Partick Thistle Football Club

Although we have played just the one competitive fixture so far this season injuries have still managed cast a bit of a shadow over proceedings so far. Against Clyde on Saturday as many as 6 players weren’t fit enough to play in the fixture. New signing Iain Flannigan was one and so too was Chris Erskine. Both though are happily on the mend and in contention for a place in the squad for Saturday’s fixture with Annan Athletic.

When www.ptfc.co.uk caught up with one of those two injured players, Chris Erskine,a little earlier in the week he was obviously delighted to have been able to swapthe gym for the football pitch.

“It’s been a long couple of weeks for me when I haven’t been doing anything really apart from training with physio Kenny Crichton and doing some work in the gym. I played 45 minutes of an under 19s game on Sunday and then managed 75 minutes against Airdrie United on Tuesday night and it was good to get that kind of playing time.”

So what exactly was the nature of the injury that has, until now, curtailed Chris’ involvement on the park?

“It was to do with my Iliotibal band which was running into my knee and causing me pain on the outside of the knee. I had to get a couple of cortisone injections. The first one didn’t fix it but the second one seems to have worked and the pain has gone away.”

Chris’ problem was indentified as early as the very first pre-season training session.

“It happened in the very first day of pre-season training although I actually had the problem before the end of last season. An injection sorted the problem right away then and that approach was tried again but this time it didn’t work as there was pain when I started running after a week, so I had to get a second injection, a stronger dose, and that one seems to have worked.”

“The rest of the boys are a good bit ahead of me in terms of fitness although I did a bit of running with Kenny last week and the rest of the injured boys and I’ve now taken part in a couple of games and no doubt will be doing some extra running next week as well as I try to get fit and get myself into the team.”

Now firmly on the comeback trail Chris recognises the importance of the coming season for him.

“I had a decent season last season but I didn’t do perhaps do as well as I was hoping to do and didn’t play as many games as I would have liked but hopefully I’ll be able to play more often this season. I know what to expect this season in terms of what I will come up against so I really don’t have any excuses this season.”

The fact that the squad has been trimmed in terms of numbers since the end of last season isn’t something that Chris is especially bothered about.

“It’s happening everywhere and we aren’t the only club that have had to make some cut backs but there is a lot of good experienced players in our squad. Players like Ian Maxwell, Jackie McNamara and Simon Donnelly all of whom have played at a high level. Then you have young boys coming through and then players, like myself, who have something to prove this season. There are also a lot of boys in the final year of their contract so in a sense we are playing for our lives this season.”

“I know that it is often looked upon as being a bad thing but a small squad  just means that it will have to be a close knit squad with everyone working really hard for each other. That’ll not be a problem because we all get on really well. Ask anyone in the squad and they will tell that there isn’t a single player that doesn’t get on with everyone else. It’s a really close squad which obviously helps out on the park.”