LEWIS VAUGHAN’S name might one day enter the realm of pub trivia. Who is the only professional footballer to make a comeback after suffering four ACL ruptures? There is another question though that occupies his mind.

After what he has been through in his career, Vaughan is thankful for every moment he gets to spend on a football field. And he is immensely grateful for the support that Raith Rovers have given him throughout his injury woes, from the dugout to the boardroom and the terraces.

But he would be lying if he said that his recent joy at making his return to the Rovers first team after his latest - and unprecedented - recovery from a fourth reconstruction of an ACL isn’t at least partially tempered by an ever-present, nagging thought at the back of his mind; what could have been?

With respect, Vaughan’s undoubted talent hasn’t gone unnoticed at higher levels of the game than the Scottish Championship, and particularly prior to the second of his long-term layoffs, he was a man very much in demand.

As the improbable catalogue of career-stunting catastrophes piled up though, suitors slowly dispersed, and long-term ambition had to be sidelined in favour of a single-minded approach to simply getting fit once more.

Now that he is finally back where he belongs, out on the grass with his Rovers teammates, he is trying hard not to let regrets tarnish the moment. But as he comes into the second half of his career – he will be 27 just before Christmas – that is easier said than done.

“I do think about it a lot and I probably shouldn’t, where I could have been if it wasn’t for the injuries,” Vaughan said.

“I try to keep it to myself as I’m not that type of person who wants to be that nearly man who could have gone and done something and they haven’t, but if I’m honest, I do think about it a lot.

“That’s probably the worst part for me of having these injuries, not knowing where I could have gone and whether I could have tested myself at the highest level, wherever that could have been.

“Unfortunately, I’ll probably never get to find that out, and it is difficult, but the biggest achievement for me is that nobody has come back from four ACL’s before.

“At the same time, I do wonder where I could have been in the world of football, and that is the hardest part to take about these injuries.

“I was probably close to moving at one stage. There were a number of clubs down south that were interested and in Scotland as well, particularly before the second injury. That’s part and parcel of football. It is hard to take it at the time, but you just need to get on with it.

“I do sometimes think about it a lot, but I’m trying to concentrate on the here and now and just enjoy my football again.”

Vaughan has certainly earned that right. He admits that when he slumped to the turf and felt that familiar pain in his knee during a 4-4 draw with Hamilton last July, even he wasn’t sure if he had the mental fortitude and physical resilience to drag himself up and slog through the long recovery process all over again.

“I knew straight away what it was,” he said. “I know the feeling by now.

“I just couldn’t believe it to be honest. Throughout the third rehab I had done exactly what I have this time, I did everything properly and never cut a single corner. I was going to the gym on my summer holidays and making sure I was doing everything absolutely by the book, so it was heart-breaking at the time.

“I did wonder if I would ever get back to playing again, especially at the same leveI. I did have to go away and contemplate what I was going to do, and if I was going to try again.

“The rehab process is tough, and especially at times when you are going to the gym and the boys are going to training. You desperately just want to be out on the grass with the boys. It’s not great, it is a lonely place.

“It is hard, and you do need to be mentally tough, but I have sort of got used to it over the last couple of injuries. I am mentally strong, but I’ve not really had a choice.

“I still had time on my contract, and I had a meeting with John McGlynn [then Raith Rovers manager] and the owner of the club. They wanted to get me back, so we had a meeting with the surgeon, and he said he could get me back playing again, that he could sort my knee and that the rest was up to me.

“I know this sounds stupid, but I was thinking to myself that players have come back from two ACL injuries to the same knee, and that was two I had in both of my knees. It’s kind of the same, it wasn’t as if it was four injuries to the same knee, that gave me hope that I could do it.

“It’s probably the only slight bit of good fortune in the whole thing, that the injuries have been shared between both knees.

“If I didn’t have football, I don’t know what I would do, so it was in my mind that I was going to give it my best shot.

“It’s hard to take at times of course. You can think ‘why has this happened to me?’ when other people go through their entire careers without getting any injuries like this.

“It’s just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes, and you just have to roll your sleeves up and get on with it.”

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That question of why it has happened to Vaughan so frequently is a natural one to ask. And you better believe he has asked everyone who might be qualified to tell him.

“I’ve spoken to so many surgeons across the country and surgeons abroad to get opinions on why this keeps happening to me and why it has happened so many times,” he said.

“Essentially, believe it or not, the surgeons have just put it down to bad luck. That is some of the top professionals in the field of ligament, ACL and knee repairs.

“I went back to the same guy for my last two, and done my rehab with the same guy, Cammy Ross, who has left Raith Rovers for Hearts now.

“He was absolutely amazing for me, he went above and beyond, just as the club have in supporting me and giving me everything I needed.

“I couldn’t speak highly enough of the club and what they have done for me over the past year or so, and over the past three injuries as well. To have stuck by a player through such massive injuries and those setbacks has been great, and the fans as well, they haven’t had a bad word to say about me.

“I’ve been at the club since I was kid, so I think they look at me as one of their own. I’ve been massively lucky to have Raith Rovers backing me all the way, and the manager John McGlynn, he was a godsend for me. The support I had from him was crazy.

“The new manager came in and he has backed me just as much, he has had my back and given me as much time as I have needed.

“Hopefully I can get back to scoring goals regularly and repay them for that support.”

If he can do that, then you just never know what it might lead to for Vaughan himself. If there is one thing his own story so far proves beyond doubt, other than his own strength of character, is that hope springs eternal.

“You never know what can happen,” he said.

“I always believe in myself and I’m always confident I can get back to where I was before the injuries. I can’t see why that can’t happen.

“I’m feeling fit and strong, and hopefully the knees can stay strong, and I can go on and have a good end to my career.

“If I can get six or seven years at least injury free and enjoying it again I’ll be delighted.”

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