It’s great news that Rhys Williams will be back in competitive action on Monday.
He’s had a horrendous year and must be massively relieved to see the light at the end of a very long tunnel.
An Under-21 game against Aston Villa isn’t the Boro first team, but it shows he’s not too far away.
I know Rhys really well from my time at Boro and he’s a quality player.
If I were a centre-back at the club, I would be looking over my shoulder because when they see how good Williams is on the training ground, they’ll recognise a quality player.
I feel for Rhys because I know what he’s been going through since he suffered a torn Achilles tendon in a game against Wigan in January.
I was sidelined for almost an entire year when I was injured on New Year’s Day 1985.
It was a Tyne-Wear derby at St James’ Park and I was playing for Sunderland.
I remember over-reaching for the ball and feeling a massive pain in my groin.
As you do, I tried to play on and that just made things worse.
It was an awful day, we lost 3-1 and Peter Beardsley scored a hat-trick.
I don’t think I went back with the team after the match, I jumped in the car and went home to Middlesbrough with my wife.
At the time I didn’t realise how serious it was. I thought I would be back in three or four weeks, but I ended up not playing again until December 14.
I had an awful time and so did the team. We were relegated from the old Division One and I could do nothing to help the lads.
In the League Cup, however, we went all the way to the final.
It was terrible having to watch the lads from the stands and I tried everything in my power to play at Wembley.
I asked the club doctor to give me the biggest possible cortisone injection hoping it would enable me to play against Norwich City in the final.
We know now that too much cortisone is a very bad thing but I was that desperate.
Of course, it didn’t work, and as the injury was in a sensitive, fleshy part of the body so it just made things worse.
The day of the final was one of the worst of my life. It was a massively emotional day and I struggled to keep it together.
I remember travelling up Wembley Way on the team bus and the Sunderland fans walking up to the stadium were holding up their kids to get a better look at the players.
They were waving and cheering and wishing us well but I was just a bystander.
I thought my chance of playing in a Wembley final had gone for good - it broke my heart.
Many players never get the chance to play at the famous old venue and there was no guarantee that I would ever get another chance.
As it happens I captained Boro in the Zenith Data Systems final against Chelsea in 1990, so that was a huge honour.
But I didn’t know that when Sunderland ran out against Norwich almost 30 years ago.
The game was moderate and Norwich won but we still had a post-match reception. I held it together all day but broke down completely on the night, I was so emotional.
Being out for so long is an absolute sickener but, with hindsight, I think I benefited from it in the long run.
It made me appreciate just how lucky I was to play football for a living.
I guess before the injury I had been taking may career for granted.
Suddenly, at the age of 25, it was possible I would never play again and that was a frightening prospect.
Being injured is incredibly tedious and frustrating, especially when you don’t know when you will be fit again.
I didn’t have an accurate recovery date, so I didn’t have something to aim towards, it was an open-ended thing and I just kept receiving setbacks, breaking down time and again.
You certainly miss the crack with the lads.
You come in on a morning, see them for a few minutes when you get changed and then head off in different direction.
They would go out into the training ground while you had to trudge off to a cold gymnasium for rehab work. It’s a very solitary existence and it seemed to go on forever.
I hated watching the first team from the stands at Roker Park, especially as we were really struggling, it was a double whammy.
That said, when I returned to the first team in December 1985 I was absolutely flying.
I felt fantastic and had a great second-half of the season, unlike the team.
I must have been playing well because I was voted third in the North-east Football Writer’s Player of the Year awards, which is good going considering I missed the first four months of the season or so.
It wasn’t a good season for Sunderland, though, because we were relegated to the old third division and I left early the next season, signing for Sheffield Wednesday.
Boro seem to be doing well without Rhys but I think Aitor Karanka will be delighted to have such a talented player at his disposal, it will be like having a new signing at the club.
When Tony Mowbray was manager, we debated long and hard about Rhys’s best position.
He could play in midfield and in defence, but I think we concluded that centre-back suited him best.
We liked to play the ball out from the back and having someone like Rhys, who is so good in possession, was a huge advantage.
I’m not sure the Aitor likes to play would necessarily suit the classy Aussie. I certainly don’t see him playing as one of the two holding midfielders in place of Adam Clayton or Grant Leadbitter.
He can play in a midfield diamond, so he’s still a useful asset, but I think defence is his most likely position in Karanka’s team.
Some of the newer lads maybe don’t know just how good Rhys is, but now he’s training with the first team they’ll soon find out.
His presence will keep the other central-defenders on their toes, they won’t like him breathing down their necks and that can only improve standards in the squad, which already look extremely high.
It’s easy to forget that we had offers from Premier League clubs for him so he’s highly-rated within the game.
