Today’s Saturday morning match was away at Ivybridge Community College against Plymouth Argyle Academy. Once I had driven there, I met up with the coaches and the players outside the changing room and waited for all the players to arrive. Today I had help with a Masters’ student from Marjon University which was very helpful due to having to be a therapist to 4 different groups/teams. There were two age groups at Ivybridge CC today; U9’s and U10’s which were then split into two groups in both age groups, creating 4 teams altogether.

Today the match consisted of 4 20-minute intervals. In the first and second interval there were no injuries that occurred. During the third interval a player went down with an ankle injury, I needed to wait a few seconds to see if he would ‘bounceback’ which he did, however, he came straight off the pitch and came to me. I checked his range of movement; actively, passively and also resisted which all seemed ‘normal’ I asked him what his pain was out of 10 and he said it was down to a 2/10 so I allowed him back on the pitch after he said he felt fine to continue.  5-Minutes later another player went down from falling on his elbow after jumping up to attack the ball into their goal. He was a little shook up- mentally felt like something was wrong, after I calmed him down, I asked him if he could move his forearm which he did. I then passively checked his ROM while checking for any contusions or abrasions that needed general first aid. All was fine, he shook it off and kept playing.

In the last 5-minutes of the final interval, a player went down from full contact onto his knee. I went onto the pitch and helped him off the pitch on the other side so I could assist him fully. Before moving the player off the pitch, I looked for any red flags (mainly any broken bones) and I asked if he could move off the pitch with my assistance. I checked the players ROM ensuring all was not reduced (which it wasn’t), I asked him how he felt and he said he wanted to stand up to try and walk it off. I helped him to his feet, he put pressure through to his foot and seemed to have regained confidence in his leg again before the injury happened, he thanked me for my help and jumped off (literally!).