A broken leg, ruptured ankle ligaments; crumbling cartilage in the knee?
Steven MacLean has seen more stretchers than Florence Nightingale during a career of footballing rough and tumble but, in the grand traditions of dodgy punditry, the 31-year-old has shown plenty of bouncebackability.
On Tuesday night, the St Johnstone striker marked his return to active service after four months on the sidelines with a brace of goals in a comfortable 3-0 win over Motherwell.
"It was a decent comeback," said MacLean with chuckling nonchalance. It was no laughing matter back in October, though, when he was carted off with a knee injury in a match against St Mirren and anxiously awaited the results of a surgeon's pokings and probings.
"There was a chance that I could have been finished," said the well-travelled Edinburgh man, whose boots have taken him from Forres Mechanics to Plymouth Argyle, with stop-offs at the likes of Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday, Cardiff City and Yeovil Town along the way.
"The surgeon told me it was a possibility because he didn't know what he was going to find when he looked inside the knee. What he did took only about 40 minutes but it seemed much longer just sitting there waiting for his verdict. Once I'd had the operation they were able to give me some good news.
"I had a micro-fracture in the cartilage. So they drilled the hole in my knee in the hope that new cartilage forms and grows back around it, forming a kind of mesh. I have even been told that having the surgery could actually help my career in the long term."
Having opened his account in the sixth minute against Motherwell, a celebrating MacLean pushed and shoved his way to the St Johnstone dugout to share his joy with some of those who have played a big part in his recovery process. A key figure on that long, winding and occasionally wincing road has been the Perth physio, Fearghal Kerin.
"He was there with me, when I was saying I couldn't do the programmes he had given me," said MacLean. "He was the one pushing me on and telling me to get on with it. You go through a lot of pain when you're coming back. Some days you're p***ed off and the staff notice that so they do little things for you here and there.
"The gaffer comes into the physio room to hammer you, keeping your spirits up by asking when you're going to be back.
"You end up close to the physio and the fitness coach because you spend so much time with them. For the last four months, Fearghal has been my gaffer.
"When I scored I was all over the place, I wanted to find him but he was sitting in the dugout. I couldn't see him at first but then I noticed him so I managed to give him a wee slap on the face. I've had a few injuries in my time but I don't think I've ever come back and scored two goals before. It was emotional."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article