Inspirational former Carlisle United player Joe Thompson visited Brunton Park last week to speak to the club’s rising stars.

Boss Chris Beech said ex-Rochdale favourite Thompson, who twice beat cancer, gave a talk on the importance of a positive mentality.

Thompson, 31, is well placed to speak on that subject after his amazing comebacks from illness.

The former winger, who is now retired, made an incredible return from a second bout of Hodgkin lymphoma in order to score the goal for Dale which kept them in League One in 2018.

He played for Carlisle in the 2015/16 season and is now a motivational speaker.

Beech, who coached Thompson at Spotland, said: “It’s been a good week for the club. We had Joe Thompson down here on Thursday.

“He was talking about mental resilience to all our young players, our scholars.

“They’d just been knocked out of the FA Youth Cup [the previous day] so what a great day to have a speaker like that.

“Joe’s come back from cancer twice and played in between – unbelievable.

“Things like that ground you.”