Premier League Christmas advent calendar – December 12: Dave Busst’s shocking injury stuns Old Trafford
It’s April 8, 1996 and Coventry City are away at Manchester United.
A City corner is flicked on by Noel Whelan and there, sliding in at the back post, is Dave Busst, who’s only been on the pitch for 87 seconds.
News Group Newspapers Ltd David Busst’s right leg folds beneath him in the horrific incident at Old Trafford[/caption]
As he stretches for the ball he finds himself sandwiched between challenges from Denis Irwin and Brian McClair and his right leg crumples beneath him, bending at 90-degrees at the knee.
It looks bad. Really bad.
Distraught United keeper Peter Schmeichel runs off with his head in his hands. Physios are summoned and doctors called. They even have to wash away the blood on the pitch with buckets of water.
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The game is held up for nine minutes while they attend to the stricken Coventry defender who, it’s later revealed, has sustained compound fractures to his tibia and fibula.
“I knew something serious had happened; something wasn’t in the place it should have been,” he said later. “I could see from the reaction of people around me. I’ll never forget Dion Dublin, he was just bent down with his hand on his head, the look of horror in his eyes.
“They would have seen my right shin coming up at an ‘L’ shape when it should have been straight down.”
This what Dave Busst’s leg looks like nowtwitter.com/andygoldstein05
Busst would go on to have 26 operations on his leg and also contracted MRSA while in hospital, a complication that caused even more damage to his lower limb.
Unsurprisingly, Busst would never play again. He retired from football on November 6, 1996 and is now the Director of Coventry City’s Football in the Community programme.
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