A PROMISING young footballer whose hopes of a professional career were crushed by catastrophic knee injuries has lost his damages action against his club.
James Hall, of Glasgow, began a two-year scholarship with Everton in July 2005 at their academy in Netherton. A month later, the 16-year-old midfielder sustained a painful twisting injury of his left knee during a training game.
He suffered a ruptured ligament and a torn cartilage which led to surgery and a rehabilitation programme, but was left with a knee that was unfit to withstand the rigours of a professional football career, said Mr Justice King sitting at London's High Court.
Mr Hall, now 24, brought negligence proceedings against Jonathan Thomas, a GP acting as the club doctor, head academy physiotherapist Stephen Hardwick and Everton Football Club Company Ltd.
The judge said that, sympathetic though any court must be to what had befallen Mr Hall, he found it impossible to hold that he had established any breach of duty against Mr Hardwick and thus the club.
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