Surgery needed as Brown out for 6 months

By Albatross
August 2 2005

The news is not good for one of our bright prospects: James Brown needs major surgery on his knee after being stretchered off against Hibernian in last week's friendly. It's a bitter blow for someone that looked on the verge of making a real breakthrough into the first team squad.

The club had been waiting for news on Brown since he picked up the injury at Easter Road, and sadly it's about as bad as it could have been: he faces six months or maybe even more on the sidelines. It's not been stated exactly what the problem is - but there were one or two whispers that he had damaged his cruciate ligament, and with reconstructive surgery required that looks the most likely scenario.

It's a bitter blow for James personally of course, and it could hardly have come at a worse time for him. After his prolific season for the youths last year he was included in the first team squad; and during our pre-season programme he had done more than enough to suggest he would be making his full debut sooner rather than later, even with the extra competition up front. Now he faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines, and even when he can resume full training it will presumably take some time for him to build up his fitness to the level required for first team action.

Essentially I think that Brown is going to have to write off this season. The earliest he may be fit to come back is looking to be February, and more realistically he'll take time to build up from there. The concern for him is that he is only on a year's contract - but the evidence does suggest he will be given the opportunity to carry on at Pools. Some people may not be too keen on how IOR have dealt with things (I'm sure a few Agents aren't too happy for example) but the way they have dealt with Darrell Clarke speaks volumes for me. He could have expected himself to be released, or just offered a short-term deal to prove his fitness: but instead he was given a full twelve month deal and effectively given a clean slate. Martin Scott is also known to have strong thoughts on dealing fairly with players that have had serious injuries after the PFA had to fund treatment for him when Sunderland released him while injured.

I'd just like to wish James all the best and hope he has a speedy recovery; and with a bit of luck he may be scoring goals for HUFC in Division 1 in 2006/7.