Michael Bridges’ promising Leeds United career was ruined by a string of dreadful injuries during his time at the club at the turn of the millennium.
He joined the Whites for £5m from Sunderland in 1999 and proved to be a massive hit from the very start.
In his debut season at the club, he scored 19 goals including a hat-trick in just his second game against Southampton. In his early twenties, such a campaign set the perfect foundation for him to go on and become one of Leeds’ greatest goalscorers.
However, after making just 10 appearances the following season, he suffered a horrendous dislocated ankle away at Besiktas in the group stage of the Champions League.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Official Leeds United Podcast, he opened up on the struggles he was faced with as a result of the injury.
“The toughest part to handle was the initial injury over in Besiktas,” he claimed. “We didn’t know the extent of the damage, Dave Hancock was the physio at the time and he saved my career.
“The scary part about the injury, they didn’t know much damage I’d done. It wasn’t until three days later, we were waiting for the swelling to go down in my leg so I could have an MRI scan but it was actually getting bigger, I had an internal bleed in my leg.
“The bottom half of my leg up to my calf had actually gone black overnight and I was rushed in to get it done.”
As a result of the operation, Bridges was told he would be unable to play professional football again, news that would cripple any 22-year-old at any level of the game.
“That was the hardest pill to swallow hearing that and I’m really pleased I listened to Dave Hancock,” he added. “Because I was given a cheque for a lot of money which was the insurance to retire but Dave said to me ‘I’ll get you back playing but I don’t know how long it’s going to take and I don’t know what level it’s going to be at.’
“He said ‘you’ve got a four-year deal here, stick with me it’s going to be a long journey.’ And it was.”
There were long days at the training ground, even nights where Bridges admitted he would stay at Hancock’s house to get some extra treatment just to get back to the stage where he could once again compete at the top level.
Eventually, the hard work paid off and the forward was able to return to action for Leeds’ reserve side.
“It was a hell of a battle for fourteen months but [Hancock] was true to his word, I got back playing for the reserves,” he said. “I’d lost a bit of pace but I’d always had a football brain, I was blessed with that but I’d lost a bit of pace and a bit of confidence but I’d become stronger physically.”
While he was initially buoyed by a return to the game he was obsessed with, Bridges was unaware that another lengthy lay-off was closer than even the worst nightmare could have indicated.
“After seven games with the reserves, I was given the green light by O’Leary,” he continued. “We were playing Malaga at home and I was pleased that I didn’t take that cheque.
“But four minutes into the match I heard this almighty bang and I fell in a heap. My left Achilles had ruptured and it was that moment in time where I was mentally and physically crushed.”
Unsurprisingly, another injury really knocked the stuffing out of a player who had spent well over a year recovering from the first of his tiresome setbacks.
The 11-time England U21 international explained that he struggled mentally to come to terms with the bout of rotten luck he had been dealt.
He said: “I didn’t want to leave the house and I was ignoring family and friends because I was in a world of pain, in a dark place.
“Luckily I had a very good support network at the football club and in my family but once I’d had an unbalance in both legs, I knew that my days at the top level in the Premier League or the Champions League were done.”
For a player with the majority of his career in front of him, that realisation must have been really hard to digest, especially after such an explosive start to life at Leeds.
After leaving the Whites upon the expiry of his contract in 2004, Bridges still managed to squeeze 11 years out of his playing career and scored plenty more goals.
But, while he maintains that he has no regrets and that there is no bitterness in him towards his career, he must still wonder what he could have achieved without the injuries, both at Leeds and with England.
