YORK City striker Peter Duffield is back on track after his third leg-break in 18 months and admits it's pay-back time.

As reported in the Evening Press this week, Duffield has been given the all-clear by specialists to step up his return to training after a swift recovery from another fracture.

The doctor's green-light has given Duffield plenty to cheer, but the former Darlington hit man has already set his sights on a fresh target - a new Bootham Crescent contract and a chance to repay a debt of gratitude.

The 33-year-old, whose current deal runs out in the summer, said: "I have got a lot to repay this club, they have shown me a lot of loyalty among other things and I owe them a lot.

"And I feel I owe the supporters too. They have been great to me ever since I first came to the club and when I'm in and around the ground they all speak to me, which is nice. I have a lot to repay everybody.

"When I first came to the club two years ago I never promised goals but I promised effort and enthusiasm.

"And that's what I have always tried to give. Fortunately, the goals have come as well in the games I have played.

"Obviously, my problem is my contract is up but if everything works out that is the first thing people will see next season - all my enthusiasm.

"I'll be like a 16-year-old running around again."

Despite the body blows of three legs breaks inside two years, Duffield believes his time on the sidelines has merely made his hunger for success and goals burn brighter.

"I've certainly not lost that edge of wanting to play," he said.

"The seven games I did play in before this last fracture I thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, it was the most I have enjoyed playing football for a long, long time.

"It was a great buzz to put my boots back on and I've not lost that buzz yet."

His latest break came in February, just as the diminutive dynamo had got back to his best after breaking his leg in a freak training ground collision in September last year.

That cruel crack followed his first in City colours 12 months earlier, when he suffered a double fracture of the same leg in a match with Scunthorpe United at Bootham Crescent.

Duffield, who has scored six goals in just 14 starts for City, has no doubts he will make a full recovery in time for the start of next season.

"If the season started today I'd be playing six weeks," he said.

"That means I will only have been out 12 weeks and to only be out three months with a fracture you can't complain."

He added: "I'm doing everything apart from stuff on the grass but I'm hoping to start that now.

"I can go on the treadmill at a really good pace for 20 minutes to 30 minutes, the cross-stepper, bike and I get no reaction afterwards and no stiffness so I'm just looking forward to stepping it up now."

Given his bad luck with leg breaks - he also suffered one when he was a young professional with Sheffield United - Duffield said he had plenty of sympathy for England captain David Beckham.

"It is horrible being injured and it's never easy when you're in the hospital and you don't know what lies ahead," he said.

"David will have different things to worry about - it won't be his contract or money.

"But he will miss out on a European semi-final and European final and he could miss out on the World Cup.

"He knows he is going to be all right and it isn't going to be a long-term problem, it will only be eight weeks.

"But it will still be horrible for him if he has to sit and watch the World Cup."

Updated: 11:20 Saturday, April 13, 2002