When Louise Corrigan finally takes to the field for her new club, DLR Waves, it will bring to an end an long and arduous struggle with what was once a career-ending injury.
The defender has spent the bulk of the past 12 months on the sidelines after tearing her cruciate and medial knee ligaments, and her meniscus, in a training ground accident at Peamount United.
Lesser injuries have seen footballers call it quits, though in Corrigan’s case, missing out on a second Women’s National League title and a Champions League adventure were tough enough.
Corrigan, a Spanish and Geography teacher as St Colmcille’s Community School in Knocklyon, lost her summer holidays with the injury and missed two months of work following successive surgeries.
She made the move closer to home with UCD-based Waves in the off-season, needing a change of scenery as much as anything, but expects to finally return to the pitch at some stage during this campaign.
“For an athlete, it’s the worst injury you can get,” the Jobstown native tells Mirror Sport.
“Just doing your ACL isn’t as bad as doing your ACL, your meniscus and your MCL. I’m ten months post-surgery, so I’m doing really well to get to the stage I’m at.
“It’s a bit of bad luck, but I do feel could I have prevented it at the start? Did I go into training a bit lax and get injured by jumping a bit mad into tackles?
“Maybe I wasn’t looking at strength and conditioning enough to keep my legs a bit stronger than they were.
“I’ve learned so much about myself since the injury, about myself as a player and as a person, so it probably needed to happen to me, even though I hated it.”
Self-discovery has always been interlinked with football for Corrigan who, uniquely in the domestic league, has played at the top level in Spain.
She spent a season with La Liga’s Sevilla in 2013-14, playing against the likes of Melanie Serrano, who this year helped Barcelona lift the Champions League for the first time.
She signed up again for the following season, and could have stayed as the league went fully professional, but opted instead to travel more as she had her heart set on teaching.
“I wanted to go into teaching, but I knew teaching a language you need to go abroad and learn a bit more, so I chose Seville for a year.
“I was playing up front and I wasn’t performing well because it’s not my position. I sensed they were thinking that too, so at one training session I told them I was a defender.
“They were laughing and asking why didn’t I tell them sooner? That week I was up to the first team and eventually signed for the first team after a week.
“It was a great experience playing in that league, one of the top leagues in Europe, against that level of player – it was unexpected but I’m glad I got it.
“I wasn’t really thinking of football as a career. I knew I wanted to do the masters’ but I wanted to travel a bit more and enjoy my time.”
