WHEN keen Bolton amateur sportsman Graham Holt collapsed with a serious back injury, he felt he would settle for being able to take up walking.

Two years later, after microsurgery and many hours of physiotherapy treatment, he not only returned to playing badminton, but has become national veterans' champion and is about to represent England in an international.

"Winning that title was an emotional moment,"said Graham, aged 54.

"I thought for a long time that I might never play any sport again, so to come back and win was wonderful."

Graham began playing the sport when he was a 13-year-old pupil at Stand Grammar School.

He progressed and, as a young man, played for Lancashire.

After a break to get his degree at Liverpool University and start creating a career in accountancy, he returned to the sport, playing at Bury Badminton Club and regularly representing Bolton in the inter-town league.

He married Alison and they had three children, two of whom, Chris and Lizzie, have also both played badminton for their county.

At the age of 45, Graham started competing in the burgeoning national veterans' circuit, once more representing Lancashire, and achieving success in both mixed doubles with regular Bury partner Elizabeth Greenwood and men's doubles with John Cocker, from mid-Lancs.

They won the All England and the English National championships, and were also successful in the European championships.

But, in spite of being generally very fit, a back problem he first suffered 26 years earlier occasionally niggled.

It was, however, when Graham was playing alongside John in the European championships in Dresden, Germany, two years ago that this condition suddenly took a dramatic turn for the worse.

"We were in the final against a German pair. I had done that classic thing and not warmed up properly beforehand, and I felt a bit of a twinge right at the start of the match so I put on some pain spray,"Graham said.

"We were doing well, but suddenly my right leg went completely and I collapsed on the floor."

Dragging himself up, he somehow carried on - and the British pair won.

But, the price proved too high.

Graham had to be stretchered off the court, and was taken to a Dresden hospital where doctors discovered a disc in his spine had moved.

They offered him an operation, but Graham preferred to come home for treatment, returning to England in a wheelchair.

He found out about the regional spinal unit at Hope Hospital in Salford, and four months, and much discomfort and pain, later he was seen there and referred for an MRI scan.

This showed a ruptured disc was pinching a spinal nerve causing, the leg problem.

Surgery was the best option.

Graham turned to the internet to find out more about the operation he needed - lumbar microdiscectomy, involving surgery in and around the spine.

He also found out about consultant Mr Saeed Mohammad, who could carry out the delicate and complex procedure.

The surgery to release the nerve took a couple of hours, and Graham was in hospital for four days before returning home to a lengthy recuperation.

This involved getting back on his feet as quickly as possible and walking increasing distances daily.

This proved no major hardship around the rolling moors by his Rawtenstall home, but it did need determination. He said: "At this stage, I had no real hopes of ever playing badminton or anything else again.

"I was happy to be walking.

"In fact, I began to really enjoy it and, for a while, made walking my sport."

He did try badminton again in September, 2003, but it was immediately disastrous as scar tissue on his back broke down, landing him once more at his Bolton physio for lengthy treatment.

He spent the early part of last year getting himself as fit as possible in the gym and had some expert help from top local coaches.

By the summer, the lure of his beloved former sport pulled him back again.

He started playing the occasional Bolton League match, and towards the end of the year, decided to enter the English Nationals at Milton Keynes with Essex player John Gardner.

"I just thought I would enter because, basically, I'd nothing to lose.

"I was very laid back about it,"he said.

And in a tough final - ironically against Bolton's Bill Hamblett and Blackburn's Barrie Hodgson - Graham and John won the over-50s men's doubles title - to clinch a national trophy once more and get Graham back to the winning ways he thought were gone forever. Now, he is looking forward to representing his country when England plays Scotland at Ribby Hall sports village in March.

Graham, a lecturer in accounting at Manchester Metropolitan University, has returned to league and tournament play.

But he is armed with one valuable lesson from the past couple of years - "never give up."