SIDELINED Humble Lions striker Kemar Mills says it is painful having to watch from the stands while his team languishes in the bottom half of the Digicel Premier League tables.

“Well actually, mi kinda feel hurt still, not being out there and knowing that I am one of the better strikers. But, is a reason why I am not out there and dem (teammates) know mi situation”, said Mills.

Mills suffered a traumatic head injury in May while playing in the final of the South Central Super League against Bodles FC.

The 28-year-old Garvey Maceo past student “was knocked unconscious by a Bodles defender as both challenged for a ball inside the penalty area during the Confederation title decider”, the Observer reported back in June.

But, while his team went on to win the game and eventually gained promotion to the premiership, Mills — a former Premier League winner with Tivoli Gardens — spent nearly a week in hospital.

However, since his release, the striker — under the guidance of Dr Peter Charles — has been making steady recovery and is now eyeing a return to top-flight football next month.

“The recovery is going fine. He has one final appointment with the doctor on the 21st of December and I expect the doctor to approve him for January,” said an optimistic Mike Henry, chairman of the Humble Lions Football Club.

“We have been treating him as a part of the team… he brought us this far, so we have to be thankful. As such, we’ve been maintaining his salary and so forth”, added Henry, who is also the Member of Parliament for the community in which Humble Lions is situated.

Presently, the former Seba, Rivoli and Village United player has been participating in squad games, albeit with much caution.

“He has been playing squad games, but not fully, because we’ve not gotten the full okay in terms of him heading balls, and that is a critical part of the game, as you know, so we have to be careful how we push him”, said Christopher Bender, coach of Humble Lions.

Humble Lions — playing in the Premier League for the first time — lie in 11th spot in the 12-team league with 12 points and are desperately fighting to stave off relegation.

They have not been scoring a lot of goals either, despite creating a number of chances, with their record standing at 13 goals for and 22 against after 16 games.

This is a problem that Mills thinks he could help to solve.

“When mi get back no more talking, just straight performance because you know when I’m playing mi tek a lot of pressure off a di team, and even in the training right now is just pure vibes”, the lanky striker said with great anticipation.

And while the much-travelled player has been out of action for almost eight months, he thinks he will have little problems readjusting to the game when he makes his re-entry.

“When mi get mi lick mi neva lose nutten, mi have it same way, a just fitness mi need right now and I am in the gym working hard. So, when I return it have to be bigger and better”, he said.

Meanwhile, Bender said not having a player like Mills in his line-up has been a big loss, but he is anticipating the striker’s return.

“Not having Kemar in the team is a major loss in terms of the area that I am most concerned about right now… we’re not converting most of the chances that we’re creating and we know that if he were here… being a natural goal scorer he would have put them away” said Bender.