Local hero: Defender tackled a stroke, now for the Games . . .

ONE of them was a former team-mate of Wayne Rooney at Everton before being hit by a bus; another was in a car crash while on the books of Queens Park Rangers; some have cerebral palsy; while others have suffered a stroke.

Blair Glynn recites the assorted traumas of his Team GB Paralympic football colleagues as if they were no more inconvenient than groin strains, hamstring tweaks and ankle knocks.

Indeed, his phlegmatism extends to the fact that the 26-year-old from Tranent does not even consider himself disabled. "I had a stroke, fair enough, but I'm not in a wheelchair," he says, years of fear, anguish and physiotherapy being summarily disregarded by a young man now at the peak of his physical powers and ready to take on the world. Instead of making him more aware of the fragility of life, being close to death appears to have made Glynn feel almost invincible.

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