Gillingham striker Oli Hawkins is looking forward to the weekend’s trip to Accrington Stanley as the big striker continues his return to the starting line-up and full fitness after an injury ravaged first half to the season. 

Talking to KSN this week, in an amazingly frank discussion about his struggles, Hawkins has been talking to us about the first half of the season and his hopes for 2024.  

“It’s the strangest thing that I’ve ever gone through in my career!” Hawkins admitted.

“I had a problem in my foot at the start of pre-season. It is something that you can play with – I tried to; I tried to train and play, but every time I did, I just made it worse and damaged it even more.”

“It just got to the point where two months in, three months in, I had damaged it so much that I had to sit out completely!”

“The problem had been that I never really sat out as I was also trying to train on it to see how it was – I didn’t want to stop; I didn’t want to really sit down and rest, but unfortunately in doing that I damaged it so much that eventually I had to be told to stop and come off the foot completely for six plus weeks and only then rebuild it and hopefully,” he added, touching wood as he said, “I’ve got to the stage now where I can play and manage it feeling good.”

“It is not one hundred percent – it is an injury that can stick with you for years; it could go tomorrow so at the moment; I am getting through it and not thinking about it hopefully moving on from it to hopefully enjoy the second half of the season.” 

“I think I first really noticed that I had a problem on the second day of pre-season training. There is no guarantee where, but coming into training with a new pair of boots after maybe wearing a certain shoe or croc during the summer and then putting on new boots and running in a certain way just aggravated what was already there.”

“Just me putting my best in damaged it really – it gave me a strange feeling in my foot, and I knew I had done something, but I trained anyway, but after playing forty-five minutes at Dover pre-season I was in so much pain.”

“We then went to Como and kept training as I had iced it or strapped it up, but it was in that game when I came off with twenty minutes left which was the first time the sensation was like a tear where I had been jumping for the ball and really knew that something had happened.”

“It felt like I was walking with a stone under my heel, so every time I put my heel down, it hurt more and more. Every time I sprung off it hurt but my problem was that I got to the stage where daily it would get better, and I would not feel it that much until I went to run or jog.”

“Every time I planted my foot, that tearing feeling was there and it was then I told myself that I cannot play until I do not feel that feeling – but that feeling lasted four/five months!” 

“It was really hard looking back at some moments, and one was trying to start a “B” team game against Millwall. It is easy to say it now, but when you want to get back and are trying to get in the team, you cannot and do not say no – you try to give it a go.”

“But I think that game – I had trained that week; again, was not fully one hundred percent, but I thought that I could do thirty or forty minutes.”

“But after five/ten minutes I knew that I could not! What football does for you is that at times you can forget you are playing a game, and you do something completely different… and that is what I did.”

“I stretched for a ball and completely forgot about the pain in my foot, and I damaged it even more. That is the point I damaged it the most and that is when I had to come off.”

“And it was at that point that it hit me the most emotionally because I thought I had been that close to coming back even though deep down I knew that I was not really ready to play – it was a tough ride, it really was.” 

“It is so much better playing than being injured, though that is what any footballer will tell you. You miss it so much when you have been out as long as I was.”

“I did not think I would miss it in the first couple of weeks, but after a while, you do miss it so much as there is no better feeling than playing football!” 

“It has been great to have the fans backing – I just want to try my hardest for them, my team and myself and luckily so far since I came back, they have backed me and I’ve “just” to try and repay them going forward.” 

“At the moment, we are in a position where automatic (promotion) may not look on, but the Play Offs places are definitely on, so who knows?”

“A good run could get us automatic still; we have the players and the squad capable of doing it, we need a good end of the season and have to focus and concentrate!”