The 32-year-old has played for five A-League clubs and has Queens Park Rangers and Brighton and Hove Albion on his CV.

It all ended in March 2015, in his first and only game for Western Sydney Wanderers, he did his ACL after coming on for Jason Trifiro in the 76th minute, leaving Parramatta Stadium on crutches after a 3-0 loss to Melbourne Victory.

Ward felt he was shut out by the Wanderers but also acknowledged it was not against the rules because of his contractual situation at the time.

However, after taking a lengthy break from the game, he will now face his former club on Wednesday night in the FFA Cup Round of 16.

“It was a good opportunity (at Wanderers), but then I was told a week out I couldn’t do my rehab at the club,” Ward told FourFourTwo.

“I was even more disappointed especially after having in-depth conversations with the physios about what I’m doing, to have three weeks off and come back in early before all the boys and get going, but that wasn’t to be.

“For whatever reason (Wanderers coach Tony Popovic) didn’t want me to stay. So I continued to see the physios outside the club and I just went away over a month to Bali and cleared my mind.

“Their duty of care stops when my contract ends. I guess he just doesn’t care, which is fine.”

Ward battles with Connor Pain in his first and last game for the Wanderers

 

After his holiday in Bali, Ward returned to Sydney and received a call from a close friend about starting a café business in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra, where he worked as a barista and director for two years.

He had previous experience with Fallout Clothing & Brooklyn Clothing from 2010 – 2014 where he worked with former AFL Essendon player Andrew Welsh.

Ward described his café, SOS, as a “good distraction” but recently sold the business.

The midfielder is now with Bentleigh, despite training with South Melbourne in the pre-season, but at the time was unsure whether he wanted to resume playing. He is also looking at studying real estate and recently finished his coaching B licence.

Ward is still full of belief he can return to the highest level, but after being out of the game for so long, he said he needed to be playing real games to have any chance.

But the Perth-born midfielder said he “had some very dark times” in the last two years after suffering the ACL injury.

“I definitely felt lost, I went and saw a psychologist because I was pretty down about everything,” he said.

“I missed the routine of being in a football club every day and having someone structuring your life for you… it sounds like you’re a baby but it’s just what you’re used to.

“It’s massive issue in sport, you go from doing something every day and that’s the only thing you’ve done since you were a teenager. You’ve never done anything else and then it’s taken away from you.”

Ward also said he coincidentally ran into Graham Arnold, who gave him the opportunity to do his rehab with Sydney FC.

“I was running in a park in Drummoyne and Arnie was walking his dog,” he said.

“He’s a really good guy, he said to me ‘once you’re back running, why don’t you come in with Andrew Clark and do some rehab at Sydney?’.

“I kind of regret that I didn’t take him up on the offer but at the same time I had my head into the café. I decided to do that, it was going really well but at the same time I still had that desire to get back or to some capacity and I didn’t want to end my career on the injury.

“Looking back at it, the difference between, if I believe, if I was training with an A-League team for nine months doing my rehab, I would’ve been back playing for sure.”

Ward also had advice for young professional footballers in Australia, feeling they need to be realistic about life after the game.

“Men in general are not ones to talk about their feelings and you have loads of these men coming out, whether it’s injury or retirement, they haven’t sorted out what they’re going to do,” Ward said.

“They have an idea but that first transition is going to be tough regardless and you’re going to miss football, miss your mates and it’s just so different.

“People do get stressed out, they go from being on good salaries to nothing.

“There needs to be some sort of program or just to help. The most important thing about now is the game is growing, there should be investment in education and transition.

“Make sure you’re drilling it into them – ‘don’t waste your time, because you have time throughout the week and make sure you’re doing something and looking forward’.

“You meet so many people in sport and you can use those contacts and you just have to make sure you have something behind you as a plan B.”