Yesterday was the first day I’ve been “let loose” on a sporting field for about 16 weeks (following Mr. Ben Leaman’s broken shin). It also meant I got my first sporting injury for, ohh, about 16 weeks!

After church we had a picnic and a friendly game of cricket. For those American’s reading who are unsure of cricket, I’ll give you one basic rule that will make this story clearer: If the batsman hits the ball over the boundary line (like the edge of the field in baseball) and it has touched the ground before passing said line, four runs are scored by the batsman.

In this “friendly” game, a friend who was batting just too well hit the ball fairly hard- me being me chased after this ball, and not wanting to let four runs go past me, I slid on my leg for a few metres, stopping the ball with my foot and launching it back towards the bowler. This was the result:



I subsequently had the most painful shower I’ve ever had. Followed by one of the worse nights sleep I can remember. Followed by feeling nauseous all day as a result of lack of sleep/ leg pain. And people thought I’d be tired because of a baby… they obviously don’t know me too well!

The silly thing is, that given the same scenario, with the benefit of hindsight, aware of the risk involved, I’d do exactly the same. Put my body on the line for the win!

Crackdowns and Smackdowns...

ALERT: There’s been a crack down at work- where for “security” reasons all conceivable “fun” websites have been blocked other than blog and shopping sites. Working in the male dominated construction industry, this has led to outrage that sport can no longer be read.

This is a mockery of 2 basic principals of productivity:
a) That you’re most productive with a 15 minute break every hour… there is now no reason to break because we can’t do anything with it;
b) That if you block websites, people will take half an hour trying to find a way into it, rather that a few minutes check every hour- leading to people trying, fruitlessly, for longer periods to access information, leading to an even more intense level of frustration and even less productivity.

This equates to any readers, probably, hearing a lot more from me.

Recent blogging thoughts: that this could easily turn out to be a log of recent injuries rather than anything interesting.

Let us take the last month as a good starting point. I have started my first season of competitive football (soccer) since a couple of years back. My first game; I got the blisters (last post, see below) that crippled my walking ability for a week. Second game; in the first half I put in a crunching slide tackle, causing a bigger man than I to land on my back. This caused a huge amount of pain, and for about a week and a half my lovely wife had to do just about everything around the house for me. 5 weeks out as a result. Last Saturday; my comeback game. I headed the ball in an odd way, leading to a neck injury!

As none of these stories are fun/ caused by anything that will cause laughter, there seems little point expanding. Needless to say, my body will be grateful for the 2 weeks rest it’s getting while Liz and I go away for our anniversary!

Right now, soccerly speaking of course, it’s 3 wins out of 3- not a bad start to a falteringly stuttering football career.

Peace out… And if any medics want to become friends or move to my local area, please let me know on phil@injuryproneman.com*

Oh, to establish the injury-proneness here’s an interesting fact:

I’ve dislocated my left should 9 times and had 2 operations on it. There are 6 bolts in my arm now and thanks to my original surgeon (Mr Rowntree- oh yes, I’m naming and shaming) they can’t be sure if my first 3 bolts are metal or plastic- which means I can never go into an MRI Scanning machine because there’s potential that 3 bolts could shoot out of my shoulder.

I think it all started when I started walking- I was fine when I was about 1 and a half years old.

Up next- Footballly speaking and Unclely speaking…


*This email address is FAKE- please to not try and follow me to Spain** to try and fix my problems.
** This is a fake address- I’m not giving away my location that easily.