Carlisle United cancer survivors support Race for Life

The Blues manager, head of recruitment and rehab coach have all been treated for cancer. They are now coming together to promote Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life in Carlisle this summer.

Haugh, 63, plans to run the July event in Bitts Park just months after undergoing treatment for testicular cancer. Of the trio, his was the most recent encounter with the disease, and he was immediately willing to use his experience to promote such a good cause.

“When I first spoke about it [in interviews with the News & Star and the club] in January, Cancer Research picked up on it and sent me an email asking if I’d promote it,” he said. “Not a problem, I thought – and because there’s three of us on the staff who’ve unfortunately come across cancer, I asked why don’t the three of us get involved?

“It’s 5k, and I said I’d have a go at doing it. I might not go very fast, but I’ll do it.”

Haugh, well known for his lifelong devotion to fitness and someone who has never smoked or drank, discovered a swollen testicle last summer and, having initially assumed it was nothing serious, was told, after examinations, that the testicle had two different types of cancer, one of which was aggressive.

Geoff Haugh, front, who has had treatment for testicular cancer, plans to run the Race for Life in July. He is promoting the race along with fellow cancer survivors Greg Abbott and Paul Simpson - with the support of Carlisle United's players (Image: Julie Lomax Photography)

Having had the testicle removed, he underwent chemotherapy at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital and, after a period of recovery, was soon back at work at Carlisle - where the fellowship of his colleagues, including Simpson and Abbott, has been essential.

“The lads always take the mick…it makes you feel alive,” Haugh says. “And in terms of the three of us, I think there is a connection – a silent connection.

“We went out in January as staff and the three of us happened to be sitting together. Before long you mention what each of you has had. It’s like battle scars.

“I was nervous about that article [in January]. But even yesterday a guy stopped me in Aldi and said, ‘It was fantastic what you said’. He’d had prostate cancer.

“You don’t know everybody’s stories. The three of us – Paul’s been a professional footballer, so has Greg, and I was a fitness instructor. The three of us have lived healthy lives, looked after ourselves.

“The message is an important one, and hopefully it’s valuable to share it.”

Simpson experienced renal cell carcinoma – a form of kidney cancer – in 2021. A persistent dry cough had caused some concern but not the expectation he had cancer – which was discovered after a routine health check and a CT scan.

Simpson underwent surgery at The Christie hospital in Manchester and came through treatment well – and has always been determined to underline that cancer stories do not all have to be grave.

“After I was diagnosed, I didn’t tell anyone outside family for a week to ten days, and then when I did, I found that everybody wants to tell you about the really horrific cancer stories. Nobody wants to talk about the good ones.

“I always had the mentality, ‘I am gonna be a good news story here’."

Simpson’s experience reinforced the way he would approach things when Haugh explained he had an issue last year.

“Geoff was diagnosed on the day of a game, and he said, I’ve got a bit of a problem here, I’ve found a lump’. I was like, ‘Go and see the doctor’. He said, ‘Ah, I’m not gonna trouble him’. I said, ‘Go and see him now’.

“Fortunately our doc has a portable ultrasound machine and was able to do it after the game.

Paul Simpson, who had kidney cancer, talks to Cancer Research UK as part of a feature promoting Race for Life (Image: Julie Lomax Photography)

“As blokes...we shouldn’t be, but we’re all embarrassed to say, ‘I’ve got a problem with my balls’. But you’ve got to do it.

“It was important that we could help each other. Geoff would be ringing me saying he felt a certain way after surgery, and I said, ‘That’s normal, you’re gonna feel that way’. It’s a case of reassuring each other.”

Simpson, 56, says he feels “really good and really healthy” at present, having had his last check-up in January ahead of another in August. He also needed no persuasion to promote Cancer Research’s cause.

“I think the Race for Life is an absolutely brilliant idea, because we’re three examples of what value this fundraising has,” he adds.

“I’m one of those people who’ve watched that advert that says one in two will be affected by cancer, and thinking, ‘Wow, they must be really unlucky’. Now I’m stood here having had it.

“The money that’s raised is such a fantastic cause and hopefully the research will go to helping people further down the line, the next Paul Simpson, Geoff Haugh or Greg Abbott who comes along."

Simpson looks at Abbott, also clad in a pink Race for Life t-shirt, as the head of recruitment gives interviews for Cancer Research, and says: “Greg’s been going through some treatments lately, and he’s like a new man.”

Abbott then sits down with the News & Star and explains how. The 59-year-old underwent surgery for prostate cancer in 2018, the disease uncovered after he had initially complained of headaches and tiredness. Complications then led to the nerve endings close to his bladder being damaged.

After wearing a catheter for nine weeks, Abbott endured a long period of incontinence until, in January this year, a further operation transformed his life.

Greg Abbott talks to the News & Star about the aftermath of prostate cancer treatment, which left him incontinent until a recent procedure gave him a new lease of life (Image: Julie Lomax Photography)

It was, Abbott says, a far from comfortable situation and one that led this normally ebullient character to feel down on himself. In the name of promoting the Race for Life, and trying to give something back after the help he has received, he is ready to talk openly about it now.

“They’re only small issues, but I couldn’t walk. If I walked, I’d have got wet. It’s not very nice,” he says.

“I didn’t tell anybody, didn’t tell the players – anybody, really – the issues I was having. You look ok and nobody thinks any differently.

“There was one incident when I was in a restaurant and had to sit near the disabled toilets, because otherwise I’d have ended up weeing myself. A guy challenged me, saying, ‘You’re not disabled, you shouldn’t use that toilet’. It got to a stage where I had to ask him to trust me on this, 'let me go to the toilet and I’ll explain', even though I didn’t have to. My missus, Sally, said, ‘He’s not explaining anything to you, he needs to use the toilet’.

“He backed off in the end. But that was the sort of situation you were in. At Oldham, they wouldn’t let me park in the car park to watch the game. I couldn’t walk for the same reason. A director came out and recognised me from when I was managing, and said, ‘If Greg needs to park here, he’ll be genuine,’ and he trusted me, which was a relief.

“All in all, I’m quite a bright character but this took its toll on me. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and that’s not me.”

Happily, Abbott has been lifted by the operation he had seven weeks ago. In his familiar, enthusiastic manner, he talks about the mechanics of the procedure which has returned him to something like normality.

“It’s like a hosepipe,” he says. “They’ve clamped the hosepipe and there’s only me who can release it. It’s called an artificial urinal sphincter, which fits across the pipe you wee out of, then inside the sac there’s a button. I have to hold it straight, press it twice, it lets me go to the toilet, and then when I’ve been it clamps the pipe again.

“It’s amazing. I forgot to press it the other day, wanted to go and couldn’t…which is brilliant. It means it works.

Abbott, Simpson and Haugh say they have a connection through their respective cancer experiences, and in how they've supported each other (Image: Julie Lomax Photography)

“I’ve now got a bit more energy. It’s given me a new lease of life if I’m honest. I can get out there now and do a walk – a run might be a little bit optimistic - but a walk is no issue.”

Abbott admits the four-and-a-half-hour operation was no picnic. “Stitches here and there, couldn’t sit down…I had to walk out of Grimsby when I was doing a match report for Simmo. He says, ‘I’ve only half a report here’. I says, ‘I only watched half a game, my backside was in bits!’ He told me off for even going to the game…

“You couldn’t have had somebody more sympathetic and understanding than Simmo. He’s let me manage it at my own speed, which was probably quicker than he wanted me to, but we’re in a situation where everybody’s trying to pull together, do our little bits to move the club forward.

“I didn’t tell the players, didn’t want any sympathy. A couple knew – Jamie Devitt, Corey Whelan – but that was it. The first day I came back in after the operation, I’m walking up the corridor and one of the players jumped on me. Who was it? Tomas Holy.”

Abbott winces at being leapt upon by United’s 6ft 9in goalkeeper. “It nearly sent me back where I'd come from,” he laughs. “I was laughing with Simmo, saying, ‘Do I tell them?’ He was like, ‘You’re gonna have to’.

“But I’m here. I’m back. The lads have been great. I tell them not to make a fuss. They’ve just let me be me, and that’s part of the joys of being here.”

Abbott, like Haugh and Simpson, is appreciative of his colleagues’ understanding – and the need to give events like the Race For Life as much promotion as possible.

“Men don’t talk, we’re not very good at it,” he adds. “We take the mickey out of each other. Simmo does that to me every single day, and I do it to Geoff because I can’t go back at the manager…

“I think, deep down, each of us knows we’re there for each other. I knew I didn’t even have to ask Simmo for time – I knew I had his full support, and he didn’t have to say.

“I think I’m bright and resilient, and you have to be in this industry, but no tough times in football compare with this. People think football’s the be-all and end-all. When you’ve been through an illness…it doesn’t come close.”

Abbott adds that Haugh “is a bit of an inspiration to me” for the way he has tackled his own cancer situation, and of the Race for Life he adds: “If we are getting it out there, helping in any small way, all three of us would be delighted.

“I think we’re three humble guys who haven’t got big egos that wouldn’t want to thrust ourselves into the limelight. I know we’re different on the touchline – but we’ve got a duty with this, if I’m honest.

The three Carlisle United men are fully behind the Race For Life and its fundraising drive for Cancer Research UK (Image: Julie Lomax Photography)

“A team-mate rang me for advice on cancer, and he’s a mate – but it doesn’t have to be a mate, anybody can ring me about this. I don’t want anybody else to have to go through it.

“The cancer for me has gone. It didn’t get out [of the prostate]. If you’re too late and it gets out, you’re in big trouble. If we can encourage people to start having a yearly check, to make sure they get it quickly and it doesn’t spread, then that’s a great message to send out there.”

That the three men are using their stories to help others is appreciated by those at the heart of Cancer Research UK. Their spokesperson in Cumbria, Jane Bullock, says: “We are incredibly grateful to Geoff, Paul and Greg and everyone at Carlisle United for supporting Race for Life.

“We’d love for as many people as possible to join us at Bitts Park on Sunday July 30 during our 30th year of Race for Life.

“Sadly, cancer affects all of us in some way. Whether people are living with cancer, taking part in honour of or in memory of a loved one with cancer, or signing up to protect their own children’s future, everyone has a reason to Race for Life.

“Together we can bring about a future free from the fear of cancer. So we’re asking people across the region: Who will you Race for?”

Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life raises funds for world-class research to help beat 200 types of cancer - including bowel cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, testicular cancer, brain cancer, children’s cancers and leukaemia.

The Race for Life in Carlisle is on Sunday, July 30 in Bitts Park. The 5k run is open to adults and children. To sign up, visit the website HERE