Nick Anderton means a lot to everyone connected with Bristol Rovers, but particularly club captain and his former housemate Paul Coutts.
That was evident at The Quarters on Thursday when he sat down for a pre-match press conference, not wearing his own number 15 training top but the number 16 worn by his cancer-stricken teammate.
The 26-year-old, an important member of Rovers' promotion-winning squad last season, is undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, osteosarcoma, in the summer. He had an operation to remove a tumour and part of his femur in October, but a biopsy found the cancer was more aggressive than first thought, making chemotherapy a necessity.
