BILLERICAY’S Craig Edwards Junior suffered a knee injury which is feared will end his football career in their game at Dorchester on Tuesday night.

He suffered a dislocated knee and ruptured ligaments after landing awkwardly following an innocuous clash with Dorchester’s Charlie Clough just before half-time in their Conference South clash.

He was stretchered from the pitch and taken to hospital where the full extent of the damage was confirmed, and is now set to undergo an operation.

It is a bitterly sad blow for the player, who has turned out for teams including Southend United, Grays Athletic and Chelmsford City, and has already battled back from a number of serious injuries.

Billericay owner Grant Gordon said: “It looks like his career is finished now. It’s heart breaking. He has a young family and has worked so hard to keep playing after previous injuries. It’s such a shame when something like this happens.”

The 30-year-old midfielder is the son of Billericay manager Craig Edwards and his first game for the club was in a pre-season friendly against Braintree in 2011.

Before that he had been training with Dover after a two-year absence from the game to recover from a back operation.

The blow was not eased by Town suffering their heaviest defeat of the season at Dorchester.

Four goals in the space of 13 second-half minutes helped the Magpies romp to a 6-1 victory, with Charlie Taylor scoring Town’s consolation goal.

Town were missing central defenders Chris Wild through suspension and Rob Swaine through illness, but Gordon said it was a scoreline which flattered their hosts.

He said: “We played really well in the first half and felt unlucky to be 1-0 down at half-time.

“It was a night when a couple of bad errors from our keeper cost us, and injuries meant we ended up with our centre forward Jay May playing at centre half.

“We also had three good penalty shouts turned down.

“It sounds strange when you lose 6-1, but there was a lot of positives to take from our performance. But it was just one of those nights.”