Former Inverness Caley Thistle attacker Tom Walsh opens up on injury hell almost two years on from getting hurt against Partick Thistle
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This weekend's clash between Partick Thistle and Inverness Caledonian Thistle could well stir up some emotion for former ICT attacker Tom Walsh.
Almost exactly 23 months ago, a play-off clash between the two clubs proved to be the last time Walsh would play in a football match.
Now 27, the Rangers academy graduate should be coming into the prime of his career. Instead, he has spent the better part of two years trying to save his future in football.
A bad cruciate ligament injury essentially wiped out his 2022/23 season, and a second operation consigned him to another year on the sidelines.
It has been a tough spell for Walsh, who admits that for a long time he truly believed his career was over.
"It's the kind of injury you never think you'll get," Walsh explained.
"You hear stories about folk who get bad injuries and never play again, and as a young guy coming through you listen but you never think it will be you. Then it happens.
"Even just kicking a ball in the back garden with my nieces and nephews was really difficult. I wasn't able to do that for the first year.
"I don't have kids just now, but in the future I want to, so that went through my mind too – being able to kick the ball now means I'll be able to do that in the future.
"A lot of footballers won't have those thoughts because they'll never have this kind of injury. It's only once you do that you start thinking about all these other things.
"It has been tough. I've coped because I'm lucky to have a good support network and a great family behind me. My girlfriend and friends have all helped keep me positive.
"It's important to keep your brain occupied no matter what it is you're doing – whether that's exercising in other ways, working or whatever your hobbies are.
"I'm into my music, so me and my mates have been jamming and playing, and stuff like that has been a great help because I've been able to get stuck in to something else.
"Keeping your mind occupied is the biggest thing, and all these things have helped me do that."
Shortly after Walsh underwent surgery for the second time, his contract at Caley Thistle ended.
That could have been a hammer blow to his aspirations of getting back on to a football pitch, as the support and stability that comes with a full-time contract suddenly disappeared.
However, Walsh has worked as hard as he possibly can to regain fitness. He has tried to implement training regimes he picked up from injuries throughout the years, and has made the most of a Professional Footballers' Association outlet at Hampden where he can check in with a physio.
It has certainly been an adjustment period, with the former Scotland youth international working regularly outside football for the first time in his life, but he is finally in a positive place about the whole process.
"I never expected to get a new deal at Inverness, but you never know," he recalled.
"If I had got back playing – which I was originally hoping to do after six or nine months, before it became clear I wasn't going to be able to do that – I could have proven my fitness and earned a new deal.
"The longer it went on, and once I got to nine months and needed another operation, I knew it would be a huge thing for the club to give me a new deal at that point.
"I was prepared to move home, and I have done so. I'm enjoying it. Don't get me wrong, I loved living in Inverness, but I also love living down here.
"All the experience that I had gained from doing rehab over the years – whether that was for hamstring or knee injuries – I used all of the different exercises and put them into my own programme.
"I also went into Hampden through the PFA. You can use that facility every so often to check in with a physio, and it's the kind of thing most people probably don't even know is available, but to be able to use the PFA is great.
"As a free agent, you don't have that accountability of going into a club. You have to take that on yourself, and I think it tells you how much you actually want it.
"I could easily sit in the house and not do my rehab, but I know that if I want to have any chance of getting back, I have to do it.
"I just try to take life as it comes. I've been doing shifts in a restaurant and bar, it's the first time I've ever done something like that and it's great.
"It's not easy being on your feet for eight or nine hours a day, but it's real life and it's good experience for me doing something different.
"That's just one example. Two years ago I didn't think I'd be doing something like that, but I see it as the cards I've been dealt in football and this is a good thing, because it's all life experience.
"Outwith football this is the first thing I've done, and it's totally different. I have no complaints, because when you're in the real world as a free agent, you need to earn like everyone else."
His time out injured – and experiences away from football – have certainly given Walsh a different perspective on the sport.
He now has a better understanding of what it means to the average fan, and a greater appreciation of what football means to him too.
Naturally, the ultimate goal is to get back to playing – in whatever capacity his body will allow.
Rather than counting his chickens that a return is inevitable though, he is determined to put in the work to give himself the best chance of returning to the pitch.
"Things are definitely positive right now," Walsh added.
"I'm able to kick the ball further than I have in two years. After the first operation, for a full year I couldn't kick the ball five yards with my left foot until I got the second op.
"It's crazy. When I left Rangers just about to turn 21 and a free agent, I was in the wilderness. Dumbarton then took me on and that kickstarted my career, and now feels like that kind of moment again.
"It's like I'm hitting a reset button. Hopefully I can get back and see where it takes me, but we'll see.
"It's looking positive, and it's quite exciting but I'm obviously trying to keep a calm head because there's always that thought that I might not get back.
"It's getting the balance of being excited and enjoying that progress while also keeping calm. The reality is it might not happen.
"I honestly don't want to say any sort of timescale, because I don't want to set myself up for failure.
"I know I'm going to have to prove my fitness and prove I've still got it.
"Of course, the ultimate goal is to get back playing football. Full time, part time, whatever it would be, to get back playing football at all would be amazing.
"At one point, not even that long ago, I thought I was done to be honest. Before I kicked a ball over the wall in my garden, I was honestly thinking that I just didn't see it happening.
"When I did the longer passing and it felt good, I was like 'here we go'. That was definitely a turning point, and it has given me a lease of life. It's hope. That's all it is just now, hope."
