It’s exactly a fortnight after his controversial impact with Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park pitch and Martyn Waghorn’s left knee is still swollen and stiff as he limps into the reception of Rangers’ training ground for our interview. The puffy joint has become exhibit A in a discussion on whether artificial surfaces, even the best ones such as Kilmarnock’s, which is Fifa two star and international rugby compliant, have a place in top-level football.
Mark Warburton, Waghorn’s manager, says they don’t. Yet other clubs with less potential to generate revenue say they are a necessity in the unforgiving economic climate of Scottish football.
Unforgiving was also the word that Rangers used in a subsequent statement, making it clear that they considered the extent of Waghorn’s injury, which could keep him out for the remainder of the league campaign, attributable to the synthetic surface. The 26-year-old still got up to take and convert the resulting penalty, his 28th goal of a productive campaign, although he now acknowledges his goalscoring instincts got the better of his usual common sense.
“Once I landed I knew it wasn’t right, I got a sensation where my knee was a bit numb,” he recalls.
“I hit the penalty with it and it just wasn’t right. There was something. It was a bit weak, it wasn’t moving well. It was stiff. It probably wasn’t the cleverest idea, but the chance of the goal was too much to turn down.” Yet Waghorn also believes the impact and the injury would have been less on grass. “It could have been the surface because there’s no give in it. I’ve had previous injuries, and the boys here have had the same injuries, where the grass has maybe gave or dug up. It was a cold night, the surface would have a been a bit harder, and it could have been a factor. It would probably have been a bit more forgiving on grass.”
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Having succumbed to the temptation of taking the penalty, Waghorn is now determined not to rush his comeback. Given his scoring output, he probably represents the best piece of transfer business that Warburton completed on Rangers’ behalf last summer, but they have continued to clock up points in his absence. It now looks likely the reset button will be hit on Scottish football this summer and Rangers will return to the top flight after their self-inflicted four-year exile.
“I’m hopeful of getting back but I need to see how the first few weeks go, I can’t really do much until I let it all settle down another couple of weeks from now. I can’t get much movement in it at the minute. If I can keep the strength around my knee, that’s a huge bonus, but we’ll see. It would be nice to get a few minutes before the end of the season but I just need to take it slow. If I try and force things, it could put me out longer.”
Waghorn is an explosive, flexible player, which probably makes getting his recovery right all the more delicate a business. He’s been a revelation this season, typically swooping from the flanks to score in the 4-3-3 formation that Warburton favours. Although his own preference is to play as a central striker, he acknowledges the system has suited him perfectly. “It’s nice to be through the middle and be a focal point, but to be on the wing and get the ball and exploit defences when they are stretched is a good opportunity for me. It fits well.”
It looked a good fit from the outset, when Waghorn scored twice in a 6-2 Challenge Cup demolition of Hibs at Easter Road last July, as he made his debut in Warburton’s first competitive game in charge.
“I couldn’t have wished for a better start,” he says. “We played really well, I got a couple of goals in a big win. As a striker, when you’ve come off a poor year with injuries and not playing many games, to get a couple of goals was massive for my self-confidence. I think that set the tone for the whole season.”
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His career has caught fire this season, but was previously a slow burner. He started at Sunderland, joining their academy aged eight and making his first-team debut at 17, when Roy Keane started him in a 4-0 home defeat by Manchester United on Boxing Day 2007. They were the two clubs he supported as a boy, taking in every detail of partnerships such as the one Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn forged at Sunderland and the on-field one that Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole enjoyed at Old Trafford, despite not hitting it off personally. “I played the first half as striker and the second half on the wing. I loved it. It was really good. The first half was Vidic and Ferdinand and the second half I pretty much played left wing-back against Ronaldo and Park Ji-Sung.”
Yet amid the turnover of players and managers at Sunderland, he struggled to stay in the starting lineup and appreciated the honesty of manager Steve Bruce before he turned a successful loan spell at Leicester City into a permanent move to the club in the summer of 2010. “He said, ‘I rate you highly but I think it’s important that you play games’.” A similar conversation followed with Sven-Goran Eriksson when the Swede arrived with a big budget to spend at Leicester.
“I got on well with Sven. He was very approachable, you could go and speak to him. It was just one of those situations again, where he said, ‘I’ve got five or six strikers, you’re not my first-choice’. It happens and I respected his decision. I’m the type of guy who won’t just sit around and be happy. I want to go and play.”
At Sunderland, he came through with a crop that included Jordan Henderson and Jack Colback. He remains in touch with them and with the former teammates at Leicester who are now at the core of the side closing on an improbable, incredible Premier League title triumph such as Danny Drinkwater, Andy King and Jamie Vardy. “They have a small squad as well and I just think the unity of it and the bond, they all want to work together, is a lot like us. That brings success — if you are happy in the changing oom and want to go and play for each other.”
After Leicester, short loans followed at Hull and Millwall before he moved permanently to Wigan. Yet that didn’t really work out for either party and he drove straight to Glasgow from Newcastle for a coffee and chat with Warburton and David Weir, his assistant, last summer when the opportunity to join Rangers arose.
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“I was desperate to come up here,” he explains. “The club is huge. The opportunity to play in front of 50,000 fans, where the club is going in the next couple of years. The thought of playing on European nights, in cup finals, winning leagues was too much to turn down. I could have stayed down south and had a good career, but the opportunity to try something different and come and win trophies up here was definitely part of my plans to be successful and better myself.”
Waghorn was convinced Rangers would be back in the big-time and he’ll also be back by the time they return there.
