blackwell Meadows pitch and taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

“I knew straight away,” Muggleton said in an interview with the Derbyshire Times. “As soon as I did it, when I looked at it, my knee was at the side, where it shouldn’t have been.

“The people I spoke to said what’s happened to my knee shouldn’t really happen on a pitch, it’s more like what you’d see in a car crash.

“It wasn’t even a bad tackle. I’ve gone to have a shot, he’s blocked it but we’ve both gone full force. It’s unfortunate.

“It was the worst pain I’ve ever been in – it was a shame they didn’t have any gas and air there, I didn’t have any painkillers for about 40 minutes, until the ambulance got there.

“When I got to the hospital I’d managed to go through two bottles of gas and air.”

Muggleton has had on operation and will need a second. A surgeon, however, has told the 23-year-old of the potential consequences of his injury.

“He said it’ll be 12 months minimum and he can’t promise that I’ll play again. “When he said it could be career ending, I’m not going to lie, I broke down in tears. This is all I’ve ever done.

“What the surgeon was saying wasn’t really going into my head, so I told him to ring Claire, the physio at Chesterfield, to let her know.

“I know now what he was saying, but at the time it was hard to process.

"I went in on the Tuesday after. I’ve had to have my leg straight in a brace and I’ve just got a new one so I can start bending it 30 degrees.

"I’ll hopefully have another op in five or six weeks.

"They had to check on the nerve because I lost a bit of feeling in my foot, so they fixed all that and my PCL. The next op will be my ACL and the LCL."