Story by Mitch Brown
You wouldn’t wish Jack Holden’s luck upon your worst enemy.
It was a run of injuries and illness that very nearly cost him his football career last year - a streak of bad luck that just wouldn’t end.
“I played the first three games of the season for the Rays, but after a break for school footy, my first game back I copped a knee in the chest and broke my ribs. I took a few weeks off, got told I was right to go, but I think I just kept trying to push it too hard.
“There was a time where I was waking up in the mornings and spewing up.”
After this scare, the 19-year-old from Aspendale was checked by a general practitioner, who informed Holden that he had contracted glandular fever.
“The fever really screwed me up physically, and I think it affected my injury recovery as well. My ribs didn’t mend properly for about seven months, so I had to go in and have surgery on them.”
Holden thought he was in the clear, and ready to start playing again - but his luck still didn’t change, with a phantom knee injury coming out of nowhere and flooring the young utility.
“The thing with glandular fever though is that it keeps on messing you up for ages, and somehow sometime my knee started to really hurt too, so it took a while to get that right too.”
After slowly recovering from his injuries and the lasting effects of glandular fever, Holden has been in rehabilitation for the past 10 months, rebuilding his fitness and skills in order to make a return to the game he loves.
“I’ve only really trained, fully fit, four times this year. It’s been tough, but it’s worth it.”
Thanks to a bit of positivity and a lot of hard work, he’s managed to fight his way back into the Dandenong Southern Stingrays side for their gallant loss against North Ballarat on Saturday.
“I only got the call-up late on Friday night. I was nervous as, cause I’ve only played about a half of local footy in the past year, but I knew I had to come and do the job for the team.”
After Saturday’s match, Stingrays senior coach Craig Black was positive about Holden’s performance and is happy to see him back playing.
“I myself was really pleased with Jack today. He’s hardly played for 12 months, and for him to come out and show his attack on the footy - it was really great to see.”
Holden’s ‘attack on the footy’is readily obvious to anyone who sees him post-match: an icepack plastered to each of his legs, plus one on his arm and a bloody bandaged earlobe to boot.
“That’s nothing to worry about,”he laughs.
Holden’s focus now turns to maintaining his place in the Stingrays side in the coming weeks.
“With the bye this week, I really want get some more training and fitness under my belt.
“Now that the Vic Country boys are on their way back, I need to work really hard to stay here and hopefully still be around come finals time.
“There’s been a lot of ups and downs for me, but I train hard and I’ve been working my ass off trying to get back into this team. I’m not going to stop now.”
Last Modified on 24/06/2015 08:36