12Jan

Senda’s injury hell puts the beautiful game in perspective

by Mike Calvin

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Anyone who wants to understand professional football, and footballers, should have squeezed into the cramped home dressing room at Barnet, when Danny Senda needed oxygen to control his pain, while he waited for an ambulance. It was the beautiful game, at its most brutal.

Senda had been so looking forward to the first leg of Barnet’s Johnstone’s Paint Trophy southern area final against Swindon on Tuesday night. Wembley beckoned, and life was good. Then, just before the interval, he went into an innocuous challenge, and dislocated his kneecap for the second time in his career.

Barnet manager Lawrie Sanchez, who gave Senda his first-team debut when in charge at Wycombe, understood the futility of a half-time team talk. He, and his players, were sick to their stomachs. A colleague, a friend, a fellow pro, lay in distress. Senda’s team-mates shared an unspoken thought: There but for the grace of God….

Such moments tend to have a horrible symmetry. Swindon were also the opposition when Senda first suffered the injury, playing for Millwall in the last game of the 2007-08 season. Surgeons removed a large fragment of bone, which had snapped under pressure, looped his hamstring through the top of the kneecap and pinned it to his shin. His cartilage was also torn, as the kneecap dislocated.

It was, to all intents and purposes, a career-ending injury, but he returned after 15 months to play for a contract. Things were going well until he collapsed with a sharp scream, on landing from a routine aerial challenge in a testimonial match. He had ruptured his Achilles tendon.

I will never forget the scene in the home dressing room at the Den. Senda was lying face down on a physio’s bench, with his team-mates clustered around him. Neil Harris, the team’s spiritual leader, leaned over and kissed him tenderly on the back of the head. It was a gesture of solidarity that brought tears to my eyes.

Rehabilitation is a painful process, fraught with fear and frustration. It took Senda another six months to get back. There was no room for him at Millwall, but he earned short-term contracts at Torquay and Bristol Rovers in the second half of last season. He was thrilled by his subsequent one-year deal at Barnet.

At the age of 30, he had mellowed, matured. His tweets were punctuated by quotes from the Dalai Lama. He understood the privilege of playing football for a living. Then, in an instant, everything changed.

Stay strong, Dan. You are not alone.

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