Footballer Robert Hughes has lived in two worlds since the attack that left him fighting for his life last year.

In one Mr Hughes, 28, lives with his fiancée Charlotte and works at rebuilding his professional football career.

In the other the former Sutton United player is stuck in his life as a 16-year-old after the brain injury he received in the attack in Crete in June 17 left him without the last decade of memory.

He said: “I’ve lost about 10 or more years, I don’t even remember.

“People say I’ve gone back in time. I’ve been buying things I was obsessed with when I was younger, I’ve got boxes of football boots and bought lots of 80s films such as Bruce Lee and Flash Dance.

“I feel like I’ve gone back to when I was 15 or 16, it’s just what I remember.”

Mr Hughes, who needed four life-saving operations after the attack, has battled to regain his fitness, endured months of rehabilitation and struggled against battled obsessive compulsive disorder which once made him wash his hands hundreds of times a day.

He has also been through a host of emotions: bitterness and anger towards his attackers have been a few.

At one point he was so low he thought about leaving the country.

He said: “The specialists were telling me I was never going to play football again.

“I was thinking of leaving the country and was looking at flights on the internet.

“I thought if I can never play football again and drive or live in fear because these people live in the country then I don’t want to live here.

“I wanted to go somewhere people didn’t know me and start again.”

A few weeks ago his family showed him photos of him lying in a coma in Greek hospital with half his skull missing.

He heard how his family used to hold him down as he lashed out under morphine and once ripped out tubes from his head and arms, saved at the last minute from tearing out his tracheotomy device – an act which could have been fatal.

He said: “I could never understand why people were saying; ‘Maybe you shouldn’t play football again’, but that’s because I had to be taught how to walk again.

“They say I was in that hospital for three and a half months, but I don’t remember.

“They showed me a video of me practising to walk. It’s weird, because I’m conscious, but I don’t remember it. It’s a strange feeling.”

Slowly Mr Hughes' fortune has begun to change.

Last month he was told he would be able to drive again in a few years and two weeks ago he ate his first hand-held lunch as he keeps his OCD in line.

He now has no time to waste dwelling on “destructive thoughts”.

Instead he concentrates on his plans to set up his own soccer school and training to fulfil his ambition to play professional football.

Last month Mr Hughes was given permission to return to competitive football on the condition that he wears a protective head guard and accepts responsibility for any potentially fatal knocks to his skull.

The doctors’ warning left him with nightmares, but after a few games with Bromley FC and now hopes of training with Welling United FC, his confidence has been boosted.

He said: “I have got more motivation than ever.

“I want to become a professional footballer and I want to be in a situation where I can help other people.

“When I was in rehab I saw some horrible things. There was a guy in my room whose head was not a normal shape - he’d been in some accident.

“He was a grown man and he was crying to me, I couldn’t believe the state he was in.

“I told him not to worry and that I had my skull taken off both sides and my head was swollen like his.

“He stopped crying. It was nice to be able to help someone else.

“It just made me think: if you want something you have to work harder than anybody than else to get it.

“That's just what I'm going to do.”

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