After sitting out of football for nearly a whole season, things are still not looking good for Darren Fletcher and his return to football. Despite resting for a year, Fletcher’s illness is still causing significant problems and Sir Alex is unfortunately unsure about his future. Although nothing is written off yet, the fact even Sir Alex is seemingly pessimistic about his chances certainly isn’t good news. Fletcher suffers from ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease and, as you can see from the picture of him at Wimbledon earlier in the week [above], it really is having an effect on him.
“We’ll wait and see about that. Obviously the boy is trying very hard to get back to his level” said Sir Alex when questioned about Fletcher. “It’s not going to be easy but we’ll give him every possible chance and we’ll see how he does. He kept himself active towards the end of the season when he replaced Paul Scholes as a reserves coach when Scholes decided to come back to the fold as a player. Darren’s a terrific lad and we all hope he can come back.” I still hold hope over Fletcher but there are rumours from within the club that he might be forced to retire, and when coupled with these latest quotes you certainly start to wonder that they might be true. Lets just hope not.
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Fletcher took time out in the first place because the intensely high level of fitness caused his condition to worsen. He returned, after getting it to a position of some control, only to be very poor on the pitch. His style is tenacious and persistent. He’s a workhorse player. Without the same level of fitness as he used to have, he was very much out of his depth. He knows that and so do we. He also knows, as does Fergie, that he just cannot beat this/cure the problem and will have to resign himself to retirement. Fortunately, there’s the spot for reserves coaching, and the youth will benefit from his attitude and loyalty to the club.
I have to say that I don’t hold much hope for him. I hope he’ll battle through it but, if I’m honest, I think his condition is only going to get worse. We’ll have to see but it’ll be terrible to see him go.
Colitis “does not get worse” or better. It’s a condition that changes your life forever. Even if you get into remission, there is no guarantee it won’t return in a week, month or 20 years. Basically it changes your entire eating habits, you lose weight (I lost 40kg in a year), you get chronic anemia and usually you can only cure it with iron infusions. For a professional footballer to get back to sport after 6 month long flair is basically impossible. And all that is just in addition to the constant need to go to the toilet, shitting your pants if there is no toilet around, etc.