Rutherglen ace Craig Howie says it was “horrible” having to watch Clyde’s make-or-break final league game of the season against East Fife from the stand, suffering with a broken cheekbone.
But the centre-back says despite Clyde surviving on the final day of the season, the Covid-hit campaign was a nightmare that he wants to put behind him.
Howie, who announced last night that he was leaving Clyde after a two-year spell, had injuries, endured Covid in October, broke his cheekbone in the penultimate League One game against Dumbarton, and says it was awful playing games without fans.
Thankfully for Clyde they beat East Fife 2-1 in their last game to avoid the play-off, but Howie, who underwent an operation last Monday, says it’s a season he is keen to put behind him.
Howie was in the Broadwood stand for that clash against the Methil side and he said: “It was a bit of a nightmare. It was horrible, absolutely horrible, to watch.
“It had been a very tough end of the season schedule, and watching the boys going 1-0 up and playing some of the best football we’ve played in that first half, to then lose the goal early in the second half, I just had a bit of a bad feeling, because it was pretty undeserved.
“But we do know with the quality in the squad we shouldn’t really be at the bottom end of the table where we were, and Goodwillie, as usual, scored a very important goal.
“But watching it from the stand was a horrible experience, considering I had played basically all of the games up until that point.”
Clyde went into hibernation after Christmas with the Covid-enforced lower league shutdown.
The Scottish Government and Scottish FA didn’t lift that suspension until March, which left Clyde having to squeeze 17 games into the final six weeks of the season.
But it’s the after effects of Covid, rather than the exertions of all those matches, that hit Howie hard.
He added: “It’s a season I’d probably like to forget very soon because I’d had a couple of injuries at the start of the season, then I got Covid.
“I was probably one of the first to get it from people I knew. It was at the beginning of October and I really felt it, to be fair.
“I probably felt the effects of it for a good six weeks or so, and even when I went back to football I was a wee bit short of breath and stuff, and two or three weeks after I went back the full team got it, so I was out of action for about eight weeks.
“Then when we got back playing I don’t even know how many games we had in the space of six weeks.
“But there were a lot of away journeys in that, midweek and stuff as well, and to top it off, not having the fans there is a massive loss for Clyde.
“The fans are one of the best things about the club, they’re very vocal, always show up in their numbers, so to have to go through a season without them definitely had a big impact on all the players.
“They really do give us that wee extra five per cent at certain points in games.
“It’s one where I’m glad we stayed in the league but the last year or so has been one I’ll be looking to forget.”
Follow Lanarkshire Live Sport on Twitter via @LanLiveSport, like us on Facebook or find us on Instagram for the latest sports news, pictures and video
