Connor Goldson could have died instantly on a football pitch without a heart op.

The Albion defender has revealed how the shock of discovering he had a swollen aorta left him in floods of tears and fearing his career was over.

Goldson returned to action in Albion's opening friendly win against Fortuna Dusseldorf in Austria on Friday night.

The 24-year-old has made a full recovery, little more than three months after surgery to repair the defect, detected in routine screening by the club.

Goldson, recalling his response to the shattering news, said: "I was crying my eyes out. I thought at that time my career might be over. I thought the world had ended.

"But the more people you speak to, the more you know about what's going to happen, once I had talked to the surgeon I always knew I was going to come back and play. He said there was no doubt, so I had no doubts in my mind.

"I had a swollen aorta, so it was a little bit bigger than the average person.

"I could have carried on playing and it could have carried on growing and maybe nothing would have happened.

"But if something did happen you wouldn't be able to tell what was going on and it would have been death straight away on a football pitch, no chance of resuscitation or anything.

"Once I'd seen the specialist I had to get it done. I missed three months of the season. A lot of people miss more than that with knee injuries and stuff like that. I went home and I've been fine."

Read the full story on Connor Goldson's recovery in today's Argus.