Boro striker on road to recovery after horror challenge

BORO striker Charlie Griffin is looking forward to pre-season training after recovering from a horrific facial injury in the FA Trophy final earlier this month.

The Boro front man was left with a fractured cheekbone and broken nose after Robin Hulbert’s challenge in the FA Trophy final for which the Barrow man was banned for four games.

There were suggestions Griffin would be left needing an operation to his face following the injury but the striker told The Comet there were too many risks involved and doctors advised allowing the injury to heal without the need to go under the knife.

“I didn’t have the operation as there were a few risks involved with it,” Griffin said yesterday (Wednesday).

“They did some x-rays and it was still swollen quite a bit around where the fracture was and it had gone down a bit but where they were planning on doing an incision just under the eyelid there was the risk of getting a blood clot into the eye and other complications which could have even led to blindness in the eye so it was agreed to let it heal naturally.”

Griffin was discharged from hospital and told to let the injury heal at home, so he missed Boro’s open top bus ride to celebrate their promotion to the Football League which took place the day after the Wembley final.

“I was told to take it easy and I was in no state to go out and celebrate with the team.

“My face is still numb, my cheekbone is numb on the side and that could take a year to 18 months to get back to normal, or the worst case scenario is that the feeling could not come back.

“I’ve had lots of phone calls from people to see how I’m doing but I was in bed through all the celebrations so I missed all of them.

“I’ve had a text and call (from Hulbert) but I’ve not really spoken to him.

“I haven’t seen the challenge and I just want to concentrate on getting back into training in a week or so and prepare for the new season.”

The aim of every promoted team is to avoid relegation the next season, but Griffin, who has had a 12 month option on his contract taken up, believes Boro have what it takes to do more than simply avoid the drop.

“That’s the aim of every team, to stay up, but with the team we have we want to push on and to keep the momentum from last season going and have a good run in League Two,” he said.

“Everyone has been looking forward to it since we beat Kiddie to secure promotion and it’s a great feeling to be back playing League football again.

“It’s not going to be easy but we’ve got nothing to fear next year and I hope we have a really good season.”