Agony’s over at last for Ali the battler

Oct 2 2007 by Richard Neale, The Journal

THE second a rugby superstar such as Jonny Wilkinson or Jason Robinson is injured, it is worldwide news and the player is bombarded with phone calls asking when he’ll be back in action.

When a grass roots star is injured, the response is much more low key – but the disruption to the life of the player is just as bad.

Tynedale’s Ali Gray learned the hard way how frustrating an injury can be when he caught his studs in the turf and twisted his knee playing for against Nuneaton on October 29, 2005.

Things had been going brilliantly for the 27-year-old. After playing for a team while at university, Gray came back to play for Alnwick.

But Tynedale soon offered him the chance to play at a similar level as before, and he jumped at the opportunity – playing well enough to make it into the Northumberland team. But then came the agony.

“I can just about remember the exact second,” he said. “It was pretty painful at the time and I didn’t know what had happened but it started to get less painful and I tried to go training again – but it was obvious something was wrong.”

A specialist confirmed Gray’s fears there was something wrong, diagnosing a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament. And the farming consultant for Strutt and Parker began to realise he was going to become an expert on hospitals. “I learned this type of injury doesn’t heal on its own like other ligaments in your body because apparently it’s always in fluid that prevents it doing so. You learn quite a lot about your body and medical terminology when you pick up an injury like this,” he said.

“I could still walk around so luckily I could still work, though there was a time when I couldn’t drive, and that got a bit frustrating. By the time it was diagnosed in November I was actually running round again but I could only run in a straight line, I couldn’t suddenly turn in the opposite direction.”

That was when the frustration began for Gray. Unable to play rugby or train, he waited until he could get the best surgeon to repair the damage – something that didn’t happen until six months later – and tried to put rugby out of his mind completely.

“It’s been a very, very frustrating time, it’s unbelievable what a shock it is to your system,” he added. “I’ve been playing rugby since I was eight years old – I’ve been going to training two nights a week and giving up all my Saturdays to play rugby and suddenly there was nothing there.

“It’s a big void and you have to fill it somehow. I went to watch the lads play a couple of times, but sitting on the sidelines just made things more frustrating, so I tried to put rugby out of my mind.

“We have a farm so I busied myself with that. I can understand what it must feel like for the professional players who are injured. They give their whole life to rugby and then can’t play, though they obviously have the best medical treatment and advice – a Falcons player had the same kind of injury at the time I did and he was out for about eight weeks.”

Gray did have something other than work on the farm to keep him busy, however – the tedium of physiotherapy. “You do a lot of leg work and work to make your hamstrings stronger – you’re on the bike for hours and hours,” he said. “I just about did the Tour de France on those bikes in the gym, and then when the weather got better I managed to get outside on the streets.”

The work was worth it as 15 months after the original injury, Gray was able to train with his club again and return to the life he has always know. Things, though, still wouldn’t run smoothly for him, with other injuries meaning he was again on the sidelines after making his return to first-team action at the weekend – a match in which he made a scoring and winning start.

“You expect to be fresh and strong after so long out but that’s not the case, your body isn’t used to training and I had a hamstring injury and shin splints,” he said. “But everyone says that is normal because you just need to get used to the intensity again.”

And while the injury has been frustrating, Gray knows he has actually been lucky. “This is the first serious injury I’ve ever had from playing rugby and I know things could have been a lot worse,” he said.

“Ali Johnson (a Tynedale player), for example, got injured and is now paralysed. I’m back now and I’ve had the support of the club throughout and have a lot of good friends there – I am lucky.”

It’s been a very frustrating time, it’s unbelievable what a shock it is to your system