Proud

Well here’s a shot of our my eldest grandson Sam with his team-mates in the Luton Town FC u16 academy team at Stansted very early this morning. They’re heading off for a football tournament in Rimini against a host of top Italian sides and to say I’m very proud of him would be an understatement…

You see shortly after returning back from America we went to see Sam play in a pre-season friendly – his first game of the new season. They were playing on one of those 4G state of the art surfaces but he caught his studs in the tiny flecks  of rubber that cushion the surface and twisted his knee. He had to have an expensive scan which confirmed that his injury was quite serious; he’d damaged his cruciate ligaments (fortunately the interior rather than anterior ones) and had displaced the meniscus cartilage. The injuries required surgery which was quite a daunting prospect for any young lad. Although the club’s insurance policy doesn’t cover u16 level lads (oddly), they were very helpful in securing the services of a brilliant surgeon who undertook the procedure at Chelsea hospital. A couple of shots of Sam pre/post his surgery…

Sam’s rehabilitation has taken a long 3 months and the club have been great in leading his recover through an intensive programme of  physio and re-training (special thanks to all but especially Emily). I know at times the travel back and forwards to the hospital and the club was draining (for E&S too of course who have put in so much support for him) and at times he got a bit fed up with the whole process…

but you know what, we’ve enjoyed the extra time we’ve had with him over the last few weeks especially the day he and I visited Old Trafford to watch the mighty reds beat Leicester – in the heady late summer days when we were playing great football ha!

You can see that he gets his handsome looks from genes not polluted by me. Anyway I’m incredibly proud of him –  he has worked incredibly hard to get back to fitness and the club have been great in re-integrating him back into the team processes. On Saturday we watched him play his first 20 minututes back in the team ansd he did great in a 7-2 win against Southend. Happily too he came through it without any set backs. His aim was to be back ready to join the team for their trip to Italy and whilst I’m sure they’ll be cautious in the amount of time he plays, he can’t wait to get stuck into the action again.

We just hope he enjoys the matches, plays well and comes though it all unscathed. It’s going to be a nervy few days waiting for his news updates.

pg (proud grandad)

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