AT five past four on the afternoon of Saturday, February 26 this year Ricardo Gardner's future in football was under serious threat.

As the tricky Jamaican winger was being stretchered out of Barnsley's Oakwell ground, it was feared he had sustained serious damage to his knee.

Hospital scans confirmed he had ruptured medial and anterior cruciate ligaments. He was warned he wouldn't play again this year ... there were even doubts, as there always is when the word 'cruciate' is mentioned, that he would ever be the same again!

Tomorrow, little more than eight months on, Gardner faces Barnsley again - not only fit but looking as good, if not better, than ever!

"I thought I would be out until Christmas time," the shy Caribbean kid admits. "It's great to be back a lot earlier than I thought."

Gardner - a raw talent when he appeared for the famous Reggae Boyz in the 1998 World Cup Finals in France before his £1 million move to the Reebok - will be ever-grateful to Wanderers for going to the expense of sending him to the world famous Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Vail, Colorado, where he underwent re-constructive surgery. And he is quick to praise the encouragement and guidance he received from club physio Mark Leather, who was recently headhunted by Sunderland.

"I've worked very hard and I think Mark Leather did a great job on my rehab when he was here," he acknowledged. "I've stuck to it and have come back a lot earlier than I thought.

"I felt very special at the time when they sent me to Colorado. They did a great job there. They have a great reputation in helping all athletes, not only footballers."

Sam Allardyce stuck his neck out when he elected to send Gardner to the US for his reconstructive surgery. Similar injuries had always been treated locally.

But he wanted the youngster to know that he would get the best treatment available - wherever that might be and at whatever cost - and predicted that, provided things went smoothly, he would come back a stronger and better player, mentally as well as physically.

Now it's payback time and Gardner sounds determined to deliver.

"I think I've worked very hard," he says, looking back on his seven-month lay-off, "and the knee is getting stronger and stronger. But I'm going to keep the rehab going. I have a lot more to give. I've just got to keep going and help the team get promotion at the end of the season.

"In a few games they have seen what I can do but I think I have a lot more to offer as a player."