ALAN Griffin admits there have been times where he has opted to keep his distance from Hardenhuish Park this season, just to avoid the frustration of not being able to take to the field for the Bluebirds.

The Chippenham Town striker has been largely incapacitated with a knee injury since the start of the season but was given a boost on the road to recovery when he went under the knife months earlier than expected last week.

The Bluebirds captain, who managed to make three cameo appearances off the bench earlier this month, getting on the scoresheet in last week’s 2-1 loss to Redditch United, is still expecting to need at least a month before he can return to action but some light at the end of the tunnel is a welcome tonic.

“I hate not playing. The most I’ve been out for in my career is a month, so it’s been really hard,” said Griffin.

“Sometimes, I’ve just stayed away because it’s not nice sitting there knowing that you could be out there scoring goals for the team.

“I think Mark (Collier) has been really unlucky with injuries to important players like Coupesy (Matt Coupe) and Phillo (Lee Phillips).

“They’ve had to play midfielders up front sometimes too but I think the boys have done well to be fair.

“I was originally not supposed to have the surgery until after Christmas but the cancellation happened and I went in last week.

“I had a tear in my meniscus, which was what was causing me the pain, and they’ve cleaned up my knee too.’’

He added: “I’ve had my bandages off and I’ll be going in to do some strengthening work with Scotty (Garraway), the physio, for a little while because I think I won’t be able to run for about a month.

“Then, we’ll see how long it is before I can get back playing.”

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