When Charlie was signed the club knew full well he lacked general fitness and game time conditioning. I have it on good authority it was thought he'd be able to play himself back into fitness not only through extra training but with game time minutes under his belt. Unfortunately it appears his body is no longer responding in the way it once did.

Age is a number, biological age is not. Essentially it's the rate at which the body ages and life catches up with us. We are all different but the only way (in my opinion) he'll get back to anything even remotely like what he was before would be to live like a monk, something which I don't think he's ever done. Personally I believe his biological age has caught up with him.

The mind is clearly still willing but the body doesn't appear to be so. That in itself has had a significant impact on what was formerly his greatest asset. His timing. When your timing goes it doesn't matter how fit you are as your body and mind are out of synch'.

Think of a car. It doesn't matter how finely tuned your engine is, if your timing belt goes you're not going to get very far. With the correct maintenance there's still a few miles left under Charlies bonnet and there'll still be the occasional ride out in the sun. Sadly for both him and us though I feel his days at the Grand Prix end of the game may have been and gone.