ARCHIVE - The Mark Kilty File

Mark Kilty joined the club straight from school and burst onto the with some impressive defensive and midfield displays. But his young and short career was shattered when he received the dreaded cruciate knee ligament injury. It was a strange time for those injuries as in a matter of weeks both he and Glen Naylor both suffered the same fate in April of 2001. Unfortunately for Kilty he was never to return properly to action and to this day has not recovered from the injury.

My first club was Darlington." explained the comic wannabee. "I joined on YTS forms immediately after leaving school and unlike Bryan Adams it was not the Summer of 69 but 97. Similarly to every young lad it was always a dream of mine to become a professional footballer and I thrived of the challenge when the teachers would tell me to choose a different career path because I would never make it."

I asked Mark how he ended up at Darlington, his hilarious reply  "That's an easy one Thornberry. It was on the A690 from Sunderland then the A1(M) South at junction 62 to 68. After that take the A68 and follow signs for Darlington. Only joking pal :) "

" At the time I had just been rejected by 3 clubs, my hometown club Sunderland, the Smoggies and Southampton. Saints sent a letter and rang me up. However I am still awaiting a phonecall of Sunderland and Boro ! I was asked to go training to the Quaker centre a week after this by the Darlington scout. I had an absolute Regi blinker (stinker) the first session. It's a good job there was a game the next week!! I must have convinced the staff I was worthy and soon I was playing for the youth team and the reserves and was soon offered YTS terms the following month. "

Kilty spent four years at Darlington and had plenty of good times by the sounds of it, infact he is a very chirpy and chatty lad, as you can see from his answers he just would not shut up ;) But did he have a favourite moment? "Every day was a Favourite from July 1st 1997 till 15:03 April 21st 2001. Too many say their highlights are the things which others can see, e.g. debuts, goals, etc."

" The work done alone away from the people, supervised only by the conscience was the bits I used to enjoy and take most satisfaction from. There is too many blaggers in the game these days all too happy to moan but milk the applause every Saturday afternoon."

"My least favourite was every day from 15:04 April 21st 2001 till July 5th 2004. (Start of 3 year and 3 month injury hell to day when surgeon said enough was enough. I would say injury nightmare but at least one awakens from a nightmares)"

So, since leaving the club what has he been up to, I asked him if he still plays football now? "

Play now ?? your joking. The so called physiotherapists and surgeon, or should I say con men and cowboys from my time spent with these idiots during my 8 operations, put an end to playing again."

" As for now I am doing a physiotherapy honours degree. After that finishes next year I will be a fully chartered physiotherapist. I still hope to also build my flying hours up and get my pilots license. You can achieve anything with a bit of sacrifice and dedication.

So Thornberry next time you address me it will be Captain Kilty the Physio." 

He still keeps in contact with various members of the former Darlo crew."I do speak to Glenn Naylor. I respect biz as a person. He had his injury problems the same time as me and unlike the majority of the players Biz did not talk excrement. I also get the odd email from the "sun bed ledge Wainy",and "Clarke thinks he is Maradona and should stick to the simple things Keltie"

Before going it was only right that we ask how his knee is these days."The twice reconstructed ACL right knee is problem free. ACL injuries are easy to come back from. I would still be playing now if that was the only problem. It was my so called good left completely un-injured knee which forced me to quit. The so called surgeon for my second ACL reconstruction harvested my patella tendon from my left knee to make the graft for the right ACL. The rest is history, frustrating and basically a butcher from the high street could have done a better job. You name a soft tissue problem in the knee complex and I have had it. The list just kept coming and coming. Anyhow I had 6 operations on this left problammatic knee in total and put in 4 daily visits to the gym to try and regain fitness but I could not quite get back. That was in 2004. I still used to get pain in daily living so I sold my car and other saleable items on ebay to save up to see a proper surgeon in London in winter 2006 who had to reconstruct my whole knee extensor mechanism."

Many thanks to Mark for taking time out to give us a fantastic insight into his footballing life. Amazing story about his knee too.

#update: Mark graduated from the University of Salford in 2009 with a degree in Physiotherapy