With Rachel Furness sidelined by injury, we caught up with her to find out about her rehab, her club side and her national team.
SK: We are sorry to hear that you are injured, what is the injury and how did it happen?
RF: Well it’s quite strange how it happened. My good friend Sarah Danby plays for Man City and we were playing against them in the FA Cup at home. All I remember, is that I turned inside and Danby tackled me and I felt my knee go the other way. People said it looked like my foot got stuck in the ground but it’s a bit of a blur to me now. I just remember hearing a crack – a player’s worst nightmare. I felt pain straight away and a weird sensation down my leg, I thought I had broken it. Giving it a few days of rest, I went to the hospital to get it checked out, no broken bones but possible ligament damage. Having to go through the NHS is frustrating but I have no other option. I did see my friend who is a physio and has been dealing with my niggles, knee injuries over the past 5 years and he said straight away it looks like I had ruptured my MCL. I am still waiting on a scan to confirm this but I am doing rehab whilst waiting.
SK: How long will you be out for and what training can you currently do?
RF: MCL rupture is 3-6 month out, so I’m hoping if I look after myself properly and religiously do my rehab, I can’t see why I wont be back in 3 :). I will wait for the scan to 100% confirm what I have done but until then my physio has given me exercises to do for the first couple of weeks. This will help with my range of movement, so then I can start to cycle in a few weeks time. The exercises are boring but it’s all to strengthen my knee back up and all the muscles around it. I have just got my knee brace so this will also help in my recovery.
SK: What are your aims, short and longer term, for getting back to full fitness?
RF: My aims short term are to stay focused and take care of myself physically and mentally. To strengthen my knee up so this does not happen again. My aim long term is to hopefully be fit for the World Cup Qualifiers in September to get myself in great shape and back to full fitness. If my rehab does take longer, my goal will be to take part in the qualifiers if not in September then later on this year.
SK: What kind of support do you get from your work, from your club and from your national team?
RF: Work have been very understanding and know I play and love football. Within my job I am on my feet all day, so my work have put me on light duties (sitting at a computer) to stay off my knee as much as possible. It’s frustrating because I like to keep busy but I guess the office will have to do me for a short while.
My club have been very understanding and will be there to support me through all my rehab. It’s just a shame I cant get a scan quicker but unless I win the lotto sometime soon, this is how it is. 🙂
My national team will also support me if I need any advice on rehab, etc, they will help me. I have a lot of people that can help me with rehab and what to do and what not to do, so I am lucky in that sense.
SK: Have you had to battle back from injury before? What helps with motivation?
RF: Unfortunately, I have yes and I guess you learn from your mistakes. I have had a few niggling injuries, 6 weeks here and there, but my last big injury was when I was 16 and I injured my other knee and I went about it the wrong way. I distanced myself from football for a little while because my surgeon said I would never play football again. This was shocking news to hear at 16 when I thought I had a full career ahead of me. I was out of shape, my head was not in the game and I thought that was it. I knew something had to change, I’m an active person, football runs through my veins, so I decided to try and get active again at least keeping myself healthy. I had to pick myself up but the mistake I made was realising this nearly a year later.
My motivation to get back active was my family and friends, they supported me and knew I could pick myself back up. When I started going to the gym, my knee hurt but I managed it, iced it, took care of myself and the pain got easier. Within a few month of going to the gym I felt good in myself again, so I decided to try and play (to see if I still had it). At first, my head was working but my feet didn’t match up, I guess that’s what you get for a year and a half out.
It took a little while to get back into things and when I felt my knee hurt. I rested it. My motivation just grew the more I trained and worked hard to get myself back. I would play every game like it was my last because it could have been. Now I am a little stubborn and you would have to drag me off the football pitch, I would play with one leg if I could but I know when to stop whereas in the past I didn’t. Lesson well and truly learned and now I am more motivated then ever to get back playing and fighting for a shirt for my club Sunderland and my country, Northern Ireland.
SK: How are your club and country sides doing?
RF: My club are doing really well this season considering the amount of injuries we have had. We have been very unlucky and struggled with injuries, so our whole squad has been massively tested this season. We have battled and some games scraped through them and managed to get a win, not always focusing on performance but getting the 3 points on the board. We know we can play good football but this can’t happen every week, sometimes you have to win ugly and this season especially, playing good or bad we have managed to get a win, so that’s the sign of a good team. If we win the league this year it will be a bigger achievement than last year because of how hard we have had to fight. Fingers crossed we can do it 🙂
For my country, we are always developing, I’m 24 and I’m one of the oldest, most capped in the squad. We have an abundance of youth coming through the squads and this is very good to see. I may be retiring sooner then I thought 🙂
SK: Do you expect Sunderland to make it through the WSL expansion applications?
RF: I think our bid this year hits all the criteria needed for the WSL and I think we have a really good chance of getting in. All we have to do is keep performing on the pitch, let our feet do the talking and hopefully our bid will be successful this time. Me and a few of the girls have joked if we don’t get in this time we are all retiring, so hopefully this does not happen. Ha ha!
SK: Northern Ireland seem to be having an upturn in fortunes, particularly in UEFA youth qualifiers. What do you put this down to?
RF: Northern Ireland are putting the right structures in place, working on youth and you can tell by recent performances. Like I said previously, the kids coming through have quality and are getting the right guidance, so this is really good for the future of Northern Ireland’s International development. I’m hoping this will then knock onto the seniors in the future and we will qualify for a major tournament.
SK: Did you watch the Liverpool cup game? What were your thoughts?
RF: Yes I was at the game, first game I have watched since I got injured. My thoughts were ‘I want to play’ and I actually texted Mick [Mulhern, Sunderland manager] asking him if I could tape it up and play, (silly I know), I just can’t help myself. I want to play and I wanted to be on that pitch with the girls so much. It’s quite funny really, the night before I tried running around my kitchen, it’s fine until I bend!
I thought first half we were a bit taken back by Liverpool. They played some nice football but we held them well and were happy to go in at half time 1-0 down. Mick spoke some wise words at half time and the girls realised 1-0 was a narrow lead and that we were capable of much more. Second half, I personally felt like we deserved to win, we battled hard, had the better chances and we rattled Liverpool. We hit the woodwork twice and were very unlucky not to go in front. I was gutted when Liverpool got the winner especially because I believe it was a blatant handball. We felt a bit robbed after the game but I spoke to the girls, told them to hold their heads up high because we put on a great performance. How we played second half; how we battled and some of the football we played; just shows we can match them and are more then capable of playing against the top teams in the country.
We’d like to thank Rachel for her time and wish her a speedy recover. To send her a “Get Well Tweet” click here.
Getting injured is an unfortunate part of the game. It’s bad enough being unable to play, but in some cases you need to have time off work and cover the costs yourself. This is one of the reasons why She Kicks has teamed up with Bluefin Sport. Went want you back out playing asap. We want to be able to offer the player a peace of mind and an assurance that they are protected when the time comes.
For more information on insurance for the player or for your club – click here.
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