Luke Brooke-Smith's Inspiring Comeback from Injury
Luke Brooke-Smith lay on the turf, ankle shattered, mind fogged by the green whistle. The first thing his mother wanted everyone to know was this: he’s come back from this before.
“When he was 9, he had almost exactly the same break during BMX training,” Clare Brooke-Smith recalled. No race. No crash in a pack. Just a routine manoeuvre gone wrong. “He was clipped into the bike, he did a manoeuvre and then the bike went one way, he went the other, and it just cracked, moved his ankle and that was that.”
Back then, his dad had to bundle him into the car and race him to hospital. This time, Portsmouth’s medical team were on him within seconds.
“He was like, ‘I was on the ground and then there’s people around me and then they’re telling me to wiggle my toes, but I was on the green whistle and I was looking around like, wait, have I wiggled my toes?’” Clare said. He was confused. He couldn’t feel a thing. But he was never left alone.
She praised Portsmouth for the way they wrapped around her son in the chaos. “The manager spoke to him and gave him a call and the medic stayed with Phil and Luke at the hospital the whole time,” she said. “They just send a car to pick him up when they need to because obviously he’s not going to be able to drive.”
The timing could hardly have been crueller for the family.
They had only just settled into a new rhythm. Clare and Luke’s sister Casey had been back home for about three weeks. His dad, Phil, had stayed on in England with Luke, making sure the teenager was settled at Portsmouth. Then, with everything finally in place, they decided it was time for Phil to come home.
“The irony of the whole thing was that we were just so ready to have Phil home,” Clare said. “He said Luke’s all settled, all good, booked the ticket, yesterday the tickets to come back were booked and so he was coming back tomorrow. And then of course this happens and I said cancel the flight.”
The plans were scrapped in an instant. Phil will stay. They’ll ride this out from Portsmouth, not Cambridge. At least there’s one small comfort: “Thankfully he’s British so he can stay as long as he wants to, no issues.”
Clare isn’t dwelling on the misfortune. Her mind goes straight to the last time Luke faced this road. As a BMX rider, he recovered from that broken leg in 68 days and made it to the World BMX Championships. That’s the benchmark in their house.
She knows how he operates. He sets a target, then chases it relentlessly.
Luke has been doing that since he was a kid. On his 7th birthday, he told his family he’d be going to the Olympics for BMX in 10 years. That was the first dream. The second one came later, and it changed everything.
“I remember him saying at 14 that he wanted to go into football because football’s a career move and he wanted to buy us a house,” Clare said. “He was literally crying and saying he is so upset at how much we had to sacrifice to get him to where he needed to be, because we used to go to the BMX World Champs every year and we’re not rich by any means.”
He had already done it all on the bike. Multiple national titles. No 2 junior rider in the world. A win at the USA BMX Grand Nationals. Then came a crossroads. Offers came in to keep him on the BMX circuit, with money on the table, but he walked away.
With guidance from former All White Ricki Herbert, Luke switched to football. The offers followed him there too. A Spanish club wanted him in their academy, but he turned that down as well, choosing to stay close to the family in Cambridge.
“We met with Auckland FC and we met with Wellington Phoenix and the Phoenix were more established in where he would live, I think that was our biggest thing because he had just turned 16,” Clare said.
He broke through quickly at Wellington Phoenix, then hit his first real stall. The second season brought less game time and some dark days. Instead of sulking, he treated it as a dress rehearsal for Europe.
She said he told them that having to fight for minutes might be good preparation for a move to England, where nothing is guaranteed. When Portsmouth called, everything suddenly aligned.
“Following a call with Portsmouth, they were set on joining the Championship side although offers came in from Spain and Italy,” Clare said. What swung it was the human side. “It was very family orientated and they were really going to look after him and he wasn’t going to go on loan and he wasn’t going to be in an U20s team. It just like seemed like a really good move. So we went over July 21 and he settled in really well.”
Now he’s committed to Portsmouth for the next four years. The injury hasn’t touched his long-term ambitions. The target is clear: the next World Cup with the All Whites.
“We’re a Christian family and people always say bad things happen, and I’m like yeah they do, but I’ve had lots of bad things happen in my life and so has Luke,” Clare said. “But he is very much in the mindset of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
She plans to be in England for Christmas. If his last recovery is anything to go by, she expects to be watching him in a Portsmouth shirt again by then.
The leg is broken. The plan is not.
