FOOTBALL'S FIGHT AGAINST PROSTATE CANCER

After battling the disease himself, Mick Harford tells FFT how he has joined forces with Viv Anderson, Grant McCann and more for a fundraising drive this October

- Ed McCambridge

Mick Harford will never forget the day doctors broke the life-altering news that he was suffering from prostate cancer. It was December 2020 and the former Luton, Wimbledon and England striker had been expecting little more than the usual advice from his GP about eating sensibly and getting enough exercise.

"I'd actually been given the all-clear for prostate cancer a year earlier," Harford now 65 - tells FourFourTwo. "I'd initially been to see the doctor with concerns about how often I was going to the toilet. I was waking up several times a night and sometimes even needing to go again just 30 seconds later.

They had me take a PSA [Prostate-Specific Antigen] test and it came back negative there was just some inflammation, nothing to be too concerned about.

"But the symptoms worsened over the next 12 months, and when I returned I was told a tumour had grown on my prostate. Cancer had spread to my groin, my lymph nodes, my ribs - all over. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My world was turned upside down in an instant. I was absolutely terrified." Those old enough to remember Harford as a player will attest he was never one to scare easily. The 6ft 3in targetman was adored by supporters for his bravery, aggression and physicality, and feared by opponents for the same reasons.

"I saw him smash so many people running into him was like running into a brick wall," former Liverpool and West Ham defender Neil 'Razor' Ruddock told FFT in a 2021 ranking of the 25 hardest players of all time (Harford, for the record, made his top three, ahead of the likes of Duncan Ferguson and Vinnie Jones).