Dominic Johns' Journey Back to the Field: Overcoming Injury and Infection

Two years ago, Dominic Johns stood on the touchline at the 2024 HKFC Standard Chartered Soccer Sevens with his right leg in pieces and his future in doubt.

He had broken both the tibia and fibula after a crunching challenge from North District’s Ho Chun-ho, a tackle that turned a lively, sharp forward for Football Club into a helpless spectator. The first operation failed. The second, to remove a metal rod and explore what else had gone wrong, opened the door to something worse.

Infection.

What followed was not the neat, linear comeback story athletes like to imagine. Johns spent three to four months on antibiotics, his leg “hanging floppy”, strength and certainty draining away together. Every step became a question. Every week, another delay.

The turning point came in November 2024, in Sydney. Surgeons went back in, and that operation finally gave him a platform to start again. Not a sprint back to the pitch, but the beginning of a long, awkward climb.

For most of the first year and a half, there was no clear map. Rehab sessions were pencilled in but never inked. Setbacks arrived unannounced. One problem fixed, another appeared. Planning became impossible. So did looking too far ahead.

He watched the tournament again, this time working behind the scenes, producing digital content for the 2025 edition, trying to stay close to the game that had been ripped away. The pitch was a few metres away; the distance felt far greater.

Now, this weekend, he walks back over the white line as captain of Football Club at the HKFC Standard Chartered Soccer Sevens.

“It’s third time lucky,” he says, and the phrase carries the weight of those lost months. The repeated surgeries. The infection. The days when rehab felt like a loop rather than a ladder.

Just when the clouds had started to thin, early this season brought another blow. A friendly match, another painful impact, and with it a familiar dread. The damage cut as deep in the mind as it did in the leg. Progress suddenly felt fragile again.

Yet here he is, leading the side he once feared he might never play for again, carrying the scars of a journey that has been anything but straightforward. The sevens will see plenty of sharp turns and quick feet this weekend, but few stories on the turf will have taken as long, or as tortuous, a route back to the starting whistle as Dominic Johns’.