“I’m not doing this for sympathy,” says Geoff Haugh as he explains why he has decided to talk openly about his experience of testicular cancer. “If just one person reads this and it means they catch it and beat it, that has to be good.”
Haugh, the Carlisle United rehab coach and a well-known and liked man both at the Blues and in the wider community, wants to use his story to promote an important message.
He hopes that his profile, as part of Paul Simpson’s backroom team at Brunton Park, can bring awareness. He hopes it can encourage men to check themselves regularly, and be alert to the kind of problem he had assumed would never happen to him.
Haugh, 62, is a famously fit and healthy man who has never drank or smoked and, even when he woke one morning last August and found that his left testicle was “a bit on the large side”, he assumed it was an infection.
“That was a Thursday, and on Saturday we were playing Gillingham at home,” he says. “Their manager is Neil Harris, and it felt like a bit of a coincidence with what he’d been through with the same thing [Harris recovered from testicular cancer in his twenties]. I wanted to speak to him, but then I was concerned that he was busy and I didn’t want to get in his way.
"I mentioned it to Ross [Goodwin], our physio. I told him I felt I had a problem, and he advised me to get the doctor to look at it. It was Duncan Robertson, from Fleetwood, who was on duty for that game, and he was very thorough.
“He told me to see him after the game for a scan, and after he’d done that he told me that didn’t like the look of it at all.”
Haugh was advised that he should undergo further tests, yet the coach was mindful of Carlisle’s scheduled fixture at Harrogate Town. “He [Dr Robertson] said right away, ‘You need to forget the football, Geoff, you’ve got a problem and we need to get to the bottom of it’.”
Haugh was taking antibiotics for what he thought was an infection, but arranged a scan in Barrow at 10.30pm on the Friday night. “I told my wife, and she said she’d come with me, but again I was that convinced that it was nothing to worry about that I told her there was no point. It felt like I was ticking a box on the way to things getting back to normal.
“The clinic was in the middle of town in Barrow, in what used to be a bank, and it was right next door to a pub, so you could hear everybody having a good time, which was interesting. They were running late, so I had to wait for a while, but when I got in I was put on a bed with a huge 42-inch screen right there beside it.
“[The doctor] started to do the scan and he confirmed right away that I had cancer in the testicle. He said that it would need to be removed.”
Haugh says it was a “massive shock” having felt no earlier symptoms. He had enjoyed a family holiday in Florida two months earlier, hurtling down water slides with no ill-effect – and had not been overly worried even when he had gone for a run on that Thursday morning and it was not a comfortable experience. The testicle, he says, “was huge, probably two and a half times the normal size. When I turned over in bed it moved, like [the Viz character] Buster Gonad and his wheelbarrow…”
When Haugh was told the testicle would need to be removed, he thought of one of his heroes. “I told the doctor that if it was good enough for Bobby Moore it was good enough for me. He was confused, so I explained that Bobby had one of his removed in 1964, and two years later he was picking the World Cup up. He’d kept that to himself, he hadn’t told his team mates or anyone.”
Haugh then drove home to Carlisle, from Barrow. “When I came out of the place it was dark, I had that long drive, I didn’t really know the road and I just felt really down in the dumps. I just kept asking myself, ‘What am I going to do here?' It does hit you really hard – it’s the ‘cancer’ word as much as anything.
“I maybe drove for 20 minutes with my own thoughts rattling around, and I thought, ‘I know what I’ll do. I’ll phone Paul Simpson’.”
Haugh called Carlisle’s manager because Simpson, two years ago, had undergone his own cancer experience with renal cell carcinoma. He was also a close colleague and friend who Haugh could depend on for sensitive and straight counsel.
“He’d been through the process with his kidney and I felt that he’d be able to give me some advice. I told him it wasn’t good news, and that I needed to have the testicle removed, and I simply asked, ‘what do I do?’
“It’s funny because as we were having the conversation we were passing Barrow’s ground and I was half wondering if Denno [Kristian Dennis] was still stuck in the away end celebrating his goal [from last March’s 2-1 win].
"Simmo told me that I needed to tell the people who needed to know right away and then I had to deal with it. He wasn’t being blunt, it was just that he’d dealt with his situation in that way. He told me to get my head down and get on with it.”
Haugh saw a specialist the following Tuesday. “He barely looked at it. He did a quick evaluation then he sat down, and as he was picking up the phone he handed me a form and told me to sign it. I asked what it was, and it was basically a consent form to allow the operation to go ahead.
“When the call was answered he said to whoever it was that he needed somebody in this Friday urgently, and that was also a bit of a shock. He hadn’t said much to me but I was thinking, ‘wow, am I really that far down the line?’.”
Haugh was booked in for the operation that night at Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital. “I had a nurse called Mia who looked after me all day and Maria helped me in the recovery room later that night. Everybody there was absolutely brilliant. I came home, obviously in a bit of pain, but typical of me, I just had one day of lying on the couch and then I needed to be back at it.”
It was far from the end of the situation for Haugh. He attended a follow-up meeting at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary in October in “high spirits”, expecting to be told the operation had removed a benign tumour and that would be that – “but I was told to sit down, and it all changed for me very quickly.
“[The doctor] told me that they couldn’t be sure that they’d got it all, then he said, ‘In fact, you’ve got two different types of cancer in there, and one is quite aggressive'. He explained that the next step was chemo, and that I was to be handed over to the Freeman in Newcastle for that next stage.”
Haugh was duly advised that without chemotherapy, there was a 50 per cent chance the cancer would come back, but with four days of chemo, that risk reduced to five per cent. This consultation in Newcastle, which Haugh attended with his wife Sarah-Louise, laid out the reality of the situation – and also brought a tragic memory to mind.
He is emotional talking about it now, and admits he got upset in Newcastle “because I lost my brother Gordon to cancer when he was 36 in 1995.
“When I was asked if there had been any cancer in the family, well, Gordon had three kids and it brought all of that back for me. He was a big Carlisle fan, and it hit all of us hard. My wife was able to answer a few of the questions for me when I couldn’t speak, because of the emotions.”
Haugh thinks more about Gordon’s gruelling, awful experience. “He moved to Northampton with his wife and three kids, he’d jog once a week, and when he went jogging one day he was absolutely shattered. He had a tumour on his lung, and that was quite bad.
“He ended up in the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, they found this little thing on his lung, took it out, but that caused it to grow even bigger. It grew inside and effectively wrapped itself around his heart. He couldn’t have chemo, he had to have radiotherapy, and he suffered.
"Me going through this made me realise just how ill he was. I don’t think Harley Street or anywhere could have saved him, he was that ill."
Ahead of his own appointments for chemotherapy, Haugh continued to work at Carlisle United – and found the fellowship amongst fellow staff and players lifted him.
“I was still in at the club, working with the lads, lifting weights and going for the odd run, and I was still fairly fit," he says. "Being able to come back into the club during all of this has been a godsend, because it’s given me something to focus on.
“The lads slaughter you, and you fire it back. Me and Denno have this love-hate relationship...he’s just abused me from day one, but the day before I went into hospital he was actually nice to me! That gave me a real shock because he’s never nice to me. I thought, is this the same bloke?...
“Joking aside, they’ve all been brilliant. They were at Mansfield the day I went in, and every single one of them texted me from the bus to wish me well. That doesn’t half give you a lift.”
His journey to Newcastle for treatment then brought forward instincts Haugh had to fight. “You revert to being a kid. When I was going across to Newcastle I didn’t want that chemo. I wanted my dad to come and sort it, and I knew he couldn’t, so then I wanted to run away. It’s human nature.”
He overcame those thoughts – and explains his experience of chemotherapy. “The first two days I felt fine, and I was actually waiting for it to kick in. I was hooked up straight away on the Tuesday night and by Thursday I was starting to feel it. You fill up – there’s nowhere for it to go, so your stomach bloats. You get this reflux thing when you lie down and I actually had hiccups for four hours, which was awful.
“You do want to go home, because no disrespect to them, they want the bed. I wanted to get home, and they arm you with emergency numbers just in case. When I was in my own bed I was still getting that reflux reaction.
“Without trying to scare people, chemo isn’t nice. It did knock me for six for a couple of days in there, and then again after a few days of being at home I went back downhill again. I was taking tablets, which made it worse.
“My kidneys – the strongest thing that’s ever been through them is PG Tips and Dr Pepper, so when they were pumping all this stuff through it started to cause a few aches. Also, mentally it takes its toll because you just want it over with.”
Whilst in the Freeman, Haugh was visited by a number of people, including some from his life in football. One was Fred Story, the former Carlisle United owner. “Fred came to see me on the first day of my chemo cycle and he couldn’t believe how well I looked. He abused me, really, because I was looking fine and fit, sat up in bed drinking cups of tea. The chemo hadn’t kicked in then,” he says.
Another was Peter Beardsley, the great former Carlisle, Newcastle and England player with whom Haugh has had a lifelong friendship.
“July 1979,” smiles Haugh when he recalls their first encounter. “I played against him on trial. Well, I was on the same pitch… it was in the Neil Centre and I was trying to catch him, but that didn’t happen. He was just a blur, like the Speedy Gonzales cartoon character, a puff of smoke. We’ve kept in touch ever since.
“He was brilliant with my nephew David when my brother died – he invited us across and we went to a few Newcastle games, and David met Kevin Keegan. In fact he said, ‘Come across again’, and I thought he was just saying it, but he rang me annoyed – ‘why haven’t you come back?’
“He couldn’t do enough. He’s been brilliant with me. It caused a stir him walking into Freeman Hospital [to see me]. He’s still a legend over there. One guy pointed and said to his son – ‘best player ever to play for Newcastle…’”
Haugh says he was touched that club staff at Carlisle also put together a “hospital survival goody bag” for him, and says Simpson was in touch every day.
“After chemo I came out of hospital on the Friday night, and the World Cup started on the Sunday, so I had something to focus on,” adds Haugh. “I’d like to thank FIFA for giving me four games a day to take my mind off things. You need something, because it gets in your head and it can make you feel worried and concerned.”
It was, needless to say, a concerning time for Haugh’s family. “My daughter Gabriella needs to know everything. She wants to know what’s happening and why, every step of the way. My son Charlie doesn’t want to know any of it. He just walks away, puts his head down, and he’s obviously worried. My wife Sarah-Louise has been absolutely great. Gabriella says I’m the most stubborn man in the world, but they’ve all done everything they can.”
Haugh says he currently “feels fine” and hopes that a consultation next week will deliver positive news. “I had more blood tests [on Wednesday] and an x-ray just before Christmas to check my lungs, because chemo can affect them, apparently,” he says. “I’ve got a phone consultation on Tuesday and I’m hoping that will be good news.
“When I was over there [to Newcastle] people kept saying that they weren’t sure how I got this because it really affects 18 to 35-year olds. I’m 62, and the guy in the next bed to me was 32.”
He is attempting to balance his optimistic thoughts with a necessary realism. “Whatever they say, could it come back? Yeah, it could. But you just push that to the back of your mind.
“I remember lying in the bed thinking about Christmas with the family, just having Christmas dinner. Little things [affect you] – you’re in traffic and the lights go red, [and you get angry].
“It’s the football thing in you. Paul has said it too. At the end of the day, there’s other things [that are bigger]. But if you’ve been in sport, a competitor all your life, none of us like losing.”
Can a football mindset honestly help in a situation like this? “Maybe. When you play football and you’re on the pitch, whether you’re good enough or not you can put it right when you’re getting beat 1-0. When you’re on the sidelines, you can’t.
“But you need that positive mindset. Don’t get me wrong, you have moments when you think, ‘My God…’ When you’re told you’ve got two different types of cancer, it’s like you’re being punched in the face.
“I still pinch myself that August to now has happened. I remember my brother saying, ‘You never think it’s going to happen to you…’ I think naturally you try to push those thoughts back. We all think we’re bulletproof.”
Haugh has brought some cards to the interview, on which he has written notes about the importance of men checking themselves. He asks that helpful information, provided by Macmillan Cancer Support, is linked to this article - click HERE
The principle of being aware is the most important one. “The research says it affects one in 250 men in their life. So if we’re getting gates of 8,000, as we did [at Brunton Park] on Boxing Day, you can see how many people in there are going to come across this in some form.
“If me talking about this encourages just a few to check or get tested, then it’s been worth it. There’s a quote that tries to deal with the worry and stigma of it being someone’s private parts – ‘don’t be embarrassed, have the balls to ask for help’.
"The fact is that the sooner you find it, the sooner you’ll be treated, and the chances of beating it are massively higher, because there are different stages of cancer within the body.
“I was at stage one, it was found, and that’s what we want for anyone who will have to face this. I had four days of chemo, if it’s at a more advanced stage it’s four days then a break, then four days and on and on it goes. I think I’m now in a fortunate position where I won’t need any more.”
He says that, while many people already know what he has been through, others may not, and he is comfortable with making his story more prominent. “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed. I’m sure if I was 21 it would be different, and I wouldn’t want anyone knowing that I’d lost a testicle, but I see this as being way more important than being about me now. It’s more important to get people checking."
Haugh is also eager to promote the Oddballs charity. United’s Blues Store stocks underwear made by the organisation which was set up to raise awareness of testicular cancer, and which has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds since 2014.
He has also, inevitably, reflected on life since last August. “Am I the same bloke? Probably not. Physically I’m definitely not. Mentally I like to think I’m back where I was and the fact that fitness is my life helps, as does being at work here [United].
“If you look at the staff, there’s Simmo, Greg [Abbott, who had prostate cancer] and me, who’ve all had different kinds. We were out last night – the directors took us out to the Auctioneer – and I was sat with Greg and Simmo, and you think, ‘Look at us three?’ So you don’t know.
“The big message from me is that your life can change in the blink of an eye. That goes for anything – accidents, whatever – but it’s also something like this.
“You need to find it first, so all I’d say is learn how to do the checks, keep checking, and as soon as you think something has changed, see a doctor. If there’s any doubt whatsoever, if something doesn’t feel right, get yourself booked in.
“Whether the GPs would like me saying that and they’d get inundated…but no. The longer you leave it, the more treatment you’re going to need. It’s better to know for certain, and much better to catch it early so that it can be dealt with and you can get on with life.”
Click HERE for more information on testicular cancer from Macmillan Cancer Support, including symptoms, how to check and treatments.
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