Raith Rovers skipper Scott Brown's shock admission over calf injury hell

The 30-year-old Stark’s Park captain, who has made 22 league and cup appearances for Rovers this term including last Saturday’s 4-0 home league loss to Queen’s Park, told the Fife Free Press: "I picked up a calf injury in pre-season before the 2023-’24 campaign. It was not a serious calf injury but it was a pretty good muscle tear.

"But I came back for the rest of last season and I played 47 times which was good to stay fit.

"Touch wood I've been fit for the majority of my career, I don't think I've missed a lot of football.

"But we played Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday in the League Cup this season and five minutes before the end of the Ross County game I felt a pop in my calf again in the same place as the previous year which was incredibly frustrating.

"I did a lot of hard work with Gregor (Raith Rovers physio Gregor Pirie) and I was on my rehab back. I was literally a couple of days away from training and I felt the same pain in my left calf which was a really strange feeling knowing that I was rehabbing one leg and it was getting there, and then all of a sudden the other leg was now injured.

"It was a stop/start beginning to the season. I think I'd come back and I was probably compensating a wee bit on trying to protect my right side because I was obviously worried about the calf going again.

"And unbelievably I ended up injuring my left side. It's been calf problems non stop.”

Another blow for Brown this season came when he injured his right calf just 24 minutes into the 3-0 league loss at Falkirk on December 7.

"That wasn’t really ideal,” he added. "So I've now injured my right calf three times and my left calf once. Not that we're trying to keep a score against each other!

"It's never been an area of weakness but it seems to be now.

"But touch wood, I'm feeling a wee bit better now. My body feels a wee bit back to what it was.

"I'm 30 years of age now and I need to remember that it's important not to go hell for leather all the time.

“Even on the training field and when I do my own stuff at home and work in the gym.

"Pre-season coming back it's certainly something that I'm going to have to watch.

"It's a massive part of football. I like to be as fit as I possibly can.

"The hard thing about injuries is there's no rhyme or reason why it keeps happening.

"It is a frustrating time being a footballer and coming in every day - especially as captain of the club - and not being able to contribute a lot.

"But with the help of Gregor I'm back on the pitch and feeling bacl to my best now.

"It's hard to come back because folk forget how long it takes to get up to speed. It does take two, three, four games to get back up to it, especially with the speed of the Championship.

"But I would say over the past three or four weeks I've probably felt I'm getting back to my best football again.

"We are trying to manage it a bit better with the physio and I think the new manager's training has helped a wee bit as well. It's certainly different to what the other managers have been and hopefully I can stay on the pitch and help the team out for as long as I possibly can.”

On Raith Rovers’ struggles this campaign having been pre-season title favourites, Brown added: "Injuries are an obvious reason why we're so far behind the leaders.

"I've struggled myself this season with injury. It's been a tough season, I've not been on the pitch for a large part of that which has been incredibly frustrating. We don't make excuses, we've not been good enough.”