Luke Williams describes the toughest part of his Hartlepool United injury nightmare

Williams finally made his return for Pools in Saturday’s 4-2 pre-season friendly win over Sheffield United under-23s.

The attacking-midfielder also got on the scoresheet late on, much to the delight of the Pools players, staff and fans.

Williams signed last summer but a serious knee injury and subsequent complications meant it’s taken over a year for the player to get back out on the pitch.

The past 12 months has been incredibly frustrating for the 26-year-old as well as the Pools fans, who were regularly led to believe his return wouldn’t be too far away.

And that was something Williams felt was the toughest thing to cope with.

“For me, the amount of times I’ve been given on the injury has been the toughest thing,” he revealed.

“Each time it’s happened, I’ve been given a fairly short return time so I got it in my head that I was going to be back soon but then when it came to it I wasn’t right and had to go away and start all over again.

“I needed another operation and started from that. I had two in the same area on the knee which takes its toll on the body and left a lot of stuff that shouldn’t be in there so I’ve had to do a lot more work on it with manual therapy to get it right to where it is now.

“I know the set-backs have frustrated the fans and I’m as frustrated as they are but I know it’s been hard for them.

“You get the ones that aren’t on your side but you get that everywhere.

“The vast majority stand by you and those are the ones who get behind you watching us in pre-season games and it does mean a lot when you’re coming up to warm up and they cheer you on.

“It’s great to have because like I said, the fans and myself both want me to be playing.

“So for them to stick behind me as long as they have is testament to the fans we’ve got here really.”