Sunday 18th Sep.
My 112th game, kind of all went wrong from the start.  I met at the Beach, some players were already there.  Pete asked if I had our kit, which I did, the opposition from last week had left their lineman flags in our kit bag.  Pete – who was Ref today said he had to go and give back the flags.
He said, as Matt wasn’t here for me to pick the team and me to start myself on the left.
 
Time was getting on and only half the team were at the beach.  I rang the few number I had on my phone – trying to find out where people were, but no luck.  Managed to get hold of some players, said they were already at the away ground?
 
I lead the way as I was the only one who knew where we were playing.  Went into the changing room Cookie was already telling people where they were going to play – I said how Pete said I was to pick the side but with only one sub (at the time), the side picked itself.
 
I tried to take charge, getting everyone to do a warm up, but that fell on death ears, I still did my warm up, I was told I’d be getting 90mins and to put in good tackles like I had done last season against Quayside.
 
The game was barley 10-15 mins in when I went in for a sliding tackle, not that I could slide, as the ground was so hard, I was playing right wingback, I dropped my left knee onto the ground swung my right leg around and managed to kick the ball out.
  my knee
But I must have hit the ground hard, I’m about 15 ½ stone.  So I’d say with quite some force I hit the ground.  I jumped up from it, their gut took his throw-in I ran, my leg didn’t feel right, so I went off for a few minutes, tried jogging on it, but decided it felt too strange to continue playing.
 
How my injury occurred was so innocuous, people at half time asked why I had come off.
 
During the remainder of the game, I sat for a while resting I also walked up and down the line, I had a shower after the game and even managed to drive to the pub for a beer and collect the subs.
my knee
I left the pub and drove to a friend’s house in Severn beach where we were going to have a BBQ.  I sat in the back garden with my leg up and ice on it, after about 30mins I hobbled up stairs to the loo.  I hobbled back outside and continued with the ice on my knee.  About an hour had past, the BBQ was ready, it was getting cold outside so we took all the food in. This is when I realised my leg had swollen so much I couldn’t move my knee.  Steve and Andy helped me up, tried getting me inside, but I was a dead weight, they managed to get me to the settee, they were quite worried as I went very pale and I also side I went light headed, it was now about 2.30pm – think the injury happened between 10.45 – 11am.
I finished off the BBQ then stayed on the Steve’s settee we tried moving me about 6pm as I needed the loo again!  I couldn’t even move, or let Steve and Andy hold my leg.  That’s when we decided to call for an ambulance.  I still needed to pee, Sarah cut the top off a bottle and I went in that, lying down on their sofa – not an easy thing to do.
 
The ambulance arrived about 9pm, I couldn’t walk to the ambulance, we couldn’t put me on a stretcher, as Steve front door is at a right angle.  We sat me in a wheelchair and I had to go out the back door, with Steve holding my leg straight – by now I had come up with a way of moving my left leg, - by placing my right foot under my left ankle.  Steve was able to hold my right foot without it hurting me left knee.
 
The ambulance crew were from town, it was their first ever call to Severn beach – they had no idea how to get to Frenchay.  Luckily Andy was still at Steve’s and he lived in Frenchay so the ambulance followed him!
 
We got to A&E about 9:45pm – just as all the staff were swapping shifts, had to wait around about 20min’s to be seen.  Then Mum and Nigel arrived, Andy and Helen then left, I went off for an X-Ray which was quite painful.  As the X-Ray guy didn’t really care about my leg – or that what it felt link.  Took 3 X-Ray’s as one didn’t come out well.  Then went back up to A&E, had to wait as there were no cubicles.  Neil and Claire arrived.
 
One Dr. came in, felt my knee and looked at the swelling, didn’t really say much the left?  Another Dr. came in – felt my knee, tried to see if I would bend it, I explained (again) how I’d done it and I’d managed to walk and drive after.  He said he’d looked at the X-Rays and there were no broken bones.  He said he had two options and was going to speak to his boss.  He came back after awhile, said he was going to try and drain it.  And how I’d have to come back tomorrow to have it checked over.
 
We went into a small room, the time now was 11:55.  He gave me a local and attempted to drain my knee, but to no luck.  Later (next week) would find out he was trying to wrong side of the knee.
 
The nurse who’d been seeing to me while in A&E was surprised I wasn’t staying in over night.  But the Dr. had said I was to go home and come back tomorrow for 9:55am, but time now was 12:30am.  30mins to get home, had breakfast and a coffee and tried to sleep, time now was about 1:20
Went home on crutched and painkillers.