The hard work begins for striker tom bath
Striker Tom Bath would be looking on as Parkway produced a fine performance and earned a draw in their pre-season curtain raiser against Plymouth Argyle on Saturday.
The striker would be out of his medical boot and walking sheepishly as he caught up with team mates and fans who attended the sell out fixture.
The injury would happen during the latter stages of the 2-0 win over Highworth Town as the striker fell to the floor with no one around him. It would soon emerge that the innocuous fall would bare bad news as the diagnosis of a ruptured achilles would make its way around Bolitho.
“I’m finally out of the boot and back on my feet. Morale is good and I am trying to stay as positive as I can. I am starting to get back on the bike and have been doing exercises with club physio Regan.”
It will be a long and arduous road back for Tom who began to show the best of his abilities before the injury occurred. Regan has a plan in place as Tom will be in safe hands during his rehabilitation. Regan explains: “The plan for Bathy now is to slowly to begin rebuilding his strength back into his calf and Achilles. We’re slowly easing him into full weight-bearing activities and aiming to retrain not just the calf itself, but the brain and other muscles which have been underused for a long period. Ultimately, Bathy have been immobile for a very long period so we’ve got to begin retraining his pattern and easing him into walking properly without aid and without any abnormalities.”
It’s been a difficult few months for the striker who has been laid up and resting whilst undergoing surgery and having to be strapped up in a medical boot. “It’s been boring… no work, no football but I’m through that now and am looking forward to both returning in the upcoming weeks.
In regards to getting back to Bolitho and playing competitively, a time frame could be a long way off as Bath explains: “It’s going to be a long process which I am hoping to go well. I haven’t put a time frame on it but will at least be after Christmas until I can even think about football again unfortunately but will be around to support the boys this season.”
Club physio Regan agrees that it is to soon to put a timeframe on Tom’s return to action: “we haven’t set any aims on when we expect Bathy to return as of yet. We’ve got to bare in mind that we’re still only part-time football players and, as professional as we are as a club, lads still work full-time, 9-5 jobs everyday. I think at this stage where he’s just returning to full weight-bearing exercises, we don’t want to look too far into the future and lose sight of the nitty gritty bits we have to do. Like we’ve said, it’s a very debilitating injury and one that’s going to be a long, hard process. But, everyone is optimistic haven seen what’s happened with Bathy so far.”
We will keep updated with Tom’s injury throughout the season as we wish the striker well on his road to recovery.
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