Lampard's Protégé Suffers One of the Most Unusual Injuries in History

Josh Eccles, a player coached by Frank Lampard at Coventry City, experienced a period where he was unable to play due to a bizarre injury. Specifically, the English midfielder grew an extra bone in his left leg.

This summer, Coventry City's head coach Frank Lampard encountered an unusual situation. His midfielder, Josh Eccles, suffered a strange injury during Coventry’s preseason. The 25-year-old missed matches from the Championship play-off semi-final second leg against Sunderland in May up to the recent draw with Leicester last weekend.

His extended absence caused Eccles to miss the first seven games of the new season across all competitions, significantly weakening Coventry's midfield. Recently, the player revealed the true cause of his downtime: what seemed like a normal injury actually resulted in an extra bone growing inside his left leg.

Eccles shared with the BBC: "It was a very strange injury. My muscle got crushed against the bone (dead leg) twice in the same spot within five minutes, forcing me off the pitch. Usually, this kind of 'dead leg' injury takes up to two weeks to heal, but by the third week, my pain worsened, so I messaged the physio to get it checked out.

There was too much blood around the bone, and the body’s natural reaction was to start healing. Because it was so close to the bone, the body mistakenly treated it as bone needing repair, so the blood turned into bone. So technically, I currently have an extra bone in my left leg, which has been growing for the past two months.."

This unusual injury once made Eccles worry it would affect his performance and aggressive playing style. The 1998-born player said:

"It really hurt at the time, and I couldn’t do much over the summer break. Even lifting my leg was extremely painful, but strangely, now everything is healed and I no longer feel the pain. When injured, I always wonder: will this pain last my whole career or affect me somehow? Thankfully, the more I trained, the more I forgot about it, and now the pain is gone—I’m back to normal.

My playing style is quite intense, so I feared this injury would hold me back. But when I recently got back on the pitch, I maintained my usual intensity, and that will always be part of me."

Since graduating from Coventry’s academy, Eccles has made 163 appearances for the club. Last November, he extended his contract with Coventry until summer 2028 before suffering this injury.

The injury Josh Eccles endured is not only a rare case in football but also a testament to the remarkable healing ability of the human body. Now back to regular training, Eccles is ready to show his grit and determination, continuing to play a key role in Coventry’s squad.