Hardcore Soccer Fan Refuses to Leave Game After Breaking His Ankle Celebrating

Some fans won’t let anything cause them to miss the end of a game.

Some fans won’t let anything cause them to miss the end of a game, even if it means delaying a much-needed trip to the hospital. 

Leeds United played Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday in a game crucial to Leeds’s hopes of earning promotion to the Premier League. The game was scoreless until Jack Harrison found the back of the net in the 65th minute to give Leeds a 1–0 lead. 

It was a massive goal that deserved an emphatic celebration, but Leeds supporter Matt Richardson might have celebrated too hard. Richardson broke his ankle running down the steps in the stands. He shared a photo of his grotesquely swollen left foot in a hospital waiting room and another fan snapped a picture of Richardson’s foot pointed the wrong way while he sat in his seat. 

(WARNING: Graphic images below.)

As the second photo implies, Richardson refused to leave the stadium before the game was over. 

“I looked down and I thought: ‘I probably need to go hospital’ but my main priority was to carry on watching the game,” Richardson, 18, told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“I called the paramedics over but I made it clear that I was staying to watch the full 90 minutes,” Richardson added. “I was more interested in the fact Leeds are going to the Premier League!”

Leeds is indeed on the brink of promotion, currently second in the Championship (the top two teams get promoted and the next four compete in a playoff for the last spot)—and Richardson probably isn’t old enough to remember the last time Leeds played in the Premier League. The Whites were relegated after the 2003–04 season and sunk as low as the third tier of English football. They’ve only finished in the top half of the second-tier Championship twice since being promoted from the third tier in 2010. So Richardson has already had plenty of heartbreak before this weekend’s ankle break.