Matt Maher: Years of injury hell – but Stafford's Beth Cobden still dares to dream

Denied the chance to compete on home turf at Birmingham 2022 by a troublesome calf injury, the Staffordshire netball ace last week jetted off to Australia to resume her career in the England Vitality Roses three-match Test series against the Commonwealth champions.

There can be few athletes, in any sport, who have faced so much misfortune with injury as Cobden. Yet there are also few who have proved so adept at rebounding from it and now, at the age of 29, she believes the best may still be yet to come.

“What’s kept me going? Probably the fact I don’t feel I have achieved everything I want yet,” she explains. “I am quite a determined person and I still have goals. If I end up not achieving them that is fine, but I will be able to say I tried my hardest. While I can still play, I will. I still feel I have more to give. I really don’t think I have peaked yet.

“There have been good moments but it would be good to just consistently play and show people this is me, this is what I can do.”

It is no exaggeration to say Cobden’s injury list would have curtailed most sporting careers. Most serious among the setbacks have been three anterior cruciate ligament injuries, including two to her left knee within 12 months of each other in 2018 and 2019.

Cobden, already by then a two-time Superleague All Star and a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, faced a long road back.

“That’s probably the closest I’ve come to calling it a day,” she admits. “To have two ACL injuries in a row was really hard.

“Quite a few people were asking: ‘Are you still going to play?’ When you hear that, you wonder whether people are thinking you should stop playing.

“When little things go wrong and training is not going well it can bring you down a bit. When I get little niggling injuries now, like my calf, you ask yourself whether it is worth it?”

Cobden, who grew up in Heath Hayes, Cannock, enlists the help of a sports psychologist to help overcome her doubts on court. What is perhaps most fascinating is the way the injuries have shaped her personality.

“You are forced to look at things differently,” she explains. “I do think it has helped me as a person. It’s made me a lot stronger but also made me more empathetic towards others.

“Even though it has been a bit rubbish, getting injured, there are good things that have come out of it. When I look at the future, it does not make me as scared to not play.

“I love netball and yes, it’s my job but it is not my life. I am not ill. There are so many worse things that happen to people and it is not something I am going to let affect me. It has been hard but people go through much worse.

“With the psychologist it was more getting over a fear of certain things on the court, certain movements I’ve been doing when I got injured. That is the sort of thing which plays on your mind.

“When I am playing I don’t want those thoughts. It has helped with the disappointment but it is important to keep it in perspective.

“At the minute I am in a really good place, getting myself back playing. Every time I come away from a session I am just dead pleased to be playing netball again.”

Capped 35 times by England, Cobden was part of the team which famously defeated Australia to win Commonwealth gold on the Gold Coast four years ago and missing out on this summer’s Games was, she admits, tough to take.

The hosts ultimately missed out on a medal this time around and the series Down Under, which starts next Wednesday, offers the chance to continue preparations for next summer’s World Cup, which takes place in South Africa.

Being part of the squad for that tournament is a major goal for Cobden, who is yet to play at a World Cup and missed the 2019 edition due to her ACL injuries.

She has also signed up for another season with Loughborough Lightening in the Vitality Netball Superleague, which resumes in February.

“It is definitely a case of one season at a time,” she says. “It is about seeing the short-term. I think you have to when you are injured.

“It is a case of thinking what am I going to do tomorrow, rather than thinking far ahead because you never know what is going to happen.

“I’ve had a rough ride with injuries but I’ve also had a lot of highs in my career. I have probably had more highs than most people but also probably more lows. It has been a rollercoaster but the good things that have happened make you want to keep going. I’ll play this season and see how my body is feeling. Hopefully it will be OK.

“Some of the girls playing now are 10 years older than me but I am not sure my knees will allow that.

“Having a couple of years when things are going bad for you, it opens your eyes a bit more. It has helped me in that sense. I am grateful you can still have good things come out of the bad times.”