While I don't need to stick a knife in to a toaster to recognise that it is a bad idea, some other things in life need to be experienced by one's self to be fully appreciated.

For the past week I have had the misfortune of being able to empathise heartily with my injured football heroes as I have succumbed to a mystery ailment of my own. While I don't pretend that my pain and discomfort is on par with that suffered by elite sportsmen, it has still given me some perspective of what they endure throughout a season.

I have often heard it said that by season's end, all footballers are carrying an injury of some kind. The remarkable thing is that they manage to carry on in spite of it. Sure it is their job, much in the same way that bloggers are required to compose an article even if they are terribly hung-over, yet it is still an admirable quality and not enough credit is given to players that endure the strappings, rub downs and ice baths required to play through injury.

Queensland Roar, like every other club in every other league, had their fair share of injuries this season. There was of course the big news story regarding Craig Moore's brave battle with testicular cancer. His courage in taking to the field is legendary in the truest sense of the word and I for one admit that I would not possess the mental strength to get the job done in circumstances as trying as his.

There was also Charlie Miller's hernia half way through the season. The big Scot soldiered on in spite of obvious discomfort for several weeks before eventually having to go under the surgeon's knife. They breed them tough in the northern end of the British Isles and Miller certainly didn't harm that reputation as he gave his all to help turn around Queensland's season.

And, perhaps forgotten by some, there was the season ending osteo pubis that afflicted target man Reinaldo. He continually attacked the goal throughout the first part of the season, despite this crippling malady that, I have heard on good authority, has reduced more than one big burly Aussie Rules player to tears in recent years.

Then there are the other niggles and strains that we saw and now just commonly accept as part of a season's rough and tumble. Tahj Minniecon's thigh, Hyuk-Su Seo's calf and Josh McCloughan's hamstring being just some of the more prominent injuries that forced squad changes.

Yet no matter the degree or severity of the injury they all have one thing in common - they force the player from the field and he is no longer able to influence the outcome of the game. For a professional footballer this must be as difficult as any physio programme or rehabilitation schedule. That sense of futility on the sidelines - what I will dub sidelinitus - is surely a significant motivation to return better, bigger and stronger.

Personally, I will be experiencing my own case of sidelinitus this weekend. While my own troubles are at time of writing still a mystery to my physician, I have been told to not play sport for the next month. At this time of year that sport for me is cricket and I will now spend Sunday not in the glaring sun with my neatly creased white trousers but sitting in the shade kept company only by my team's faithful, but not overtly glamorous, contingent of WAGS.

It is now becoming clearer to me why so many players push through that pain barrier and continue to play despite the howls of protest from their ailing bodies. It certainly is a far better alternative than a raging case of sidelinitus.