Carlton star Charlie Curnow to undergo knee surgery after freak injury
A key Blue has suffered a freak knee injury that has seen him go under the knife today. He won’t run until the new year and will likely miss Carlton’s entire pre-season competition, putting him in doubt for Round 1.
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Charlie Curnow has fractured his patella in a freak mishap and could be in doubt for Round 1.
The young Blues star — who will have surgery today — slipped on tiles while walking up stairs, and while it is the same knee that he injured in a basketball mishap after the season, it is a new injury.
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He will likely miss the club’s entire pre-season Marsh Community Series but everything would need to go smoothly for a Round 1 berth with football boss Brad Lloyd saying the three to four-month recovery period would see Curnow “right on” the time frame for the season opener.
Carlton said when he slipped, he “produced a high-level contraction to his quadriceps muscle” which had “caused a large force to go through his whole knee”.
The de-conditioned patella did not tolerate the load, causing the fracture.
“The recovery time for a fractured knee cap is typically 3-4 months,” Blues football boss Brad Lloyd said.
“This will delay his return to running until the new year, which means it is unlikely he will be available for our pre-season games in late-February and early-March.
“Charlie is understandably very disappointed right now but our entire football club, and I’m sure our members included, will give Charlie all the support he needs to get through this frustrating period.
“He is a resilient character, and we have no doubt, knowing the competitor he is, he will be back to playing good football in the navy blue in 2020.”
The key forward, 22, injured his right knee twice this season before dislocating his kneecap in a game of basketball last month.
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Blues co-captain Patrick Cripps — who was with Curnow when he suffered the October injury — said this week that Curnow had been in “ripping nick”.
“It was a weird one,” Cripps said of the basketball incident.
“I felt for him at the time, because he was so motivated at the time to really prove a lot of people wrong about last year.
“The best of Charlie – and we haven’t seen that yet – is going to be pretty scary when we do see it.
“He came back in ripping nick off the back of hardly moving over the break with his knee, so that shows to me that he’s as determined as ever to prove a lot of people wrong.”
He described Curnow as having been in “good spirits” and his brother Ed as “pretty freak athletes”.
Originally published as Carlton star Charlie Curnow to undergo knee surgery after freak injury