Home   Kent   Sport   Article

Inside view - with Charlton striker Andy Gray

Andy Gray - frustrated by injury lay-off
Andy Gray - frustrated by injury lay-off

While the rest of the team have been battling for the club’s life, I’m in a strange position where, because I am injured, I just have to rest at the moment.

That’s been the case for the last six weeks and the fracture is proving very slow to heal, which is frustrating, not least because I want to be out on the pitch helping my teammates.

Nobody really knows how it happened. When we were training during pre-season I felt what I thought was my hamstring go, but they couldn’t find anything when it was scanned.

During the first half of the season, every time I sprinted I’d get a bad pain down my hamstring, and it was affecting my game. In the end, it got too much.

Eventually my pelvic region was scanned and they found a stress fracture on my hip, which was pulling on my hamstring. So it had been there for a while but no one really knows how long.

It’s quite an unusual injury; apparently it’s never been seen in a footballer before. I’ve been to a number of specialists and nobody has come across it before, so it’s quite strange.

It’s very frustrating and very boring at the moment because I’ve just got to rest. I can’t do anything except swim, which gets a bit tedious after a while.

I had a scan last week, which showed it was healing a little bit but it’s quite slow because the fracture is in an awkward position. I’ve got to wait another six weeks then go back to see the surgeon and have another scan, and hopefully they will tell me it’s healing and I’ll be able to be fit for pre-season training. That’s the plan.

I’ve been watching all the games and that’s been frustrating too. We haven’t really played badly, apart from in a few games, but there have been times where we haven’t got the results we warranted.

It’s disheartening for the lads to go through it week in, week out, and we need our luck to change pretty quickly.

My season before that had been indifferent, I suppose. I had scored seven goals and I wanted to score 15-20 goals - that was my aim at the start of the season - so I suppose I was on course.

But obviously it’s not been a good season for the team, and given we’ve been struggling all season, it’s been disappointing all round.

Having said that, I’ve really enjoyed my time at Charlton. We’ve had a bad time on the pitch, but it’s a great club with great people.

At the moment, we’re not where we should be and if the worst happens and we go down, we just have to make sure we come straight back up.

We need to get everybody on side, including the fans, and hopefully build a bit of momentum.

Close This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.Learn More