Jimmy Bullard: 'Golf and fishing really helped me forget about my footy'

If there is one player who understands the ordeal Eduardo da Silva now faces, it is Fulham's Jimmy Bullard, who has just returned after 16 months out with a serious knee injury. He talked to the West Ham keeper Robert Green – who today makes his debut as an interviewer on the Independent sports pages

(ROBERT HALLAM)

Lining up for West Ham before our match at Craven Cottage last week, my Fulham counterpart Antti Niemi turned to me and asked, "Did you see Eduardo's leg?" It had only happened an hour or so before. Bad news travels fast in football. My immediate reaction was to glance round at a player who knows all too well about painful and lengthy injuries. Fulham's Jimmy Bullard was making only his fourth Premier League start since an injury that his surgeon described as "looking like a bomb had gone off in his knee".

In my debut as an interviewer – rather than my more accustomed role as the interviewee – I met up with Jimmy to see how life before, during and after his horrific, career-threatening knee injury was treating him. And to get an idea of what Eduardo would face in his long rehabilitation. Plus, of course, to discuss our game last Saturday.

I have known Jimmy for a number of years. He came on trial during the 2000-01 season at Norwich – my club at the time – after being released by West Ham without playing a game. Although Norwich were keen to sign him, Peterborough were offering £100,000 and that was too much for the Canaries – so Jimmy went to London Road.

My first memory of him came after he managed to talk a few of the lads into going to the cinema, rather than sitting in his hotel room for the night. Five minutes into the film, he decided to dispatch his sweets across the auditorium, mainly aiming at one poor chap's bald head. After connecting a few times Jimmy proceeded to blame the missiles on the nearest person possible. Namely me.

From that moment on I knew Jimmy Bullard was lively, he had a spark. "I don't know, sometimes I get carried away, I just get bored," Jimmy tells me when I ask him to recall the incident. "I don't go around trying to be funny, it just depends. The film was rubbish, I was bored. Everybody's done that, haven't they?"

It's typical Jimmy that he asked the question genuinely. Most of us don't flick sweets at the cinema, and I certainly wouldn't after witnessing Jimmy's victim's face so full of rage.

Jimmy has provided that same spark for a Fulham team which needed lifting. "A lot of it is confidence when you're down the bottom," he says, "a lot doesn't go for you. I really do believe that you just sometimes need that spark."

Jimmy did just that four weeks ago when he made his first home league start since his injury, creating one goal and scoring the late winner against Aston Villa with a free-kick. His delight was obvious. "It was a brilliant feeling. After being out for so long I was just glad to be back playing. But to score the winning goal and from a free-kick was just out of this world. I couldn't stop smiling for four days."

Being injured is one of the most difficult times for a footballer. Besides the obvious pain and discomfort, the feeling of helplessness and frustration at having to watch games, which you feel you could be playing in, and affecting, is immense. A long-term lay-off can be nothing short of depressing. Sitting in a treatment room or gym with monotonous exercises and very little light at the end of a long tunnel is as bad as it comes.

Consequently, no footballer likes to see or hear of another player suffering a nasty injury, and to hear of Jimmy's was sickening for everyone who knew him. It was the same reaction from Jimmy when he saw Eduardo's plight. "When I first saw it, it looked like every professional's worst nightmare," he says. "But then you look at players like Henrik Larsson who did it, and they were back playing in what seemed very little time."

Comforting words from a player who was injured for almost twice the time Eduardo is expected to be out for. Talking about his initial consultation with his surgeon – renowned American Richard Steadman – he said, "When I first saw Steady, he told me my knee wasn't in great shape. I asked him if he could get me back playing again he said 'yes'. As a player that's great and what you want to hear when your knee is wrapped round your neck!"

Throughout the interview, Jimmy's positive manner is matched only by the frankness with which he discusses his troubles. "I was playing well, I felt really good. I was enjoying my football, and wallop, that happens."

The tackle came just three games into last season, at a time when Jimmy, who had just joined Fulham, felt he was playing the best football of his career. The other player involved was my current team-mate Scott Parker – then a Newcastle player – himself suffering this season with knee injuries. Somewhat bizarrely, a couple of months earlier they had had a meeting of a different kind.

While playing golf on holiday in Portugal during the summer break Jimmy – a scratch golfer – drove his ball into a villa. "It was amazing, I was wandering up through the rough and Scott comes out and says hello and points me to my ball. We had a chat. Three games into the following season it happened."

In an innocuous collision, Jimmy sustained a dislocation of the knee cap and three of his four major ligaments were torn. Professional footballers spend their spare time very differently to get away from football. Some may watch television and play computer games, and some will sit by a laptop in an attempt to write newspaper articles.

Jimmy approaches his two major pastimes – golf and fishing – like he does his football – whole-heartedly. Thankfully, six months into his rehab, the Fulham midfielder was allowed by his surgeon to play golf – something he was grateful for. "To be out on the golf course helped me a lot when I was injured, it just helped me forget about my footy. When you have a hobby, and a strong hobby like I do, it just helps."

At the age of 14 I spent two years unable to do any form of sport due to a spinal injury. More recently, in the build-up to the 2006 World Cup, I spent over three months out with a ruptured groin.

Despite the obvious disappointment of missing out on the world's biggest football tournament, I strangely enjoyed the experience of being able to totally relax away from the thoughts of an upcoming match. After not missing a game in nearly five years, I had not realised the toll it had taken on me, mentally as well as physically. Three months, of course, is only a fraction of the time that Jimmy was out for. "For the first three or four months it wasn't too bad," he remembers.

"Then watching all the games while you are in the gym 24/7 was just a nightmare. I had good times with my knee and I had dark times too. I also fished during my time off. It helped me get over the bad times. It takes football off the mind, especially when you are not playing. You see all the boys out there training with a game to look forward to on a Saturday, I didn't have that. So come the Saturday I did match fishing."

The fishing world will be delighted at his return to footballing fitness. During injury the self-confessed fan of Bob Nudd won his fair share of prize money in the Dorking Angling Society. Talking of the rehab that he faced and what Eduardo is about to confront, Jimmy did not shirk the difficulties involved, "Well it's just the same old same, every day, bit by bit. Although they are different injuries, one of the first things he will notice is that his calf muscle will disappear. Mine started to go after about two days!

"I worked hard at my knee, and also my calf. You lose a lot of strength around the area but with the work it can come back stronger. The knee I injured is stronger than my other, and certainly stronger than before. I am sure the lad will be the same"

Despite his ordeals, Jimmy's appetite for the game never dwindled and his bubbly character survived. His background of playing non-League while working for supportive father "Big Jim" as a painter and decorator, stood him in good stead. "I was a painter and decorator for two or three years, working 7 till 5 uptown. I was lucky as my dad used to give me time off to rest before games which probably helped my game."

Jimmy's first game back from his big injury was in January against my team West Ham, on whose books he had been in his early twenties –"I trained with the first team but was never that close to playing, I treated it as my apprenticeship working with great players like Paolo di Canio."

Jimmy came on 75 minutes into a 2-1 defeat. Any player returning in such circumstances will take time to settle in but Jimmy was quickly involved though he was unable to change the score. Despite Fulham's position, he felt that he had not been forced into action sooner than he was comfortable with. "When I made my first start [against Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup] I played 120 minutes. If my knee was not right, there was no way I would have been able to do that on the pitch we played on. It shows I've not rushed it."

Last weekend we both played in our return fixture. Having never won at Craven Cottage I was particularly pleased with the result, but for Fulham it further entrenched them in the bottom three. A scrappy affair, devoid of any real quality, the match was decided in a couple of minutes late on. Fulham's best chance fell to a certain J Bullard. His recollection of it was slightly different to mine, though. "How did you save that, you rat? What do you think you were doing to us?" In fairness, though a clear sight of goal, it was a difficult chance with the ball never getting out from under his feet. And in all honesty I was slightly fortunate that Jimmy decided to shoot just where I had dived. Luck was on my side. We were even more fortunate a minute later when Nobby Solano scored our controversial winner.

"It's just what happens to you when you are down the bottom," said Jimmy. "We played some good stuff, but that bit of luck goes missing. We just have to look forward to this Saturday."

This afternoon's match is the daunting prospect of Manchester United, but Jimmy is certainly not daunted. "Up and at 'em!" he tells me cheerfully. "We have got to go out and pressurise them all over the park. We have got to give it our best shot and if they are not at the races then we have got a chance. We have just got to believe in ourselves. I believe we have the ability to get out of it. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother playing."

In true Jimmy Bullard fashion, his infectious nature had me believing that maybe they could pull something off this afternoon. If he manages to spread this to his team-mates and the Fulham crowd, maybe they will.

Crossing the great divide: why it's harder to ask than answer...

Jimmy Bullard was an ideal subject for my first interview on the other side of the notebook. After doing my research, and digging up some stories from my own and other people's experiences, I knew Jimmy as a friendly and lively character, able to talk freely and having a story that people want to hear about. Perfect.

Nerves are common in my profession, but a new type of anxiousness came over me as I prepared for the interview itself. It was an experience that I can only compare to taking my driving test for the first time. With no practice of the real thing, and an audience of professionals at close quarters, I was to find out whether my initial step into a different world would be a successful one purely on the response I got from a fellow footballer.

We met in a plush Surrey cafe, made introductions and exchanged friendly banter. Then the tone changed. I had turned my Dictaphone on. All of a sudden this was not your average chat between two former team-mates who have mutual friends, hobbies, agent, and the same financial advisor. I felt a difference. Being on the other side of the recording is easy to me. Years of practice speaking to various forms of the media has given me, like nearly all players, a subconscious line that you know not to cross.

It is not that you are lying when you give certain answers, you just know that for some questions there is a stock answer.

Mr Bullard gave honest answers to every question. He was funny, animated, and wholesome in his responses, I couldn't ask for any more from him. He never got close to that line once.

I spend my time in interviews listening to journalists' questions, hoping for a mistake or line to make a quick-witted retort. I was fully aware of the holes that I could have picked in myself sitting on the other side of the fence. Jimmy was a lot kinder.

The hardest thing of all was the combination of attempting to listen to the responses that were given, trying to pick up on a small little insight and turn it into something interesting and newsworthy and, at the same time thinking of a question that could develop it, while also thinking of a different subject to talk about if that line of questioning was clearly going down a dead end. For someone whose job relies mainly on instinct and reactions, thinking down three different channels proved to be a massive challenge.

After half-an-hour I was exhausted, leaving the remaining questions to the more experienced and capable hands of The Independent's football editor, Glenn Moore. A different and fresh mind provided another interesting insight into the ways of Jimmy Bullard, but at the time, gave me five minutes to recover, regroup my thoughts, and take a quick flick through my notes. I think in football parlance, I tried hard but it was time for a change and I was substituted after an hour.

Robert Green