I rushed into the accident and emergency unit and demanded to be taken to see Hugo. A doctor came over and told me that would not be possible, as he had been taken into the operating theatre to repair a double fracture to his foot and ankle. I was left stunned by what came next “Mr. Rodallega has sustained a horrific injury, one of the worst I have seen in all my time as a doctor. It’s too early to say yet, but he may never walk again”.

I listened on in horror, as the doctor continued “He had previously suffered a hairline fracture to his foot, that hadn’t properly healed. Mr. Wolstenholme, that man had no business out on that football pitch today, he was an accident waiting to happen”. “He seemed fine in training” I replied. “His blood work shows that he was given a pain killing injection prior to the match, but at a much higher dose than what is deemed to be acceptable. His foot would essentially have been dead weight, how he managed to run, let alone kick a football is a mystery”.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Who had authorised the painkilling injections and why wasn’t I informed? Maybe I had overlooked his poor performance and obvious injury just to get one over on Ricky, to show that I was in charge. This was too much for me to take in all at once and didn’t seem to make any sense.

I went back home, but was unable to sleep a wink. That morning I had awoken full of optimism and enthusiasm, but just twenty-four hours later, here I was dejected, carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders and potentially having ruined a young man’s life.

I didn’t want to sit moping around in my house on the Sunday, so decided to head into the office. As I drove to Craven Cottage, I went past a newsagent, with the board outside reading ‘Fulham Ace’s Horror Injury’. The story was all over the news, with most media outlets claiming that the Colombian’s career was over.

As I made my way to my office, I heard the phone ringing, so dashed inside to answer it. “Mr Wolstenholme, this is Dr. Stone, we met yesterday. I am pleased to tell you that Mr. Rodallega’s surgery went well and we are confident that he will walk again. However, as a precautionary measure, we will be keeping him heavily sedated for the next seven days”.

It was bittersweet news; I was glad he was responding well, but couldn’t help but feel terrible for his poor family, who would have to see their boy hooked up to all those machines, unable to communicate with them. I vowed there and then that I would get to the bottom of this; whoever had delivered that injection and whoever had authorised it would pay dearly.

It was all I could think about, but as the new week got underway and the team reported back for training, I had to put it to the back of my mind. A few of the players Hugo was close with knew about his condition and kept the rest of the squad up to date with his progress.

However, they were professionals and knew that the show had to go on. Despite the draw against Portsmouth, we had remained third in the league. Next up, we faced a daunting trip to our London rivals West Ham, who themselves were in brilliant form and were currently fourth in the division, only behind us on goal difference.

As the fans filed into Upton Park and the atmosphere rose, it was a nice touch to see some of our travelling supporters unravel a banner which read ‘Get Well Soon Hugo’. I told the players to expect a high octane game from the Hammers, who had completed a marvellous 1-0 victory over Arsenal in the previous match.

The only change to the starting line up saw Streller come in for Rodallega and as the players left the dressing room, I told them to put in a performance to make Hugo proud.

With only six minutes on the clock, the gloom that had been hanging around Fulham for the past week subsided somewhat, when Sokratis performed his party piece - nodding in a Chris Burke corner to claim his eleventh goal of the season. The away supporters went wild, mocking the West Ham fans with chants of “Who are ya?”. As the Greek international celebrated, he removed his shirt to display a message reading “We’re praying for you Hugo” on his vest.

The gesture received a round of applause from everyone in the stadium, Hammers fans included. But the cheering soon turned to boos, as referee Mark Halsey brandished a yellow card to the defender.

With emotions running high, the game became disjointed, but it was a typically fiery derby encounter, with the tackles flying in. Things came to a head in the twenty-fifth minute. To all the world, Lucas Neill’s two footed lunge on Fernando Meira was a red card, but Mark Halsey deemed it to only be a bookable offence. However, justice was served from the resulting free kick; quick thinking from Giovanni saw him scoop the ball over the wall to Streller, the Swiss forward took one touch, before firing the ball low and hard past Robert Green and into the bottom right hand corner of the net.

There were smiles and embraces all around the dugout as the goal went in. With the Hammers offering little in the way of an attacking threat for the rest of the half, I was delighted to get the boys in the dressing room at the break, to congratulate them on a job well done.

Shortly after the restart, we wrapped the game up with a perfectly executed route-one move. Sarioglu fired a long ball up field, which was nodded on by Larsson. Streller managed to beat Anton Ferdinand to the ball and his fierce shot was too powerful for Robert Green to handle and sneaked inside his near post to make it 3-0.

The West Ham fans registered their disgust at their teams performance with chants of “Curbishley Out!”. The Hammers looked well beaten and in the dying seconds of the game, Fernando Meira claimed his first goal for the club, to round off an excellent victory.

“For Hugo!” the players chanted after the game. Whilst we were obviously delighted by our emphatic victory, the players thoughts quickly turned to their stricken team-mate.

I searched everywhere for Ricky after the game, unusually for him he had not been present during the post-match team talk and I would later find out that he had left the ground straight after the game. A little unusual I thought, but the guy had been threw a tough time in recent weeks and our working relationship had become particularly fraught.

Nonetheless, it had been a good day at the office and as I relaxed at home that evening, I allowed myself just the one glass of wine, as I watched Match of the Day.