IF IT’S A good week Luke Byrne will need to visit a sports clinic just once to have 25 milliliters of fluid drained from each of his knees.
There will be times when two visits are required.
The Shelbourne captain has osteoarthritis – the most common form of arthritis – and it’s a condition which accelerated over the last 12 months having undergone surgeries on both knees when he was 19 and 21.
He was unable to take part in the club’s pre-season and the defender explains how 45 per cent of the cartilage has been removed from the joint in each leg, meaning bone on bone friction is now a constant issue.
“Basically, the joint is cracked and it just spits fluid all of the time,” Byrne says.
It’s why manager Damien Duff will joke that his skipper looks “100-years-old” if he sees him on a Monday or Tuesday, yet his admiration was evident when Byrne signed a contract for this season. “It is very easy to sum him up,” Duff began. “He is the best captain I have ever worked with. Full stop.”
Byrne accepts that he will eventually need two knee replacements and will have to retire from playing far sooner than he would have liked.
He has featured in 11 of Shels’ 15 games this season – their 10 goals conceded and seven clean sheets mean they have the joint best defensive record in the Premier Division along with Derry City – and the Dubliner chuckles when he describes hobbling around his home “wrapped in bandages like a mummy” after having his knees pierced with a syringe and drained each week.
“That’s the thing when you’re in pain and your brain is telling you not to do it, but when there is a striker in front of you or a ball [there] you just have to do it. It’s your instincts,” he reasons.
Byrne is still only 29.
He doesn’t turn 30 until the summer, and when he does have to call time he will not be afforded the luxury of being able to rest his aching body in comfort.
More work beckons.
“I don’t really care about knee replacements or lack of mobility when I’m older if I can just get as much out of my career while I can,” he says.
“Probably a similar attitude to the manager, he would have spoken to me about the end of his career.
He knew he was going to suffer when he retired with the injuries he was playing with, but your career is so short he was adamant in his decision to keep playing. That’s how I would be.
“I wouldn’t hang around as a captain who is there in the background blocking a young player coming through,” Byrne adds.
“There is also a decision to be made, you give so much of your life to get out there, to play on a Friday. There comes a point where you see how much enjoyment you are getting out of it but I’m definitely not at that stage yet.
“My mam learned a long time ago that I won’t listen to her when it comes to football but I know what she would probably rather me do. She would rather wrap me in cotton wool and just have a normal life, be able to walk the dog and all that kind of thing, but football has always been the priority for me so I’m willing to suffer the consequences.”
Byrne also credits Duff’s assistant, Joey O’Brien, for being able to prolong his career.
“He brought me out on the pitch for 45 minutes before training [on Tuesday] and did a very specific session with me because he knows as a centre-back what movements I need to be able to do, what positions I need to be able to go into, 90 degrees for me now is very difficult, so I need to be able to come from different positions,” he adds.
“Even gym work, he knows what helped him, what I can do, so without Joey I would be in much worse place definitely. Jumping isn’t the biggest problem, it’s turning really, pushing off the outside, to go that way (indicates right), pushing off that leg (left).
“Hopefully Eoin Doyle is not listening to this,” Byrne laughs ahead of tonight’s clash with St Patrick’s Athletic. “I’m not afraid of talking about it, I don’t really care.
“I feel like I’m still playing well so I don’t care if people know about the injuries at this stage. I probably would have hid them before but now I don’t really care.”
The Saints visit Tolka Park for a Dublin derby that has been re-ignited in recent years. Shels are fifth in the table, one point and one place above their rivals from across the city.
“For me now, it’s the biggest derby of the Dublin ones. And I wouldn’t have said that, probably until last season. The Bohs one looks after itself. Obviously the [Shamrock] Rovers one is still a big game, with history and tradition and stuff.
“But Pat’s for me has taken on the mantle as the biggest Dublin derby, probably just because of the flashpoints in the games between us – the sendings off, 4-4, late goals, celebrations, things said – it’s just been like a domino every time we play them which is great, I think the league needs storylines like that. It’s a game to really look forward to.
It’s what the fans want. I’ve seen it in years gone by, I think it’s actually changed a bit but you go to play a game and half the team is hugging the other team before a game. I would hate if I was watching Man United and it was like that so I feel like the league has come away from that a little bit.
“I feel even in the last couple of years there’s a lot more mouthing on the pitch and stuff like that which I didn’t experience in the league a few years ago, not just the Pat’s v Shels game, I’ve felt it in nearly all the games I think.
“There is more needle around the league now. For me, I will always shake their hand after the match. We have this image of pissing everyone off and I think the lads love it.”
