Revitalised Kyle blasts ‘dummies’ who told him his career was over

By ALAN PATTULLO
Published on 09/08/2012 00:23

KEVIN Kyle has railed against the medical professionals who told him he would never play again after making his debut for Rangers in their 4-0 League Cup win over East Fife on Tuesday night.

It might have been only a ten-minute cameo in a routine win over a team of underdogs but Kyle felt as though he had scored the winner in a cup final.

Kyle left Hearts last season and placed his faith in physio Alex McQueen, with whom he worked to cure a long-standing hip injury which plagued his time with a Tynecastle club in the process of cutting costs. Kyle is grateful to England’s Professional Footballers’ Association for providing the funds to pay for an operation performed by top surgeon Damien Griffiths. It appears to have rectified the source of the problem, at the same time restoring Kyle’s faith in the medical profession.

Prior to Tuesday night, he hadn’t played since being taken off before the hour mark when playing for Hearts against St Johnstone in January last year. In the previous game he had headed the winner against Hibs in the New Year Edinburgh derby.

“That’s 19 months I’ve waited to kick a ball again so I’m over the moon,” he said, having signed a one-year deal with Rangers just hours before being named on the bench as the Third Division club dealt ruthlessly with their Second Division visitors.

“I never doubted I could get myself fit and get back playing, I just knew I could do it. But 
that’s hard when you’re sent to dummies who tell you you’ll never play again.

“It’s amazing what happens when you go and see the right people and work with the right people – you get back playing football.”

The striker admits he was struggling “psychologically” earlier this summer before Jim Jefferies, his former manager at Hearts and Kilmarnock, handed him training facilities at Dunfermline. “If it didn’t happen then that was it,” he said. “I was wondering if my hip was even going to hold out but after that first training session I thought ‘I feel alright here’.

“Then I did the next one and the next one and the next one. Jim asked if I wanted to play a game so I played 20 minutes then another 20 minutes. That was the first time I thought I was fine. What was I worrying about?”

“It’s just a great thing to be back playing football,” he added. “People say when you retire from football you struggle to find things to do. That’s exactly how I felt. I hated going to the shops with the missus on a Saturday. I hated listening to the scores coming in on the radio and watching Jeff [Stelling] on the telly.

“I just kept asking myself what I was doing but now I’m at the other end of it. I’m just glad to be back playing football. The double bonus is that I get to do it playing for Rangers.”

Kyle insisted he had no qualms about resuming his career in the Third Division with the Ibrox club.

“It doesn’t matter where they are,” he said. “It’s Rangers Football Club. There were 40,000 fans here [on Tuesday], all the press guys after the game. It’s still the same Rangers.

“It doesn’t matter if it was Third Division, Second Division or six-a-sides. It’s an opportunity to play for one of the biggest teams in Scotland and that’s the only way to look at it.”