Stanley club doctor Joyce Watson has expressed her delight after she won the Fabrice Muamba Award for Outstanding Service to Football Medicine and Science at the MBNA North West Football Awards.
The awards ceremony took place at Lancashire County Cricket Club earlier this week, and Watson, who has spent the past 15 years working with the Reds, was overwhelmed to receive the award from Muamba himself.
“It’s a real honour to even be considered and to win it on behalf of an amazing club is quite special really,” Joyce told the club’s official website.
“There’s a lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes in football and I don’t think many people realise the extent of that.
"We do thousands of hours of education, we work with the clubs to improve equipment and provision and there’s a lot of time between games goes into making these things happen.
“It was amazing to have the award presented by Fabrice himself. To meet an incredible gentleman like him is an honour and knowing what he’s gone through, it’s amazing to be standing there with him.
“Off the back of what happened to Fabrice, our education and training has improved so that if ever a situation like that occurs again we can deal with it.
"In that way some good has come out of what happened and it’s made the football field a safer place to be since the provision of defibrillators which were brought in after that event.”
