Deal Town FC

4th November 2025

Deal’s win against Ashford last month was a momentous occasion not just for Deal who overturned two earlier defeats in the season against Ashford but it was also a pivotal game for Jack Hanson. The match signalled the end of 640 days out of football and closed the door on Jack's longest stretch out of the game.

“I snapped all three ligaments,” he says matter-of-factly of the moment of the injury during the hoops away game at Phoenix. Jack came on for the last twenty minutes of the game but only lasted five. Running into the opposition’s box he was met by a strong challenge. “He came straight through me. I heard it go and felt it go straight away. There was a loud bang, you heard the pop of my knee going and it completely ruptured everything.”

So began a long period of recovery for Jack.

The first weeks were the worst. “You get told the extent of it and you’re thinking, what do you do now? How do you overcome it? Then you’re waiting for scans and it's quite nerve wracking when you have to deal with it.”

Jack had experienced injuries in the past but never broken any bones and nothing close to the extent of this injury which took a season out of his career. “It was a struggle, it was really difficult and it’s something you wouldn’t wish upon anybody and then it happens to you.”

But he was reassured that there was a road ahead, he will be able to play again, he just had to accept the timeline and follow the advice. “That was my goal, doing everything I had been told; physio appointments, rehabilitation, lots of gym work. You just have to keep ticking boxes, reaching one goal after another, and it gets quick after a while and the end goal starts to come back into view.”

Hanson remained part of the Deal set up, and he continued to turn out to support the hoops, albeit crutches in hand. But missing a whole season and not being able to play also brought frustration. “When Deal are [sic] having a great Vase run and I’m on the sidelines watching and you can’t do it, you just want to be a part of it. But being part of the team and supporting them every week, being in and around it, it did help massively.”

His start of returning to the pitch began with a loan to Kennington at the beginning of 2025/26 season, a club he had a couple of seasons at earlier in his career. Speaking about the loan move;  “It was absolutely brilliant, they are a great group of lads. I played a good amount of minutes and it was great having the feel of being back on the pitch again.”

Back in the Deal squad, the struggle is behind him, and he can start concentrating on his football again. “I’ll start to set myself some targets next season but for now I just want to get back into the first eleven.”

Tagged: Jack Hanson