FORMER Antrim ‘keeper Chris Kerr may be in the process of making comeback from a second cruciate ligament operation – but he hasn’t ruled out playing for his county again.
The luckless St Gall’s man suffered a second ACL rupture last August and in the immediate aftermath considered hanging his boots up.
But if the pandemic and seemingly endless lockdowns have done anything, they have given the 34-year-old net-minder a clearer focus and goals to reach.
After completing 300 rehab sessions to recover from his first ACL op 18 months ago, Kerr’s club form was so impressive on his return he was back on former boss Lenny Harbinson’s radar again.
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But an innocuous slip during a training session – the day before his 34th birthday – and the experienced ‘keeper was back at square one.
“I’ve had two ACL operations within 18 months,” said Kerr.
“I put so much effort in during the first recovery. I used lockdown to keep hammering it. I was working with Shea McAleer who is the current Armagh physio. Shea was excellent. I did 300 odd sessions to get back.
“I was playing for the club and was probably in as good a form as I’d been in. I was probably practising more too and I think that bit of maturity that comes with age helps.
“I’m more comfortable in my own skin. I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at and I was trying to improve on that.”
Kerr was one of the mainstays of the Antrim senior football team over the last decade. Antrim’s Ulster Championship defeat to Down in 2018 was his last appearance for his county as a subsequent foot injury ruled him out of the All-Ireland Qualifiers.
His excellent form before his second knee injury five months ago has given him renewed energy and ambition to not rule out playing for Antrim again.
Since Kerr’s departure in 2018, the Saffrons have tried various men between the sticks, among them Rasharkin’s Andrew Hasson and Creggan Kickham’s Oisin Kerr.
The latter established himself as Antrim’s number one last season while former minor ‘keeper Michael Byrne, Hasson and young Luke Mulholland are very much on new boss Enda McGinley’s radar.
Antrim’s exciting new management team of McGinley, Stevie O’Neill, Sean Kelly and Stephen Quinn is also another incentive for Kerr to keep on top of his rehab.
“I think everything was going so well in the summer,” Kerr added. “I was doing everything consistently well. It would have been interesting had I stayed fit as I would’ve spoken to Lenny.
“And you see the management team in now – Enda McGinley managing and obviously Stephen O’Neill put me on my arse a few times while playing against Tyrone. An incredible player. And ‘Kell’ [Sean Kelly] is in there as well who has been unbelievable for St Gall’s both as a player and as a manager.
“Initially, I didn’t want to be on this roundabout of, ‘what if the knee goes again?’ But the pull to play is mad. I’m still only 34 which is relatively young for a goalkeeper.”
The two ACL injury experiences couldn’t have been starker for Kerr. He had to be stretchered off when he ruptured it the first time. The second didn’t feel nearly as bad, to the point where he questioned whether it had actually ruptured again.
“I just slipped in training for the second one,” he said.
“I did a really poor version of Sean Cavanagh’s dummy; the ground was rock hard. I felt something but it didn’t feel the same as the first one where I had to be lifted off the pitch. It’s like a wave of sickness comes over you. It’s sore for a couple of days and then it really settles down to the point you’re thinking: ‘Has this definitely gone?’”
During the pandemic, Kerr has embarked on acquiring strength and conditioning qualifications, as well as moving to live in Armagh with his partner. He was also doing some goalkeeping coaching at local club Orchard club Grange.
Kerr has tried to squeeze the most out of the lockdowns.
For the last number of years, the affable St Gall’s man has become heavily involved in promoting mental well-being giving talks to various community, civic, youth and sports groups and was also invited to speak at the European Parliament in Brussels in 2018.
Earlier that year, Kerr penned an emotionally charged blog detailing his own mental battle in trying to come to terms with the death of his father, Pat.
Only too well aware of the mental struggles many people are suffering over the past 10 months, Kerr feels more resources and energy should be ploughed into mental health services to cope with another kind of pandemic coming down the tracks.
“In the first lockdown, the weather was great, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, people got doing stuff to their houses they’d never get done, a lot more people were exercising, so many were furloughed and were making the most of things.
“I feel people are definitely getting it tighter this time around, the work-outs out the back of the house aren’t as appealing. Even working from home at the laptop with little contact with others, relationships can become frayed, all those things.
“As time has gone on people got setbacks, businesses were closing, schools are now closed and people have had to adjust their whole lives to dealing with that. And I think being in the depths of winter makes it tougher.
“My partner and I would always try and go one walk a day either before or after work, just getting into the weather, put your hood up or your hat on…
“People like mental health champions like Siobhan O’Neill are doing great work. PPR [Participation & Practice of Rights, a human rights group] do great work as well. I know people have said mental health is not contagious; I would say there is something big coming on the back of this virus.”
