Darius Cox, the Robin Hood captain, is on the road to recovery after having leg surgery.
Cox, 34, has missed his team’s first three games of the season after undergoing surgery last month.
“I got injured years ago playing for [Devonshire] Cougars but never took care of it properly and decided now is the time before I get too old,” Cox said.
“I tore a muscle in my leg by my hip and it then had calcium build up, so leaving it for three years a bone ended up growing in my leg that wasn’t supposed to be there.
“All this time I have been kicking and then feeling pain thinking it was just a weak muscle when all along it wasn’t.
“My wife was pressuring me, too, to go and get it checked, so I went and the doctor said, ‘We need to operate and get that bone out of there’, because it was also close to an artery and nerves. Had I kept playing it may have punctured anyone of those two and the outcome would have been terrible.”
The 34-year-old defender is looking forward to making a full recovery and rejoining his team-mates on the pitch.
“The doctor said it will be a four to six week recovery and it’s been an month, so now it’s about me strengthening and seeing how long it takes,” Cox said.
“He told me just gradually take my time. But it’s just about strengthening, not doing too much heavy lifting right now, and just getting back into the motion of things.
“Hopefully by late October I’m going to start going to the gym and get a pedal bike and start riding daily to strengthen it up.
“Once I feel that it’s strong enough, I will try myself out on the training pitch.”
Cox has kept close tabs on his team who have advanced to the Dudley Eve Trophy semi-finals in his absence.
“I have been watching some of the games and talking to them in the group chat,” said Cox, who captained Hood to a maiden league title last season.
“They are not playing badly and are getting better. We have a couple of new guys playing so they have to get used to playing with each and once the team starts gelling we will be all right.”
Cox is keen to play under John Barry Nusum, his former Bermuda team-mate, who has succeeded Kyle Lightbourne as Hood’s coach.
“I played with JB but never under him,” Cox said. “He has taught me things on the field about defending that I never thought about doing.”
