Hull FC: Army veteran amputee takes on rugby league role

Steve Sampher served for 25 years in the Light Dragoons after joining in 1995

A former soldier who lost a leg after his tank was blown up in Afghanistan is to start a new job at the rugby league club he supported as a boy.

Steve Sampher, 44, spent 25 years in the Light Dragoons but sustained serious injuries on active service in 2012.

He has joined Hull FC to connect the club with veterans in his home city.

Mr Sampher said: "Being part of a rugby league team and being in the Army are very similar".

He joined the forces in 1995 and was deployed on tours of Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I was deployed in Afghanistan in 2012 when an improvised explosive device blew the Scimitar tank I was in up in the air and on to its roof.

"I damaged my leg but survived only to come under heated small arms fire, during the firefight I was shot in the helmet and it cut into my head knocking me unconscious and causing injury and a bleed to the brain."

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"Not being able to play the game had messed with my head until I found wheelchair rugby league," said Mr Sampher

Numerous operations followed on Mr Sampher's return to the UK but his right leg was eventually amputated above the knee in 2017.

The injury and associated problems affected his mental health while he also contracted blood clots in his heart and lungs following the amputation, spending weeks in intensive care.

One part of the former youth rugby player's rehabilitation was discovering and playing wheelchair rugby league for Hull FC and the Army.

Mr Sampher (L) with Hull FC and England's Jake Connor and (R) on service

Now he is being taken on as the club's pathways officer to help the veterans' community combat isolation and loneliness in the city.

"When I was on tour I used to get up at 03:00 to watch rugby league games and that connection with home was massive on active service.

"With Hull FC's historic ties to former star Jack Harrison VC, MC and the really strong forces contingent in Hull, I want to give something back."