Eduardo Misery Reminiscent of Dave Busst

I sat down to lunch on Saturday looking forward to a battling Birmingham City performance in their match with league leaders Arsenal.

A couple of minutes and a couple of bites into proceedings and it became pretty clear I was done with lunch.

Eduardo Da Silva was in a crumpled heap and was being attended too, but the viewers at home were none the wiser to the awful truth. That is until the camera started picking out players on the pitch who were holding their heads, breathing heavily. What gave it away was Sagna with a hand over his mouth.

Something was up!

I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach and my friends and I knew something was seriously wrong with Eduardo. I put my lunch down and started to focus on what was going on. We all had a view on what it may be, but nothing prepared me for that youtube clip I watched the next day.

Throughout the time Eduardo was down on the pitch there was something eerily familiar about proceedings. A silent crowd, shocked players, and, well frankly, a few looking quite ill. It's just lucky Peter Schmeichal wasn't playing!

I take you all back to 1996 and Coventry's trip to Old Trafford. A new face was amongst the travelling Coventry players. A young (well he was new to Pro football shall we say) Dave Busst walked out onto the pitch for the game of his dreams, having only recently turned pro at 25.

Busst, like Eduardo, didn't last long that day. After just two minutes he lay in agony on the Old Trafford Turf. His leg had snapped in two after a collision between him, Denis Irwin, and Brian McClair. His bone, like Eduardo's, punctured the skin and Busst wasn't wearing red socks to hide the damage.

Schmeichal ran from the scene and vomited nearby, as players and fans alike fell silent in shocked hush. The blood was later washed from the pitch.

Sadly for Busst he would never play again after catching an infection in the hospital after one of his tens of operations. He still limps today as he goes about his coaching job, for the most part unrecognized.

He was what you might call a journeyman footballer. He was not the best out there, but he was far better than you or I at home. I think it's important to remember this when you criticise Martin Taylor (just another decent footballer trying to make his way in the game). He himself is cut very much from the same mould as Busst, who was taken sadly from the game of football by a freak incident.

I honestly put Saturdays injury, no matter how hard the tackle, down to a freak incident. Eduardo has accepted Taylor's apology and the football world is slowly coming to terms with it. Eduardo will play again, which wasn't the case for Busst who really did have to find a new livelihood.

Good luck Eduardo with your recovery and I can't wait to see you on a football pitch once again. To Dave Busst I can only say you're not forgotten, and will always have your own little piece of EPL folklore.