Through the din and the bedlam, Duncan Watmore listened to the sound of his ligaments rupturing. “I heard the snap,” he says. “I knew straightaway I’d done it. Gut feeling.” Pain swelled, bile rose. “I was absolutely gutted, there’s no other way of putting it,” he says. “You think, ‘Why? Why me?’ You feel that anger and frustration.” Something had ended and something had begun at the Stadium of Light.
On the bench and in the stands, time crystallised. Sunderland were beating Leicester City 2-1, clinging to a precious victory, but for the club’s medical and fitness staff, the match blurred. “My God, you don’t even think about the game,” Scott Pearce, the sports scientist, says. “You’re as flat as a fart.” Mike Clegg, the strength and conditioning coach, swore to himself. “F***ing hell, disaster.”
It was the 85th minute and Watmore’s existence had been measured in nano-seconds — stretching for the ball, running, turning — but as his left knee popped and collapsed, it mutated into months. Surgery would be needed, he would be out for the season and a young man paid to play football was no longer a footballer. Around him, a safety net unfurled, a support mechanism to guide and heal.
“I like all kinds of books, but psychological stuff about positive thinking helps meDuncan Watmore, Injured Sunderland attacker
“When somebody gets injured, we’re all hurt,” Clegg says. “Everyone was so disappointed,” Pearce says. “You go home and you’re still thinking about it. But straightaway, it’s a case of, ‘Right, where do we go next with Duncan?’ ” This is part of a club’s special bond. “It’s scary how much time we spend with the players,” Pearce says, “but you build these personal relationships. And sometimes you’re seeing them in dark moments, at very vulnerable times.”
No Premier League club have suffered more from injuries this season than Sunderland. At the Academy of Light, their training ground, last week, Jack Rodwell was combining laps of the pitch alongside Paul Walsh, the GPS analyst, with ball-playing exercises. “Today is a big engine-building day,” Pearce says. Rodwell has had problems with his hamstrings, but this was about conditioning, honing fitness.
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Everything is measured, recorded; distance, high-speed distance, acceleration, deceleration, maximum speed. Thanks to the GPS, they can replicate the “worst-case scenario” that Rodwell will face in a game, the most physically demanding three or four minutes, and all of it is individualised because the miles that a central midfield player may cover will look different to those of a centre half or a striker.
Inside the treatment room, Watmore was lying with his leg elevated and iced. A few gurneys up, Paddy McNair winced. He has the same ACL injury as Watmore, but recently endured his operation, his knee specked with tiny wounds. “I didn’t think I’d be able to lift my leg today,” he says, but he does it, wearing a tourniquet to restrict blood flow, pads sending electrical pulses to surrounding muscles. The volts hit him. “F***! I wasn’t expecting that.” His teeth grind.
In the gym, music pumped out from speakers; high-tempo, upbeat. Lynden Gooch, the American midfielder, was in an Aircast boot to protect his ankle, but there is plenty of other work for Clegg to oversee, work with boxing gloves, work with the ropes, keeping things breezy and engaging.
It is not just about ticking over, it is about improvement, using a spell on the sidelines to focus on weaknesses, to find use amid the dismay.
“With Duncan, for example, the long-term part is to make him a better player by the time he next steps out on to the pitch,” Adrian Lamb, the head of performance, says.
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“We’ve got an opportunity to develop him that we wouldn’t have if he was playing week-in, week-out. There are obvious things like upper-body strength and flexibility, but he can also sit with the analysis staff, see them putting together a match video, improve his tactical knowledge.
“He can see what the coaches are looking for and it might expand his football knowledge. He’s got an opportunity to go in with the chefs upstairs and do lifestyle stuff — what kind of meals do you cook for yourself?
“He’s a young lad who lives on his own and we can enhance his ability to be a 24-hour athlete. There are lots of things he can do to improve himself as a player and a person.”
Watmore understands what lies ahead of him. He is 22 and an England Under-21 player, blessed with pace and promise and although he is an exception — he has a first-class degree in economics and business management — there will be pain and insecurity.
“The mental aspect is massive,” Watmore says. “Making sure it’s not fighting you with negativity and doubts.”
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He is a reader. “I like all kinds of books, but psychological stuff about positive thinking helps me,” he says. “I read The Secret about six months ago and I’m re-reading it now. It wouldn’t work for everybody but I like picking out quotes or bits that resonate and I’ll keep them. And I’ll make sure that if I’m doubting myself or feeling down that I’ll use them.”
The technology on display is startling; giant touch-screens dotted around the building list training schedules and the weekly rehab plans of injured players, a route to recovery mapped out. During the close season, a player’s fitness work can be accessed remotely from his GPS watch — there is no hiding place in Miami or Dubai — while they use phones and tablets to fill in daily questions about their wellbeing.
Treatment team
It is cutting-edge modernity, but it complements the personal. “Players open up to us in a way they wouldn’t to the coaching staff,” Peter Brand, the head physiotherapist, says. “You’re with them for longer than your own family.” Clegg adds: “We’re like psychologists. There’s an intimacy.”
Walsh says: “When I started doing this job, one of the coaches said, ‘Players don’t care about what you know, they just want to know you care’. That stuck with me.”
Players must put their livelihoods in the hands of others. “Those relationships are really important,” Watmore says. “You want to trust them, to know that what they’re telling you to do is right. The people help massively.
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“A lot of it is down to you, but you need the people to keep pushing you, keep you going, keep you motivated. I know I’ll have ups and downs, but the staff here are so good at that.”
Clegg can empathise. A member of Manchester United’s Youth Cup-winning side in 1995, he made nine first-team league appearances before moving to Oldham Athletic and drifting towards retirement. “As a player, things got tough,” he says. “I got injured a few times. Moving to this side was natural — my father was Man United’s strength and conditioning coach — and it’s always felt like my true career path. It’s working for a living, but I can relate to players.”
Lamb’s background was a contrast. “Merchant navy, worked in forestry, jobbed around farms, a van driver for a bit and then reached 21 and I thought, ‘There’s got to be something better’.” He studied sports science at university, made a life of it. “My old man is 72 and he’s still out there farming every day,” he says. Brand qualified as a physio at the hospital, a “local lad, doing my absolute dream job”.
Watmore confronts nine months of discomfort and sweat and strain. “The first thing I’ve got to do is accept this,” he says. “It’s my first serious injury and I’ll miss playing. I’ll watch and support the lads, but that already feels hard. If I think too much about the time I’ll be out then it’s daunting. I was in the team, playing well, kicking on. You can ask all the questions, but there’s nothing you can do. Moping won’t help.”
Sunderland’s people will — the experts rarely seen or spoken about. “It’s a phenomenal amount of work,” Lamb says. “You’re talking 12, 13-hour days from July 4 when we all walked in until the end of May. There are massive personal sacrifices, the hours, the stuff you miss out on. We all felt Duncan’s injury. But we’ll get him back and when we do, the emotion and the satisfaction will be huge. We’ll all have that feeling of pride and joy and love.”