Will Hayhurst: Will He Or Won’t He?
Will Hayhurst has had an unfortunate season in 2015-16. After suffering an injury to his cruciate knee ligament in pre-season, he’s yet to play a single minute of football so far in this campaign.
The question is, will he make a successful return when he’s back to full fitness?
The winger signed for Notts County in January 2015 from his boyhood favourites Preston North End.
“One of the toughest decisions I knew I would ever have to make was leaving Preston.” Hayhurst spoke of the difficulty of the move. “I felt that for myself personally I had to play more games than I was getting at my age.”
“One of the toughest decisions I knew I would have to make was leaving Preston.”
Not many players get the chance to move up through youth academies into first team action in recent years. Hayhurst is proud of the fact that he has done this at his and, more importantly to him, his family's favourite team. He made his professional debut at the age of 18 and went on to play 48 times for North End.
“Being a Preston fan as a boy, it was always my dream to one day play for them. I never expected to play as much as I did so young, but I loved every minute of it.” Hayhurst added: “Making my family proud was a huge thing for me, so with them supporting Preston as well it was a great feeling.”
Despite coming across as your everyday fan, Hayhurst knows he has a job to do for Notts County and remains determined and professional. Choosing his head over his heart perhaps. I’m sure even the most diehard Preston fans will find it in their hearts to forgive him.
“I will never have any regrets leaving (Preston North End) because I had such an amazing 8 years there.
“I am fully concentrated on playing for Notts County again after my injury and helping them be successful.”
Hayhurst started on his debut just days after joining Notts County in a League 1 win against Crewe.
But things would turn sour for County as they would only go on to win three more games from then until the end of the season, and subsequently were relegated to League 2.
They find themselves in a similar predicament towards the end of this current season. They sit 19th in League 2 having won only three games so far in 2016,with their last victory coming against Hartlepool in February. However with only 2 teams to go down from League 2 rather than the 4 that drop from League 1, they should be safe for another year in the Football League… touch wood.
With 11 games remaining County are 13 points clear of 23rd placed York City, where Hayhurst spent the second half of the 2013-14 season on loan from PNE. With an initial one-month loan being extended to the summer.
County will be hoping to have a fully fit Hayhurst back in action as soon as they can and hope that it can push them in the right direction. From his point of view, it’s obviously disappointing that he has to sit out matches and has had to for nearly an entire season.
“You don’t realise how much you miss being involved in games until it’s been taken away from you”
After suffering the injury, the 22-year-old had to undergo surgery to remove cartilage and repair the knee ligament. As he put it: “It was a big operation.” He added: “It’s been nearly seven months since I had my operation and there’s nothing more I want to do than play again.
“You don’t realise how much you miss being involved in games until it’s been taken away from you with an injury.”
It’s hard to imagine someone in any profession that would have to miss work for as long as he has and still have the desire and attitude to not only come back at all, but to be better when they make the return, albeit it is Hayhurst’s dream job, but you can’t take anything away from the fact he wants to use the time off the best way he can.
“It’s been a frustrating year for me with my injury, but I have learnt so many things about myself and how to make myself better in every aspect of my game.”
Even when asked about his future dreams he still remains grounded:
“My aim currently is to return to full fitness, stronger than what I was before, and try to improve every day and every game.”
However, being capped at under 19 and 21 levels for the Republic of Ireland, you’d forgive him for having one eye on a possible call up in the future.
“In the long term, who knows? I want to play at the highest level I can get to, and if that ends up international then it would be another dream come true for me and my family.”
With recovery hopefully not too far away, Hayhurst will still have to settle for watching Republic of Ireland at home in the Euros this summer.
There’s no doubt he will want to make an impact on the pitch when he returns. It’ll be a tough test for him to overcome but maybe his positive attitude answers more questions than it asks.
We’ll just have to wait and see what kind of impact he makes when he returns in the near future.
