THE Jersey Bulls Women’s fixture away at Oxted & District yesterday was called off after just nine minutes after a horrific injury to winger Taylor Smythe.
After contesting an innocuous high ball with her opposing right-back, an awkward landing led to Smythe suffering a triple dislocation to her leg.
Paramedics were immediately on the scene and Smythe was taken to hospital, in which time the match was called off by officials.
Manager Chad Morris said: “I think it was Jurgen Klopp who said that football is the most important of the unimportant things in life, and he was absolutely spot on yesterday.
“The second it happened to Taylor, football immediately became very far down the list of priorities. You could see on the players’ faces and reaction of everyone around her.
“Taylor went up for a challenge with their right-back, a completely innocuous challenge, just two players jumping for the ball. But as soon as Taylor landed, everyone knew that something was seriously wrong.
“Taylor has been told she has suffered dislocations in three places, but she will know the full extent of the injury once the medical team have completed everything, hopefully by the end of today or tomorrow.
“At the moment, all anybody cared about is that Taylor is in good hands and getting the best possible medical attention.”
Morris was particularly complimentary of the professionalism and speediness of the medical professionals on hand at the time.
“We were incredibly fortunate that two of their players, Amiee and Sam, are paramedics. They immediately took control of the situation and gave Taylor unbelievable care and attention. Their expertise and calmness made a really difficult situation much easier for everyone involved.
“When something like this happens, you realise very quickly that football is secondary. What matters is looking after the person, and yesterday we were incredibly lucky to have such good people around Taylor”
At the time of writing, it is believed the fixture will be rescheduled for later in the season.
From all of us here at the JEP, we hope Taylor and her teammates are ok and wish Taylor a safe and speedy recovery.
