Celtic star Ryan Christie admits he had fears over his eyesight when he suffered a horror head injury against Aberdeen.
The midfielder had a clash of heads with former Dons midfielder Dom Ball during the Scottish Cup semi-final in April 2019.
It was a horror injury that saw him needing surgery and the concussion that it left him with left him struggling for months after the knock.
But it was the days after the injury happened that he had his fears over his eyesight after undergoing tests in the hospital.
He revealed he couldn't see out of his left eye for almost a full week following the incident and doctors couldn't commit to him being able to play for Celtic or Scotland again.
Christie told the My Sporting Mind podcast: "It's probably one of the scariest experiences I've had.
"Straight away you're just concerned about your health, you kind of forget football at that point. Obviously my eyesight was the biggest thing.
"I had four or five days where I couldn't see out of my left eye at all and I was doing optical tests, the way doctors are they never want to tell you 100 per cent it's going to go back to normal.
"So there was always that seed of doubt that it might not be the same, and after that I had the operation.
"I had a horrible concussion which, again, is an injury in sport where you can't see it. It was crazy, just trying to play cards with my family and looking at a set of cards in front of me not being able to read the numbers.
"If I watched the TV for more than 10 minutes you'd have to turn it off because it was too much, even simple questions.
"After the operation I went to stay with my family back in Inverness and I remember my mum asking me if I was ok, if I wanted a glass of juice or something.
"It was taking me like 10-20 seconds to process this question. I remember my dad called the surgeon a week later asking, 'is this ok? He's just not himself'.
"It is just that concussion thing, and the scary thing is you can't see it first and foremost so you don't know if it's healing or not, and you don't know what the time frame is.
"That was something crazy to go through, and I obviously understand (now) how serious an injury it is."
The links between head injuries in football and dementia have been increasing in recent years and Christie admits he's worried about it.
But while he has concerns about himself after the head injury, it's his team-mates who head the ball a lot he's even more concerned about.
He added: "It’s something that when I was growing up, it wasn’t spoken about at all. There was zero conversation on it.
"When it does start coming up and people start making the links you wonder ‘Why has it taken so long for this to be noticed’.
"It’s worrying for me. I’ve had a bad facial knock but apart from that, I’m not heading the ball too much but I look at some of the defenders I’ve played with in the past who just throw their bodies on the line and heading a ball 10/20 times a game.
"It is quite scary. You don’t want to speak to them about it but you wonder if they’ve had the worries in the back of their head that there will be long lasting effects.
"I remember people speaking about taking heading out of football at a young age and discourage it a bit.
"It’s a great idea but it’s so hard to coach someone not to do it because it comes so natural.
"I don’t envy the people at the top trying to make changes but it is something that needs to be looked at."
