Former Blues loanee Josh Harrop has admitted he should never have joined Town for his spell in the second half of 2020/21 having failed a medical due to an ongoing injury from which his career never recovered.
Harrop, now 29, signed on loan for the Blues, then in mid-table in League One and with Paul Lambert in charge, from Preston North End in January 2021 but went on to make only three starts - one of which was significantly curtailed when he was sent off in the 3-0 defeat at AFC Wimbledon in the 28th minute - and 12 sub appearances during a miserable spell for both player and club.
Speaking to The Game’s Gone podcast, Harrop, says he suffered an injury not long after signing a new Preston contract in August 2020.
"I think I signed a new deal, three years, then got this injury which was so strange - a tendon injury behind my knee, where your hamstring attaches,” he said.
"I just remember feeling it one day and played on it for a couple of months, but it was sore. It was just never going away. The physios were telling me it was just fluid behind my knee - they couldn’t really work out what it was.
"That is when I went on loan to Ipswich and they knew about the issue. They scanned me and I failed a medical at Ipswich for this issue.
"They wanted to sign me anyway. Looking back, I should never have gone. I should’ve recovered the issue. I knew I wasn’t right, I knew I wasn’t properly fit. I went there for six months. It was a bit of a mess.
"After I came back I said to the physios at Preston that I couldn’t play on this anymore. I was training, coming home and couldn’t really walk. I just couldn’t shake it off.
"When I came back for pre-season I said I wasn’t training until it was right. I think they thought I was lying or making out that the issue was worse than it was.
"I’d seen all the specialists in Manchester, I went to a specialist in London. The guy said he had only seen it in five or six athletes. The hamstring tendon had thickened and every time my knee extended, it flicked against a bone which caused it to be inflamed.
"Honestly, from taking five months off [training], it didn’t feel any better. Come to January, I had not really trained for four or five months. The club said I was running again and I needed to go and play on loan. I think I’d trained a week. In my head I was just thinking, ‘This injury is not getting any better, I need to play’. It was the last day of the window and my agent said Fleetwood would take me.
"This is where I probably messed up in my career. I should’ve just dealt with this at the time but as a player, you’re eager to play. I went to Fleetwood, trained on the Friday - my first intense session in five months - and then I started on the Saturday.
"I took a corner and just felt it [my hamstring] rip one minute into the game. I was out for 12 weeks and at that stage I looked at my mum and dad in the crowd. They were crying, I was crying, I was just mentally drained at that point. I couldn’t even walk, I was on crutches.
"That was a dark time for me because the mental weight of this tendon pain before I’d even gone on this loan. My day-to-day life was getting ruined, I couldn’t have fun anymore. I remember saying to my dad that I might just have to give up. I couldn’t shake it off.”
On his return to Preston, he was made to train on his own as the club had decided he should move on despite having a year left on his contract.
"I was coming in at five o’clock and my brain was battered from the last two years anyway, so mentally drained,” he added. "I turned up first session and the physio was like: ‘I think you’ve just got to do it yourself’.
"I was there at five o’clock, they didn’t leave anything out for me and the ball rooms were locked. I couldn’t even get a ball or cone out. I understand why they do it but I needed support more than anything - not to be training on a pitch with no equipment.
"I ended up speaking to my agent; I did it for a few days. I was setting my own sessions up, looking on YouTube at ball sessions and what I could do to stay fit. There was nobody ever there.
"I had to go because you are contracted to train. If they set you a time for it you have to go for it; it is your job. If you don’t go in they can basically sack you. They were pushing me out but not in the right way, not in the nicest of ways.”
Harrop eventually left Preston in September 2022 after the remaining months of his contract were settled. He joined Northampton on a short-term deal in December 2022, making two sub appearances, before a spell out of the game prior to signing for Cheltenham in January last year and making one start and 12 sub appearances before leaving at the end of the campaign.
Latterly, the one-time Manchester United trainee and England U20 international has been playing for FC Rules the World in the six-a-side indoor Baller League.