“I just felt angry,” Callum Wilson says as he remembers the moment when Bournemouth’s physio delivered the bad news in a hospital waiting room 11 months ago. Wilson had been hoping for the best without much conviction after feeling a familiar twinge in his left knee during a mundane training session but an MRI scan had confirmed the striker’s worst fears.
At first he wondered whether it was a wind-up. Deep down, however, he knew what to expect. “I heard a little pop and I was just like: ‘Yeah,’” Wilson says. “I got it iced. After that it was throbbing. Straight away I was saying I’d done my ACL.”
He took no pleasure from the accuracy of his self-diagnosis. To put it into context, some footballers never make it back from one ruptured anterior cruciate ligament. Wilson had suffered ACL injuries in both knees in the space of 16 months.
His emotions bubbled to the surface. It takes a lot to wipe the smile off Wilson’s face and a conversation with him is peppered with little quips and playful boasts about his goalscoring ability. Shutting him up is usually not an easy task but the physio’s news left him in a daze.
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“As I was driving home I got upset,” the 25-year-old says. “I was punching the hell out of my car and everything. I got home. My wife wasn’t there and I threw my keys through this window and nearly cracked this door. I went upstairs, lay on the bed, got upset and fell asleep. I was sobbing. I was fuming. There were upset tears, tears for how long it was going to take.”
Wilson is engaging company before Sunday’s home game against Arsenal. He is in good spirits, joking that he thought about cancelling this meeting given what happened after we met nearly two and a half years ago.
Call it the interviewer’s curse. After Wilson fought to overcome a tough childhood and a no-frills start to his professional career, there was a buzz around him following Bournemouth’s promotion to the Premier League. He started the season with five goals in seven games and there was talk of an England call-up. The interview was published on 26 September 2015, the day Bournemouth travelled to Stoke City, the same day Wilson was caught by a late tackle from Philipp Wollscheid.
The Stoke fans were booing me. It was poor, booing someone who was injured. I found that disrespectful
“It was nasty,” he says. “As I got up I asked if my leg was broken. They said it wasn’t so I thought: ‘No worries, get me up.’” The Stoke crowd suspected some amateur dramatics. “The fans were booing me. I ran on the second time, went down again and the fans were booing me again. It was poor, booing somebody who was injured. I found that disrespectful.
“It felt like I was winded. I jogged back on and I think the damage was already done because the knee was unstable. It felt like someone had blown my kneecap up with a shotgun.”
He remembers having to be calmed down by his team-mates when Wollscheid boarded Bournemouth’s coach to apologise – he made his peace with the Stoke defender in the end – and drugs masked the pain on the journey home. “Then I go and get my scan done. They tell me it’s my ACL and I was going to be out for six to nine months. I was numb. I’m usually lively but I was lost for words.”
Bournemouth's Callum Wilson and Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu
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Wilson, left, challenges Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu at Stamford Bridge last month. Photograph: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images
Bournemouth struggled without Wilson initially and they signed two strikers, Benik Afobe and Lewis Grabban, in January 2016. Wilson was desperate to make a swift return yet he underestimated the physical and spiritual demands of the recovery process, ignoring warning signs such as soreness in his knee and rejecting Eddie Howe’s offer of a holiday.
“You know what it’s like when you get injured,” Wilson says. “Everyone’s going: ‘How are you, how are you?’ and I feel like you need to walk around with a sign on saying: ‘I’m OK.’ I wanted to be isolated. I knew I’d bring the lads down with my moodiness.
“It was my first season in the Premier League and I wanted to get fit. The manager said: ‘Whenever you want time off just let me know.’ But I knew if I took two weeks off my return would be two weeks later. I put my heart and soul into my rehab, which is why I think I was mentally tired when I did get back. I hadn’t had one holiday to reflect on everything.”
Two weeks is hardly a long time. “You’re right,” Wilson says. “Between the two injuries I was nowhere near the player I was. I just wasn’t Callum Wilson, you know?”
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The doubts crept in. He returned after six months and scored a few goals but his running style was no longer as symmetrical. His team-mates were sensitive enough not to question him when he failed to reach passes but Howe could see Wilson was struggling.
When the second injury arrived, Wilson was no longer a regular. After it, he became more rational. He watched Josh King develop into a goalscorer and Bournemouth sign Jermain Defoe, but he had matured. He listened when new specialists told him to forget about playing again in six months.
“I knew that anger wasn’t going to get me fit,” he says. “That time I was doing so many things different. I was squatting before I’d had my operation. Doing my second ACL was so beneficial. I went on three different holidays. I went to a rehab place in Qatar, then I ended up in Philadelphia. Every six weeks I was trying to have a change of scenery.”
Doing my second ACL was so beneficial. I knew anger wasn't going to get me fit. That time I was doing so many things different
After receiving a supportive message from Alan Shearer, Wilson vowed to prove people wrong. He also wanted his five-year-old son to believe his father is a footballer. “When I was injured he was wearing everyone else’s shirt but mine,” he says. “He liked Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He had Nathan Aké from Bournemouth. One day he said: ‘Daddy, I want a Josh King shirt.’”
Wilson, who has scored six goals this season, bursts into laughter. “Now he wants to get my card in the Match Attax because he can’t get hold of them at all. He’s buying hundreds of packets and he can’t seem to find me.”
It all seems like a valuable learning experience. Wilson knows more about his body – out of concern, he questions why Ibrahimovic returned so quickly from his ACL injury – and has discovered how to keep setbacks in perspective.
He took it slowly, starting his coaching badges, regaining sharpness in under-21 games and accepting Howe’s decision not to risk him at first. He made his comeback in a Carabao Cup tie against Middlesbrough in October, scoring a penalty in a 3-1 win, and a month later his son told him to score four goals in a home game against Huddersfield Town.
“I ended up scoring three and thought that would have to do,” Wilson says. “I felt like I was back. There were no more injuries, no more playing in the shadow of myself. I thought: ‘Callum’s back.’”