ANTON Dowds insists he’s ready for both the physical and mental challenge of fighting back to full fitness.
Ayr United’s top scorer has seen his season ended by a ruptured cruciate ligament and will this week go under the knife at the hands of one of Britain’s top knee surgeons.
Dowds admits the pain of having his best-ever campaign cut short has been crushing to take, but says the support of his teammates and club is already proving vital in setting him on the road to recovery.
He told the Ayrshire Post: “It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions even in the short time since it happened. After the diagnosis I spent a few days of feeling numb – you have people feeling devastated for you and it’s about getting your head round it.
“I took total confidence from the start to the season – I was top scorer in Scotland at that point and it was the season I had been waiting for. I felt I was going to score every time I played in a team that is always on the front foot and creating chances.
“Unfortunately these things seem to happen when you are at the top of your game, which makes them all the harder to process, but it makes me more determined to get back to that form for next season.”
Dowds was cut down at the peak of his powers after hitting nine goals in 11 games – form which saw him named August’s Championship Player of the Month. But just a few days later disaster struck and Dowds will now undergo surgery in London with the same doc who has pieced together the knees of top stars like Virgil van Dijk.
Dowds, 27, said: “It’s not a nice injury – as players you are so fearful of it. But when you see the kind of guys who’ve had the surgery and come back to play at the top level, it gives you that confidence you will be the same.
“Andy Murdoch, Jamie Murphy and Mikey Devlin have all been through the same thing and they’ve been great with me. The guy I’m going to see in London was actually Jamie’s surgeon, so it’s good to have the peace of mind that you’re in safe hands.
“It’s brilliant to have that support system here at the club and I’ve already been able to talk to those other players and get really good advice on everything from which surgeon to see to which hospital I should go to.
“With the way my personality is and my background in business, I’ve been researching everything and doing as much analysis as I could. It’s important to speak to people who you respect in the game to see how they coped on the same journey.
“This will be the biggest mental challenge I’ve ever had to deal with, but it’s part and parcel of the game and I’m ready for it.”
Dowds has hailed the support which quickly swung into place at Somerset following the news that he would miss the rest of this campaign.
He revealed: “Straight away, one of the first people to text me was the chairman to give me the reassurance that everything would be okay. You hear these scare stories in Scottish football when clubs maybe don’t have the same money that’s going around down south.
“Players down there are on four or five year deals and it’s in a club’s interest to look after them. So you do worry that everything will be okay, but straight away the chairman was on to me saying I would be looked after. When you are sitting devastated straight after the injury, these are the little texts that matter.
“It’s been able to take that extra little bit of weight off my shoulders. Everyone from Stevie our physio to Graeme Mathie the managing director has been brilliant with me in discussing the next steps. Now I just have that focus to get on the road to recovery as quickly as I can.
“Not being part of the team will be very tough mentally, but I will make sure I’m around the dressing room as much as possible and helping the lads in any way I can. I want to still be that team player.”