I was covering Pitchside for a men’s 2’s football game.

It was a very quiet game injury-wise and I was only called on to the pitch 2 times on for a slight ankle knock sustained in a 50/50 challenge and another time when a play went down in the final moments of the game to waste time. When going on to pitch for the first injury I went through the ankle movements to check if there was any pain in a specific direction to which there wasn’t, I quickly did some mobilisation work to reduce the pain the player was feeling and he continued to play on in the game. The second time I went on to the pitch the player was complaining of a hamstring cramp to which he informed me wasn’t actually the case when the referee was talking to the captain. The referee asked me to take the player off the pitch, so I took the player behind the goal line and the referee allowed him to come on almost straight away. When the player who sustained an ankle injury was subbed off late in the second half I checked up on him and gave him ice to put on his ankle to reduce any swelling that might happen when he takes off his boot.

I could have brought the player complaining of cramp up the side line for him to be reintroduced to the game in line with the defensive line so he didn’t leave the opposing teams striker onside if they had played the ball through.