“My doctor told me my career was over and I was never going to play football again.

After recovering from one ACL injury, Northern Ireland goalkeeper Lauren Perry was hopeful another smooth process would follow after she injured her right knee in April 2022.

Yet, the words from the doctor were not what she expected to hear.

While the surgery itself had been more complicated, which was a sign of things to come, it was a blood clot discovered in her calf post-surgery that had caused concern.

“Because blood clots are within my family, my doctor told me my career was over,” Perry recalls.

“He said it would be because I would be on blood thinners the rest of my life.

“I went for a scan to see where the blood clot was, and the first dose of thinners had made it disappear.

“I don’t mean to be bad on him, but I don’t think the doctor realised what he was saying to me, that football was my life or the level that I played at.

“Susan, who is from the family I stay with in Scotland, actually said to him, ‘I don’t think you realise what you have just said’.

“Then it kind of hit him. Obviously I was very upset, I was heartbroken to hear I might not be able to play the sport I love.

“Waiting for the scan was nerve-wracking but the blood thinners had worked and it genuinely was just a result of the surgery.”

‘No injury is the same’

Now, after overcoming all those obstacles, she is back in the Northern Ireland squad and is hoping to win her first cap since 2018 – which came just before her first ACL injury.

Northern Ireland face Montenegro in a two-leg play-off in a bid to retain their League B status in the Nations League.

It marks a remarkable journey for Perry, who made her senior international as a 16-year-old and won five caps before injuries halted her progress and she had to rebuild.

Still only 22, Perry says the thought of having a long career ahead of her helped her get through her second spell in rehab.

“It was the same injury, but no injury is the same,” she says of her second ACL injury.

“Every day was a step closer to the light at the end of the tunnel, but because I had done it before I genuinely found it hard not to compare.

“With the second one, there was days when I was like ‘I’m never doing this again, this is so hard’, but people were telling me I could do it and I still had a long career ahead.

“It has made me look at looking after myself properly. I’m still doing the rehab to this day, just to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

“It was a very, very tough time with this one. Even, I thought I was back on the pitch and then I went and did a test, which put me back three months.

“My first rehab was so smooth, I was back fully within six months, while this one has been such a long process, but you learn from it and I’m in a good place now.”

‘Didn’t feel real’

After breaking into Linfield’s first team as a teenager in Northern Ireland, Perry made the move to Blackburn Rovers in 2018 before moving north to Forfar Farmington a year later.

However, the club folded and she joined Dundee United, who she helped to promotion to Scotland’s top flight before making the switch to SWPL1 rivals Montrose in June – a move she says was the “new challenge” she needed as she prepared to return to the pitch.

She was set to be recalled to the Northern Ireland squad in the build-up to Euro 2022 – the country’s first women’s major tournament – but her second ACL injury scuppered any chance of a return – something she says was “heartbreaking”.

After easing her way back into action, Perry says she was hopeful performances would put her back into the international picture with new manager Tanya Oxtoby.

“I knew I had been on the radar for a bit. I don’t think it really sunk in until the actual squad got announced.

“With my recovery and the way I’m playing, I thought I had given myself a good chance.

“I do put a lot of pressure on myself to perform to a high standard and I knew in the first couple of games I hadn’t reached those standards, so it was about not being too hard on myself.

“But I did think if I kept performing to the standard that I was, then I knew I would get a chance, and now I’ve got it.”