“THERE is good and bad news, Mr Bannigan. The good news is that we’ve finally worked out what is wrong with you. The bad news is that you’re still looking at a further nine months of rehabilitation.”

Stuart Bannigan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A London specialist had finally diagnosed the exact nature of the knee injury that had already kept him out of action for five months. If that brought a huge sigh of relief last August after all the uncertainty it was tempered with the realisation that he would likely not kick a ball for the entire season. And so it proved.

The Partick Thistle midfielder is finally back in action again but it has proved a long road to recovery. A knee injury sustained against Hearts in March 2016 would prove the start of it, the doctors initially unable to ascertain just what he had done. All Bannigan knew was that something didn’t feel quite right.

It took a visit to the specialist and then a subsequent operation for the 24-year-old to properly begin the long journey back to full fitness. It was a thankless slog at times, long hours in the gym and working with physiotherapists with the aim of getting his knee back to what it was before. He is just relieved to have finally done so.

“It ended up being more than 15 months out because we didn’t know what was happening at the start and wasted four or five months,” he revealed. “The operation could have been done straight away. But it is what it is.

“It was difficult when it first emerged things were going well. I went down to see the specialist in London and I knew something wasn’t right. I was back running but didn’t feel right even running in a straight line.

“The specialist said I needed an operation and it was a weight off my shoulders. Realising I was going to be out for another nine months, on top of the four or five that had already passed, was hard. It needed to done, though, so I can’t grumble about it.

“I wasn’t too bothered about the actual injury, it was just whether or not I could recover from it and come back better than I was. That was the only thing that was worrying me.

“You go through it and you get aches and pains some days that make you think ‘this can’t be right’ but you have to stick with it, do the rehab right and make sure you’re ready to go. When you go back out running for the first time it’s a big moment.

“I was in the gym for the first four or five months, it’s quite strenuous, and you don’t see much sunlight. When you get back out running and see the lads training, you know you’re getting closer.

“It wasn’t too bad mentally during the week, it was harder on a Saturday watching the games. You’d see the players coming off after a great result and want to be part of it, but you know you’re not.

“That’s when the reality hits you that you’re not involved at all. That was the hard part - the Saturdays. During the week wasn’t too bad.”

Now the most difficult part is making sure he doesn’t do too much, too soon. “The manager wants to hold me back a bit, but I’m desperate to get in there,” he admitted. “That’s just my personality. I like to be the best in training or in games. The manger just wants to make sure I’m not rushing myself.”