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For a team in dire need of inspiration, take a look at the fighter that remains Darren Way

11th August 2009 By Latest News Leave a Comment

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Tonight's Carling Cup first round trip to Yeovil Town promises to be a very testing time for any number of individuals.

In fact, anyone who was playing in a Canary shirt in Saturday's 7-1 opening day humiliation by Colchester United is likely to be under the microscope like never before as Bryan Gunn's battered troops desperately seek to right all manner of wrongs – to be still clutching a ticket to the second round of the Carling Cup at the end of tonight's outing at Huish Park would be a start.

Nicking even a point out of Saturday's second leg of their West Country 'tour' away at Exeter City would be another, tiny step in the right direction following the ridicule and the fury heaped upon the Norfolk club in the aftermath of that devastating Us defeat.

But for one player, this evening's game is likely to hold more meaning than most as one-time Canary youth star Darren Way looks on from the sidelines and contemplates just how cruel Miss Fortune can be.

Last week and the 29-year-old Glovers favourite underwent yet another operation to try and restore some function to his shattered right wrist after he was involved in a serious car accident last December.

It found the one-time England Under-16 schoolboy star being airlifted to Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester with multiple injuries before receiving further treatment at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

He would return home to his wife and two young children in a wheelchair – his hopes of continuing his professional football career all but over.

Rough on anyone. Particularly when you were the passenger; the innocent party in the events of that December day.

Last week and Way travelled to London for an eighth operation to try and restore some movement to his right wrist after it was reported that his multiple injuries included breaks to both legs and both arms. The fact that he was able to walk out onto the pitch at all for the final 30 seconds of a Testimonial staged in honour of Glovers boss Terry Skiverton this summer was a testament to his own, grim determination to give himself a chance.

Way, in fairness, always did punch way above his size; as a teenager at Colney, he was part of that crop of West Country youths brought to the club by former chief scout Gordon Bennett.

Andy Johnson (Bristol), Jamie Cureton (Bristol), Darren Eadie (Corsham), Craig Bellamy (Cardiff) and the equally luckless Jamie Shore (Bristol), Way was the little Dennis Wise of the pack; the midfield terrier that would never stop snapping at your ankles.

But having signed a one-year deal with the Canaries in 1999, he was released a year later and eventually found his way to Yeovil where his all-action style made him a big hit with the Glovers faithful. A spell in South Wales was hit by injury of the usual, footballing variety before he returned to Somerset last summer.

Now he faces the fight of his life to play football again. The fact that he is missing out on this evening's contest and the chance to play against the club that first nurtured his talents will hit him hard. Way's heart was always firmly on his sleeve.

“I have to keep jumping these hurdles,” he told reporters last week ahead of his latest date with the surgeons. Whether he ever kicks a ball again is anger remains firmly in the balance.

“As long as I keep tackling like I did on the football pitch and use the same determination, I am hoping that there can be some light at the end of the tunnel.”

It will be a long road back; answering the inevitable question from well-wishers equally takes its toll.

“That is what I am also finding difficult to deal with, the question of whether I will get to a level where I am able to get back on the pitch,” he admitted.

“I think what the surgeons are going to do is give me a bit more time and make a decision then. What they did not want to do from day one is say: 'I do not think you are going to play again…' and therefore wreck my confidence and morale.

“I think everyone is buying into that and they can see my determination, and they are going to let me get as fit as I can at a level they think I can reach.”

Family and friends have helped. He will, you assume, be a familar face as far as Gunn is concerned; chances are the City chief will put his own managerial troubles to one side for a moment to wish Way all the very best.

“I keep saying that I feel so lucky to have my family,” said Way, his recent experiences putting other events into a certain perspective. It is, after all, only a game.

“There are times at night when I wonder how I survived. There must be someone upstairs or my time just was not meant to end,” he said. “When I look through all I have been through and the nature of the accident, then I do not feel that many people would have survived it like I have.

“Time is a healer and we will see where we are in another six months' time.”

Whether time is a healer as far as City are concerned is another matter; where we all are in six months time is, likewise, not the issue. Where we all are in six games time is more to the point after this weekend's events put everything firmly back into the melting pot.

If it was possible, City managed to take another step back from the debacle at The Valley and for or manager and player alike, the margin for further error is pretty slim.

Both could do worse than look to Way for inspiration. As a kid in Norfolk, he was always a fighter; now he faces the fight of his footballing life to get his career back on track.

But he won't give up; he won't give in. And there's a big lesson to be had for certain people ahead of this evening's events at Huish Park.


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