Stevie May's exclusive column

It has been great to be out on the training pitch with the boys again over the last few weeks after a long time on the sidelines with the knee injury.

At first it felt a bit strange, you have to get used to all the different movements again.

Bit by bit, day by day, the knee has felt easier and to be among the boys again has been a big thing mentally.

In life you take a lot of things for granted and it is only when you get a serious injury that you realise that.

Just being able to run again was a big thing, let alone being able to join in with training.

When I was on crutches when I first got the injury and then again after the operation, you need help with a simple thing like making a cup of tea.

Over the months, the work with the physios brings back the full movement and now I’m gradually working towards playing again.

At this stage, I still get a few niggles but that has got to be expected.

The more sessions you get through, the less niggles you tend to get.

When I first started back, even making a simple pass led to a slight niggle in the medial ligament.

Gradually it gets less and less and I’m only feeling it if I strike the ball long.

Some of the boys who have had knee injuries in the past and have been back playing for a long time, say they still get twinges every now and then.

In training, none of the boys have been firing straight into me with tackles yet.

Nothing has been said about not being able to tackle me but the others know what happened and aren’t going to take the Mickey.

Maybe I do need a couple of full-on challenges to put my mind at ease, that is the big part of the recovery.

I damaged three ligaments in my right knee – the ACL, PCL and MCL.

For the first three months I had to wear a brace to allow the PCL – the posterior cruciate ligament – to heal.

It is quite unusual for a footballer to damage the PCL, usually it is the ACL.

The PCL healed more or less down to a grade one on its own. Then I had the operation to repair the ACL and MCL.

I could have had all three repaired by an operation but with the amount of swelling and trauma in the knee, the surgeon said there was a risk of not getting full range and movement back if he did all three.

So the decision was made to let the healing process start on its own and for the PCL to heal naturally.

I don’t know exactly when I’m going to be back playing.

There are a couple of bounce games coming up in a few weeks and it will be a case of seeing how the knee feels.

Maybe it will be a case of starting off by playing half an hour of a game and building from there.