Gillingham's Alex MacDonald on the right path after tough times recovering from serious knee injury

Gillingham midfielder Alex MacDonald is on the road to recovery after emerging from the toughest time of his career.

His last game for the club came on October 9 as a serious knee injury threatened to end his playing days. He now faces a crucial summer as he looks to get back in shape for pre-season.

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The 32-year-old suffered a lateral meniscus tear in a knee and remained in pain after surgery. It was an injury that even the specialists admitted was unusual.

He underwent platelet rich plasma treatment, where they took blood from his arm, spun it and returned it to his bones, which is hopefully the answer to his problems.

He’s been back running on the grass and working hard in the gym in the hope that his playing career still has several more years to run.

“It has been really difficult, probably the hardest spell of my career, mentally,” admitted MacDonald.

“With the injury, the season we have had, watching from the sides and not being able to help, it has been really difficult, really hard.

“There have been a lot of dark times about whether I was going to play again or not.

“But over the last four to six weeks I have really turned a corner and I am back out on the grass, starting to do some straightline running, jumping, hopping - all that kind of thing. It seems to finally be going in the right direction rather than having setback after setback like it had been.

“It will be massive, personally, just to come back from injury. There have been so many times I nearly gave up and I have had different specialists saying this is my last chance, they can’t do anything more, surgically.

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