By Emma Johns
As part of the Northamptonshire enclave I am sometimes lucky (?) enough to be part of Tony and Drew’s recent foray into non-league territory and occasionally get to go to the Emirates when Tony is indisposed. However, I must to confess to being something of a football tart.
My heart belongs to Guernsey FC where I was born and dragged up but wherever I have lived on the mainland I have supported my local side, so take a bow Exeter City, Preston NE and then (whisper it) a QPR season ticket holder for two years when I lived in London and couldn’t afford to go and see (shhh says it even more quietly) Chelsea.. Ok so confession over and suffice to say I love football, football fans and don’t need have to have the offside rules explained to me.
I wasn’t at the Liverpool game but it meant much more even (!) than the potential addition of silver polish to Mr Wenger’s shopping list because within the match-day programme was an advert ‘for’ the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Associations’ Football vs MND campaign. This is a campaign that uses the power of football to spread awareness of a relatively rare but goddam awful terminal disease. I work for the MND Association so I guess I would say that, but don’t take my word for it.
Mark Maddox is the face and inspiration for our season long campaign. He is a former professional footballer who played over 300 times for Altrincham FC and was involved in with a few other clubs too as player or coach (read his football CV here).
Mark was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2010 and since then he has fundraised for the Association any way he can (he is still planning to complete his second London Marathon this April); a massive part of our role is to fund global research and to raise awareness in any way we can.
I met Mark when he was the guest speaker at our staff conference last year. He has all the banter you might expect from someone who has spent most of their life in lower league dressing rooms. His way of connecting with the man in the street, and bursting a few myths along the way, (for instance, MND is NOT a disease of old people), was too good an opportunity to miss for someone working in the comms team here at the MND Association. Fundamentally he is quite a laid back kind of guy so was going to be able to put up with me bossing him through media opportunities that has included national and regional TV and radio interviews.
Football v MND is a simple concept for a relatively small charity… we ask clubs to run it for free in their match day programmes. To be honest we never really thought we would get so many top tier teams signing up but then football has a habit of surprising people and Mark was able to tell his own story through a video we recorded before the start of the season. So when we emailed all the Premier League clubs the response was pretty impressive including a lovely reply from the Arsenal programme team saying they might run it in the home tie against Bayern on Wednesday.
But as it turned out fate played a perfect hand (with Mark being a lifelong ‘Red’) and I got a text saying Mark’s in the programme about three minutes before kick-off, knowing that he was also at the game with his friend Ian and son.
So thank you to everyone at Arsenal who made it possible and Mark was magnanimous in defeat. He said:
“Obviously it was a great day if you were a Gooner but it was a long way back to Liverpool for us and the less said about Howard Webb the better!!!
“This season our Football v MND campaign has seen eight PL clubs support us so far, which is fantastic awareness for MND, it’s also seen me go into places and meet people I never imagined possible. I went to Old Trafford last month to be interviewed on MUFC TV and as you can imagine it was a strange feeling sat in enemy territory!! (The things I have to do for the MND Association! )
Mark added
As I was sat in the away end yesterday I noticed a banner which said ‘Anfield 89’ and it brought back terrible memories for me standing on the Kop that Friday night aged 16 watching my beloved reds get beaten for the title in the most dramatic fashion in injury time by a Michael Thomas winner.
Another thing sticks in my mind from that night and it’s the memory of Tony Adams leading several Arsenal players out before the game with flowers and laying them around the ground, showing their respect to the 96 Liverpool fans who had tragically died at Hillsborough a few weeks earlier. That memory stayed with me and shows that football is a game that can bring people together at a time when it’s most needed and as much as I love Bill Shankly’s famous quote regarding life and death when you’re living with a terminal illness those words don’t ring true anymore.
Mark and football pal Ian Porter with Alan Smith at Stoke last month. ‘He was a real gent and a dead nice fella but we did tell him in no uncertain terms what that night 1989 did to us!
The football community has been fantastic towards the campaign and it gives me strength and hope. I’m watching MND slowly eat its way through my body and also watching the affect it has on the people who are precious to me. I have a tattoo on my ribs in Italian which says ‘Life, Love & Laughter are the gifts I give to my children.’ Children should have fun memories not ones of their dad deteriorating from a terminal disease. So we need to raise more awareness for MND so we can raise more funds for research and hopefully one day find a cure and future generations won’t have to live with this cruel disease.
“Good luck in the FA cup (especially against Everton) and for the rest of the season and again thank you for helping in the fight against motor neurone disease.
Mark Maddox
PS If, like Drew and Tony, you have a soft spot or connections with clubs other than the mighty Arsenal .. (by far the greatest team, obviously .. ) but still large enough to have a match day programme then do encourage them to take part in our campaign. Just email football@mndassociation.org if you want a copy of the ad or some help in contacting the club. If you want to read more about what Mark is doing you can follow him on Twitter @lastofadying1 or read his blog
Our goal is to get the ad in 300 programmes by the end of the season and we are closing in on 140 now so need your help!
Thanks for reading,
Em
Thank you Emma for highlighting Mark’s battle with MND as well as his (and your) efforts to raise funds for the research as well as creating awareness of the disease.
As a doctor and football fan , I wish you both every success in your very noble endeavour .
God bless .
Damned this article made me silence for a while.
Lucky those people who are healthy and can do what they want, when they want… Something we don’t realise enough I’m afraid when we are well.
Moan, moan, moan without real reason and then when something hits you…then you have a reason to moan or complain.
Emma wish you all the best with this and from personal experience I know how difficult it is to find solutions for ‘unknown’ or ‘rare’ diseases.
And best wished to Mark Maddox who is brave enough to fight his battle but also who is brave enough to raise awareness for this disease.
A disease which claimed the life a certain Don Revie in 1989 I believe, so it makes sense for football to be asked to help…
Best of luck to all fighting this disease. Best of luck in helping them Emma.
When I was doing athletic first aid for a team many years ago, I also worked closely with many in medicine as the nuclear reactor I was at was managed by the Faculty of Pharmacy. One of the players on the team was about a year or two out of university, started having problems. He had a big engine like Aaron Ramsey, but also tended to get blinders on. But, outside of play, he started losing his balance at in opportune times. Working as a waiter become untenable for him. He mentioned that he was scheduled for a spinal tap, and I couldn’t tell him how big that needle was. About 6 months later they found his problem, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Kevin died within 2 years, and couldn’t walk for much of that time. I go to wikipedia to look up Motor Neurone Disease, and it’s the same disaese. You just have a different name for it.
There are many diseases that are not fair. To take people who are at the peak of fitness, and grind them into nothing.
Keep up the good work unsung heroes (Emma) of the world.
All the best to you and Mark, Emma.
Sounds a great cause, well done to Arsenal, and best wishes with your work and to Mark.
@Emma,
As a fellow Islander,
anything you do to combat this terrible disease will have my prayers and blessing.
I have seen what MND can do not only to the sufferer but also the effect on the close family – it is totally devastating. Best wishes to Mark and Emma and to all who fight against this horrible disease, also – well done Arsenal.
Hope this article makes certain people think of how lucky they are. Thanks to Emma for humbling us. Praying for you, Mr Maddox
Thanks Emma and Untold for the write up…life is just so uncertain and I agree with Walter when he says that so many of us moan without a reason…to be blessed with good health and an able body in itself is a such a huge gift.
Keep up the good work MND Association…
This article is amazing and inspiring. Thank you Emma, and good luck going forward.
I’ve had a bit of an education here, and I’m reminded to continue counting my blessings.