Sports participation, sports injury and altered images of self: an autobiographical narrative of a life-long legacy.

Abstract

Narratives of self such as auto-biographical and/or auto-ethnographic texts provide readers with highly personalised insights into lived worlds and seek to engage readers in a way that encourages further reflection on their own lives and the lives of others. With these expectations in mind the paper explored the author’s sports injury experiences. Moments from his soccer career are revisited and revised perspectives on those times emerge. The paper questioned the simplistic notion of ‘moving-on’ after trauma through reference to a perverse and ironic legacy of life-long physical activity and associated disenchantment with the intrinsic qualities of alternative career experiences.