Football clubs staying consistently at the top of their games and players reaching their personal goals without setbacks is something worth observing. It is not just all about the team-works, the manager’s tactics, or sheer stroke of luck. Every team has an extensive support network to ensure performance is maximized. This includes the player’s welfare, nutritionist, health fitness, and more particularly physiotherapists.
Their role in football is largely based around the management of ‘Neuromusculoskeletal‘ conditions of the players with accurate diagnosis and treatment from inception until the return of the player and when fully ready to play a part in the team.
Just as we know that injuries and football players are one marriage that is inseparable or intertwines, such that is the more reason why the relationship, trust and the dynamic between a player who is on the brink of recovery and his physio usually get closer and listen to all of the laid down measures of the physio for a swift recovery. So in other words, there are thousands of physiotherapists in the beautiful game of football. However, among all one name simply stands out, ‘Gary Lewin’ the Physio who has dedicated his whole life treating football stars off and on the pitch.
One unique thing about every top professional physiotherapist is the kind of impact the players experience in terms of taking care of the injuries of the players whenever they’re going through a torrid time, and as such one man who has made his impact felt at every team he worked at and also very sound in what he does is Gary Lewin.
Lewin is an English born professional physiotherapist who has worked with Arsenal, West Ham, and the Three Lions of England, he worked at Arsenal as the head of the physiotherapist for 22 years, and in 2008 he assumed the post of the Three Lions Head of Physiotherapy.
He joined the Gunners as a young goalkeeper at the age of 16 years old in 1980, after a one year spell at Barnet he became a reserve team physio at the age of 19 which looks more like the former Gunners physio is destined for treating and taking care of football players from his young age rather than been a top professional footballer.
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Thereafter, he went through training at the Guy’s Hospital School of Physiotherapy from 1983 to 1986 before he made a return to Arsenal in 1986 to work as a first-team physiotherapist, Lewin didn’t just get trained at the Guy’s Hospital School of Physiotherapy and ended it there, he also went further to obtain a BSc (Hons) in Biology and a Diploma in Physiotherapist.
Adding to his qualification, he’s also a member of the College of Sports and a State Registered Physiotherapist, to kicked start is physio work fully he was called into action in 1989 where he almost had to break David Rocastle’s jaw when he swallowed his tongue so as to perform a life-saving treatment to the former Arsenal midfielder in a similar case to that of Jaba Kankava, though a player who saved his opposition after swallowing tongue in a horrific collision.
From that day on Lewin became more popular with the Gunners medical team, as he went on to become an expert on treating hamstring injuries due to his experiences with Tony Adams, he even went on to advised Birmingham City physio on the right treatment to administered often injured midfielder David Dunn.
In 2007, the footballing world also felt the magical hands of Lewin in a League Cup final where Chelsea’s captain John Terry was involved in an incident where he was hit in the face by Arsenal midfielder Abou Diaby’s foot, the Three Lions center back swallowed his tongue and despite not being the physio of the opposition team ( Chelsea ) he was the first physio that rushed over to assist John Terry and saved his life.
For every Arsenal fans who remembered Eduardo Da Silva will surely recall February 23, 2008, a very horrific day in the history of the Gunners and perhaps in the history of football, a very emotional and sad day where the Croatia international broke his leg having been tackled by Birmingham City center half Martin Taylor during a feisty clash which made him suffered a broken fibula and a dislocated ankle in that horrific and unforgettable incident.
“Your training takes over,” “The first thing to think about is if it’s either a life-threatening or limb-threatening injury. With Eduardo it was obvious it was a limb-threatening injury.
“Then you go through the process of stabilizing and immobilizing the injury, working out how you are going to get them off the pitch in the best way and controlling the pain.”
According to Gary Lewin, who admitted to the fact that the horror injury sustained by the Brazilian born Eduardo is one that sticks in your memory” Gary Lewin admitted that he will never forget it.
It’s probably the worst injury I’ve ever seen and when you see something that bad it really sticks in your memory” “When I went on the pitch I noticed his ankle was dislocated and in the wrong shape, I also saw the bone sticking out of his sock so I knew it was an open fracture”.
Lewin left the stadium with the striker, traveling to the hospital in the ambulance alongside the paramedics.
He said further that Arsenal players were visibly distressed on the pitch, as the horrific tackle by Martin Taylor to Eduardo was cited as tie-breaker which affected the Gunners in losing their lead in the 2007-08 tittle race, the aftermath of the event Arsene Wenger opined that Martin Taylor should be banned from football for life but later retracted his comment.
While on the pitch Eduardo was in a lot of distress, so the first thing I did was to get hold of the ankle to make sure he couldn’t move it, he had to get Cesc Fabregas to talk to him as Spanish and Portuguese language are very similar, so with that, he was able to communicate to him what they were doing and also got information back about what he was feeling, after all of that Gary Lewin was able to immobilize the ankle and got him off the pitch to the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham where he was operated on by a Professor in Clinical Traumatology Keith Porter.
Although the English physiotherapist wasn’t the one responsible for Eduardo’s surgery, he did play a crucial role in saving the life and football career of the Croatian International.
Nearly two years after the grim injury occurred, February 27th, 2010 was another bad day in the office for Arsenal faithful against Stoke City, when another Arsenal player was also involved in a ghastly injury which sent him to the sidelines, the player involved was a young Welsh midfielder Aaron Ramsey who happened to be the victim of a brutal and a horrifying tackle where he was in tears and rolling around on the grass, as his leg was dangling and bent out of shape mirroring the same case with that of Eduardo Da Silva.
The protagonist responsible for the brutal tackle Shawcross was initially unaware of the damage he dealt with the leg of the young Ramsey, however, upon noticing the contorted leg the England International began to weep profusely as he left the pitch visibly distraught as the injured Ramsey was rushed to the hospital and he was announced to have suffered a double fracture in his lower right leg.
Be that as it may, Ramsey didn’t only come out of the horrific injury on his own but all thanks must be credited to the magical hands of Gary Lewin that played a crucial role in saving the career of another Arsenal teammates, Eduardo.
Since his role in making sure Ramsey returned back to full fitness, Gary and Ramsey have formed a somewhat close friendship and became family with the Lewin family since his horrible injury and some other big names in the Arsenal’s team like Mesut Ozil and Petr Cech have even become investors for the Lewin Sports Clinic back in the United Kingdom.
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Having done a whole lot in his 22-year stint been part of the Gunners, medical crew, before he left the London side following his appointment by the Three Lions national team, Gary Lewin also suffered is own fare share of injury during England’s first game of the 2014 FIFA World Cup match in Brazil against the Azzurri national team, the physio was in a jubilant mood celebrating the equalizing goal by Daniel Sturridge when he jumped up and slipped on synthetic turf, and was later diagnosed with a dislocation to his left ankle and from that dislocation, he fractured the fibula in two places the back of the tibia and ruptured the ligaments.
Gary Lewin also had a stint with West Ham United in 2017 as the Head of Medical Service, but left the club following the appointment of former Manchester City gaffer Manuel Pellegrini at the end of the 2017-18 season, he was also a trustee of the Brain & Spine Foundation the only United Kingdom-wide charity providing medical information and emotional support on the full range of neurological conditions.
Although the physio is no longer with the Gunners, however, he still does his thing with the Women’s team and he would go down in football history as one of the finest physiotherapists that have worked with a football club, and on the flip side, several physiotherapists have gone on to become a manager themselves, most notably Nigel Adkins, Les Parry, and John Whitney but wouldn’t same would apply to Gary Lewin who is more dedicated to treating life-threatening injuries.
