Darren Fletcher

meteormaker wrote:Not good, not good. SAF better dig into the Glazers' pockets now. Anyway, good luck Darren, you're an important part of United's midfield.

Irish_Catalan_Scouser wrote:

meteormaker wrote:Not good, not good. SAF better dig into the Glazers' pockets now. Anyway, good luck Darren, you're an important part of United's midfield.

He'll probably sign a winger

"Fletcher misses rest of season

Manchester United released the following statement this evening (Thursday)...

Darren Fletcher will be unavailable for the remainder of this season having undergone surgery to resolve his Ulcerative Colitis condition.

We wish to stress this was a planned procedure undertaken at the optimal time having achieved a period of sustained good general health, as illustrated by the fact that Darren has trained with the team regularly this season and been available for selection right up to the operation.

Whilst it is frustrating for both Darren and the Club that he won’t be able to contribute further during this campaign, this decision has been taken with our full support in the best interests of his long-term health and we look forward to him returning next season with this problem firmly behind him.

We would be grateful if his privacy could be respected at this time and in the coming months in order to aid his recuperation."

'If it wasn't for surgery, I could be dead'


Back after a life-threatening illness, Darren Fletcher is glad to be raising awareness, and his own performance levels

Darren Fletcher just didn’t like the stat. A doctor’s leaftlet outlined the risk of spinal damage if he had an epidural. “It was one in 500,000 or something,” he says. “Massively against. But I recognised the number. It was similar to the ratio of people who suffer ulcerative colitis.” So, he decided to have major bowel surgery without pain relief. Three times.

Only when Fletcher takes you through his story does the extreme mental toughness become clear. Only when you hear the gory, life-or-death details of tackling extreme colitis do you appreciate what sufferers go through, what families go through. And how useful that Fletcher takes Scottish matter-of-factness to the nth degree. “Get on with it,” is a stock phrase.

“I don’t want any sympathy from anyone,” he asserts. Now he is back on the pitch and in health, at last, after three and a half years of debilitating struggle, the pressure is coming from his twin boys Jack and Tyler, seven. “They ask why I’m not playing more. I have to explain that. Why’s my Fifa [video game] rating so low? Why’s my Match Attack card rating so low? I’ve got to deal with all of this now,” he grins.

If Fletcher had his way he would just play football. No interviews. Certainly no photoshoots on a balcony at Carrington with teammates walking by. But he feels “a responsibility” to use his example to help the UK’s 260,000 sufferers from colitis and the associated condition, Crohn’s disease. On Thursday, at Old Trafford, he is hosting a dinner in aid of United for Colitis, his fundraising initiative.

Fletcher is dreading the speech because it could take him into touchy-feely territory. There are so many people he wants to thank: his wife, Hayley; his parents; teammates; Sir Alex Ferguson; David Gill; friends doing a charity bike ride from Edinburgh to be there; Pete Sagar, the specialist in Leeds who did those epidural-free operations. The last, in August, finally freed him from illness. “He’s a hero to me,” Fletcher says. “He’s the man who saved my life, career, however you want to put it.”

Back in 2006-7 health worries were for other people. Fletcher was flying. An emerging force in a young United team en route to the title, he didn’t think much after a prolonged stomach upset and seeing traces of blood and mucus in his faeces. It was the first attack of ulcerative colitis. His parents read up on the disease. “But I was blasé. A little immature. I took some pills and it went away. I was playing in the Premier League, fit as a fiddle, didn’t want to show weakness.”

Fletcher regrets not taking that attack more seriously. Most colitis sufferers can control it through medication: Sir Steve Redgrave and Lewis Moody are sporting examples. “My advice would be to realise how devastating an illness it can be and try and nip it in the bud. Keep taking your medication even if you’re feeling fine. Because it does creep up on you and, as I found, once it gets to a certain level there’s no controlling it.”

The symptoms returned in September 2010 — with full force this time. Severe colitis sufferers might visit the toilet 30 times a day and can lose so much blood and fluid they periodically need hospital and a drip. That was Fletcher. Scary? “Oh yeah. It got really scary at points. More for my family. Looking back, Hayley was a saint.

“I wasn’t a good person to be around. I put on a brave face at training but not always at home. Being around the house [and not playing] I took all my frustration out on her.” He tried dietary changes and then medications. The sideeffects “were not so much depression but that real low. You don’t want to see anybody, even your wife and kids. The drugs numb you.”

He would have settled for recovering enough just to be a dad again. “The boys were too young to understand. We could always make up a story [to hide he was going to hospital]. I was on many a coaching trip.

“I’d be off on a Sunday and they’d go to their Little Kickers [class]. I’d want to give my wife a lie-in but find it wasn’t possible for me to get them ready and out of the door. A few times I’ve had to come back in, wake Hayley and say, ‘I can’t do it’. That’s literally getting in my car, making it 50 yards down the street and having to turn back.

“When they played ... you know what it’s like when there are 20 pitches and they’re on the pitch furthest away [from the changing rooms and a toilet]. I couldn’t go. But it gave me even more determination to beat it. Just to stand by a pitch. Take them to school. That would have been worth all the treatment.”

Fletcher was unlucky. No drugs worked. For six months he did not train or play. That didn’t work. He delayed surgery to give every last drug a go. “Your operation is a last resort. There’s no going back. It’s when you’ve tried all medications and your quality of life is almost non-existent. Potentially you can die [from colitis]. People do, if you keep letting your body poison yourself. The only thing that controls it at that point is steroids, very high doses, and the doctors said if I tried that my body would shut down.

"Your bowel can explode because it’s so inflamed and under such pressure. That’s what they were worried about with me. I could be driving up the motorway to Edinburgh, my bowel could perforate and I’d have no chance.”

He was ready for the knife, positive, believed surgery would work. Drawing on a sportsman’s mindset, he made it “me versus colitis. I didn’t want to let this stop me. I worked hard to become a professional. My family sacrificed a lot. I wasn’t about to give up on that lightly.”

A funny thing: when he was ill but still trying to play, those minutes on the pitch were the only time he felt symptom-free. But the days after games were bleak, wiped out. “Was it worth it? Always. I was playing for Manchester United.”

Ferguson was “honestly ... more than a manager. He was a different level. I was conscious of contracts. I went to him and said, ‘I’m ill and not playing . . .’ He looked at me like I was mental. He said forget about football. Just get well for your kids and your family. I was listening and he was saying it ... but there’s a football pitch behind him, through his window. And I can see all his trophies and his pictures. I’m thinking, ‘Forget about football?!’”

They agreed, for a while, to hide the condition from teammates. “To avoid, ‘Why’s he playing? He’s ill’. We’d see if the medication worked.”

In the end, at dinner with the squad after a defeat in Basel in 2011, Fletcher came clean. Ever since, teammates have been supportive. He expected far more banter. “A real sensitive bunch of lads here,” he laughs. He also jokes that at least all the years of toilet dashes were “maybe good for my sharpness”.

He is blown away by the generosity of colleagues. Michael Carrick’s brother-in-law, a singer, is providing entertainment on Thursday. Carrick, Wayne Rooney and Jonny Evans are auctioning the chance to play golf with them. Other players are auctioning use of Old Trafford boxes. “I didn’t expect anything else from Manchester United,” says Fletcher. “This is a special place.”

He woke from his final operation to hear, through a haze, television commentary of England v Scotland. He would have captained Scotland. Four weeks later he was back in training and in December returned to the first team as a substitute in a win at Aston Villa. “I’m getting there,” he says. “I’m feeling stronger and fitter all the time. I don’t want this to sound cocky, but I’ve actually surprised myself in the few [11] games I’ve played, how well I’ve done.

“I’m the same as any player who hasn’t played for 18 months and missed the last three pre-seasons. I can’t wait for this pre-season. I’m going to train hard all summer. I have good weights and dietary programmes to get my strength back. David Moyes has been great but I feel like I’m starting my career again, like I’m 19, coming into the team, new manager. Every little opportunity, every training session I have to prove what I can do.”

Last week Fletcher helped to steady United in the nervy final minutes against Olympiakos. United’s senior players see this as a time to step forward — off the pitch, too.

“The team don’t like what’s happening this season. The biggest thing, and I felt it, there’s been no real celebration since Olympiakos. No, ‘Wow, we’re back’. There’s a lot of work to do. At the end of the game it was, ‘Listen lads, we’ve done nothing’. We’re in the Champions League but our league position doesn’t give us any right to make out we’re back.”But Fletcher is. Thinking of what he used to tell his boys he laughs. “The ‘coaching courses’, they’re long gone. I’ve done all my badges now!”

Jack and Tyler and Hayley, friends, teammates, Ferguson, Doc Sagar and the Stretford End he says has “been amazing” in this troubled season can watch him playing football again. Now to increase his Fifa rating and that Match Attack score. He has taken on bigger challenges.