Marching on for the missing ones

As you read this, I should be somewhere in South or West London walking my fourth consecutive marathon in the Prostate Cancer UK Football Marches for Men, having started from my beloved AFC Wimbledon’s ground at 8am and hopefully arriving at Millwall FC’s around 6pm.

More about how they went next week. But as I write, the 35 previous football marches I have completed come to mind because they evoke a whole range of emotions for me.

My first ‘march’ for the charity – when I met Jeff Stelling of Sky Sports for the first time in 2016 (although sadly unable to join us this time) – still makes me smile. But at the same time the memory of meeting Lloyd – who became a friend but died just over two years ago at 49 of this terrible disease – still brings a lump to my throat.