Nick Tsaroulla will step onto Meadow Lane’s hallowed turf on Friday night knowing he has already beaten death to play the game he loves. The Notts County winger, 27, was on his way to Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground in April 2017 when the car he was driving was T-boned in a head-on collision in Winchmore Hill, north London. Doctors gave him a 5% chance of walking again after multiple fractures, but Tsaroulla fought through 12 months of agony to return to football, a journey that now has him at the heart of his club’s desperate bid for League One football.

Tsaroulla joined Notts County from Crawley Town last summer, but his path to Meadow Lane has been anything but ordinary. After Spurs released him in 2018, he rebuilt his career with Brentford’s B team before thriving at Crawley, where he scored the goal that knocked Leeds United out of the FA Cup in January 2021. He played a key role in Crawley’s League Two promotion play-off success in 2024, only to miss Notts County’s own play-off campaign last year due to emergency appendix surgery.

Friday’s second leg of the League Two play-off semi-final against Chesterfield is not just a football match for Tsaroulla—it’s a moment to savor. “It’s a short career, a short life,” he told reporters this week. “Life can be taken away in any second, football can be taken away in any second, which it was for me—and then you realise how much you miss it and you just want to enjoy every second of it.” The 27-year-old insists his team will play with unbridled passion, regardless of the stakes. “We will play like our lives depend on it,” he said, “but at the end of the day, they don’t. That does relieve the pressure.”

Notts County manager Martin Paterson has made it clear that Tsaroulla’s story resonates deeply in the dressing room. “His story is really important. There’s 23 to 26 players in there, if not more, and they’ve all got their own individual stories about why they’re here, why they want to achieve something,” Paterson said. “It’s really important and we do harness that and we do speak about it. All of us can just chip in together and focus on the future.” The Magpies, playing in front of a sea of scarlet and blue, are one win away from ending an 11-year exile from the third tier. For Tsaroulla, the play-offs are more than just football—they’re a chance to rewrite his narrative.

As the clock ticks toward kickoff, Tsaroulla’s words echo louder than any chant from the terraces. “One day, in 30 or 40 years’ time, hopefully, I can look back with my kids and grandkids and tell them stories about the experience that I got to live through, playing in a play-off game like this against Chesterfield in a derby.” For a man who once fought to take his next breath, Meadow Lane’s stage is now his sanctuary.