Rise Up Racket Sports

I came up with the name 'Rise Up' as this is something that I have had to do throughout my life.

I had a childhood hip disorder called 'Perthes Disease' which is where the blood flow stops going to the hip joints and causes them to die. At 5 years old I spent a week in hospital followed by 18 months in a wheelchair and 18 months on crutches. Aged 8 I had to learn to walk again. 

With having 3 older siblings who were all active and sporty I couldn't wait to get into sports myself. I soon started cross country races and football. Aged 10 I started playing tennis as my brother had started a little bit before. I soon started playing regularly, representing myself, my club and Leicestershire. 

As my hips were damaged during the period of no blood flow, they were always going to cause me some more trouble later in life. Sadly, the pain became pretty bad aged 16/17. Between the ages of 18 and 22 I had 5 operations which were so major that I was pretty much bed bound for 4 years. When I did recover enough between operations I was straight back onto the tennis court. 

As soon as the operations were done I started a coaching career and I became the Head Coach at Syston Northfields Tennis Club at the young age of 23, and after just 1 year of coaching. Most of the years between then and aged 27 I was in a lot of pain as my hip operations hadn't been succesful. I then had my hips replaced. Following my second hip replacement I had Sepsis and needed life saving surgery, where I spent a few days in intensive care. 

The hip replacements were a great success but then it became quite apparent that my spine had taken a lot of the strain for my bad hips over the years, and started to cause me a lot of pain. Once scanned it turned out that my spine didn't develop correctly when I was younger. I now have severe degeneration throughout my spain which leaves me with chronic pain. As well as this my jaw joints are now also classed as being severely arthritic. 

Despite all of this I push on to the best of my ability each day and try to promote Racket Sports as much as I can as it is those which have kept me going through the hard times. 

And I'll rise up
I'll rise like the day
I'll rise up
I'll rise unafraid
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again
And I'll rise up
High like the waves
I'll rise up
In spite of the ache
I'll rise up
And I'll do it a thousand times again