Chatham Town Women’s Grace Laverick “joined” a unique Club eighteen months ago and has only just returned to playing football and has been talking to KSN about her own battle back from an ACL injury.

Laverick has battled back from a horrible Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury and some may say that it’s a miracle that she’s back playing.

“Miracle?” she joked, “More like all the hard work,” she added laughing, “But seriously, when I did mine there was a lot of attention around as Vivianne Miedema and Beth Mead did theirs and not long after Leah Williamson did hers.”

“I know there was discussion at the time about ladies playing on a 3G pitch not helping – I did mine of a 3G – but there is so many other factors too. I wasn’t starting at the time – I was on the bench – but even when I play on our pitch now, sometimes the knee is sore the next day.” 

One man who is pleased to see Grace back is probably her boss Keith Boanas, but not for the reasons you might think!

“But it’s great to be back playing after everything that I have been through in the last 18 months or so, it’s just great to be back playing again. I was constantly knocking on Keith’s door nearly every day asking what I could do more as I just wanted to get back playing – it’s all I want to do, help the team and play.” 

“I love playing for him, he is the best manager that I ever played under…I played for him when he was in charge at Welling and I would say that that season was the season I improved most in my career – I was scoring goals, assisting, but I had a bit of an injury there too on my ankle – I am a bit clumsy you see… I love playing for Keith; he cares so much and I think that sometimes people don’t realise he does.”

“I know that after a lot of games, he will just sit there and wonder what he could have done differently.” 

“I watched all the games last season – I was here at the ground all the time and it really was so frustrating that I couldn’t get out on the pitch to help them as we got relegated.”

“I watched with my dad and it was tough, but this season the team that we have this year is twice the team that we had last year, and that’s why we are all so together.” 

“Because I was around during my rehab last year, when I came back this year, I did get some of the girls asking if I had had surgery in the summer, and I had to tell them that I had it last year! – seven or eight months ago, I’ve been out for so long and that was really tough as a lot of what I’ve done was sitting on the floor stretching.”

“I have to be honest that it has been hard coming into full training and getting involved – going to the gym, getting involved in training – everyone has been pushing me to get back and that’s been so good for me, and I hope that they’re now as happy that I am back playing!” 

“We have come a long way this season and have played well since Christmas especially and the players that we have are some of the best in the League and whilst it’s not that we are doing well as a team, we are frustrated that perhaps we are not taking enough of the chances that we are creating, it is frustration at ourselves as we know that we should be scoring more than we are.”

“It is so close at the top of the League and games can come down to fine margins. We know that there will be games where Simone (Eligon – the Chats keeper) will have games where she doesn’t have a lot to do because the backline is so strong at the moment.”

“Some of the “goals” that we pull off in training are unbelievable, but there have been times in matches where we do look maybe shy to have a shot when we shouldn’t be.”