Glover: I'm fit and ready for 2021

27/02/2021

It’s been a long time coming but popular Eagles centre James Glover is back to full fitness and raring to get back on the pitch.

After his debut season was cruelly cut short due to a serious knee injury against Barrow Raiders at the 2019 Summer Bash, it has been almost two years since he last put on an Eagles jersey.

However, with the Challenge Cup draw complete, a home tie against York City Knights awaits and the outside back, alongside fellow returnee and club captain Matt James, cannot wait but is understandably cautious.

“I am pretty excited but I do have mixed emotions - I’m a bit nervous and anxious too,” Glover explained.

“Excitement is the biggest feeling I have got though.

“It has been nearly two years for me, and I know most have had a year away as it is, but I’ve played the game since I was 5-years-old and I’ve never had this amount of time off.”

Glover has had plenty of time to reflect on the injury he suffered and in the immediate aftermath, he didn’t realise the seriousness of it.

A few attempts to walk and jog, after being sat on the bench at Bloomfield Road following the incident, saw any optimism fade and the club acted quickly to get their centre on the road to a long recovery.

“At the time when it happened, I didn’t know the total extent of it,” he added.

“I heard all the popping and all the sounds when you do something serious like that but with all the adrenaline, the game being on TV, I did try to get up and walk off.

“I couldn’t do that and still didn’t understand what I’d done.

"When I was on the bench, I remember sitting there and thinking ‘there’s nothing wrong with me’.

“I tried to go for a jog up the side of the pitch, I couldn’t do that either and then I knew it was something serious.

“I went to see the specialist the next day and everything else came pretty quickly after that which is a credit to the club.

“I was in for surgery within 11-days so I was quite fortunate as there was a player from a different club who did something similar and he was waiting six months for his scan.”

A knock-on effect from such an injury was Glover’s day-to-day life as he could not carry out his full-time work, which was within a multi-storey office.

This is something he explained in detail as he described the injury being ‘probably the biggest mental and physical challenge I’ll go through in life’.

"It wasn’t good to watch from the sidelines and I know some will think that it’s ‘just a sport, it’s just an injury’, but we’re part-time players at the end of the day and we do have a full-time job,” he said.

“I was office-based at the time, on the third floor of a building with no lifts. I couldn’t get into work, I was on statutory sick pay and getting £95 a week with a bit of money from the RFL and an insurance payout.

“From that payout, which I should have been putting to one side, it literally covered my bills so some people may not realise the effect an injury like that does to someone.

“I’m not saying that people have to feel sorry for me because, at the end of the day, it’s my choice to play this sport but I had never been in that situation where you have to look at the bigger picture.

“It has been a tough time but everyone has been doing it tough recently, with what’s been going on in the world.

“There are a lot of people worse off than me. It was a physical and mental challenge for me, and probably the biggest I’ll go through in my life, but I’m still here, I’m fit and ready to go.

“I have niggles now and again but it’s not stopping me training, I’ve not pulled up in training.

"I felt it once but that was because I had a slip.

"The knee feels strong, I feel strong, it’s been a long time for me and Jamesey but we’re ready to go.”

By Dan Fowler, photo by Alex Coleman