AN amateur footballer is recovering in hospital after suffering a sickening leg break at the weekend.

Team mates of Darren Jackson looked on in horror as his left leg buckled during a Sunday league game at Memorial Park in Great Harwood.

Darren, 33, of Lower Darwen, was playing for Boca Seniors in Division Two of the Harry Dewhurst Memorial League against Forts Arms FC, Clayton-le-Moors, when he went to control the ball with his left foot.

Keeper and friend Rob Airey, 33, of Ashworth Street, Baxenden, said Darren's foot rolled over the ball and as his foot hit the turf the tibula and fibula in his left leg snapped in half.

He added: "I was 80 yards away and I heard it snap.

"When he lifted his leg up the bottom part of his leg was just hanging down.

"We asked if anybody knew first aid and a nurse came on from the side of the pitch.

"She lifted up the blanket to have a look and she's gone oh my God' and walked away. Darren being Darren was laughing a joking until the ambulance came."

Mr Airey said the leg break was similar to the one suffered by David Busst for Coventry versus Manchester United in 1996, when Busst's leg snapped in half under a challenge fron Denis Irwin and ended his career.

The central midfielder underwent an operation yesterday and his leg was pinned.