Katie Sherwood (Swindon Town FC)

A return to the Swindon Town first-team squad has been a long time coming for defender Katie Sherwood.

She’s spent the best part of a year on the sidelines after suffering a meniscus tear in training.

“It was just a fun little game, really,” she tells SheKicks.net, “and it’s probably my fault as a defender shooting, but I was taking a shot on the goal, and I just got blocked.

“It was purely just impact with the ball and the player and ended in me having a nasty tear of my meniscus.”

She goes on: “It was an instant feeling. Normally, I do just jump back up, but as soon as I tried standing up before – no, it’s not a good one.”

Katie Sherwood: You build up mental resilience

It was the same knee in which she tore her anterior cruciate ligament as a 16-year-old, six years ago, and that experience, she thinks, helped her through this lay-off – though she says this one was more painful and due to not being able to walk she was more reliant on others.

“You build up a bit of a mental resilience when things like this...