Sunderland-born football legend Mick Harford has spoken out about the "massive shock" of being diagnosed with prostate cancer, going through 39 bouts of radiotherapy and how desperate he is to help others.
Mick, 63, turned out for both the Black Cats and Newcastle United, along with making two England appearances - though his greatest success came at Luton Town. He's still involved at Luton as chief recruitment officer.
But in 2018 he began to become concerned about prostate cancer. Initially, there were no obvious signs of the illness, but that soon changed. He said: "About 12 months down the line I was getting up three, four times in the night, all the usual symptoms. Then I went and had a PSA test. My PSA was at 48, which is very, very high and after a couple more blood tests here and there I was diagnosed with prostate cancer on December 2020. That was a massive body blow."
Mick's decision to go into detail about his story comes as new statistics from the charity Prostate Cancer UK's National Prostate Cancer Audit show more than 20% of men in the North East and Yorkshire are diagnosed with cancer that has spread. That's compared to just 12.5% in London - where more patients are diagnosed when the disease is at an earlier and more treatable stage.
Mick added despite being used to going under the knife, cancer was "a real body blow". He said: "When someone tells you you’ve got cancer, it’s a real body blow and it’s a tough one to take. But we fight on.
"When I went into the meeting with the MacMillan nurse, she said to me, you’ve got prostate cancer and it can’t be cured. So, it came as a massive shock to me and my family and at first you do feel sorry for yourself, you do get down. But you’ve got to be positive and you’ve got to fight the disease."
As part of that, along with then colleagues at Luton Town manager Nathan Jones and chief executive Gary Sweet, they decided it was important to get the word out about prostate cancer "to try to help as many people as we could".
He added: "I’m down the line now. I’ve had all my radiotherapy. I had 39 bouts of radiotherapy on a daily basis over 12 weeks, which was tough. I am now on hormone therapy, which is six monthly injections, daily medication and just monthly check-ups.
The monthly check-up is you see your consultant, you get your PSA done and then they give you the heads up of where you are, where you want to be and do you want more medication and stuff like that. So, I’m in a good place. My numbers are good. I’m really pleased with my consultants and my surgeons. I’ve got another 11 months to go on the medication, so we’ll see where we are when I come off it."
He said that currently he "feels really good" and had changed his lifestyle and diet after his diagnosis. He added that Jeff Stelling's work raising awareness of prostate cancer had made an impact on him, adding: "I knew how common it was. I knew one in eight men would eventually get prostate cancer but you never think it’s going to be you. Did I know anyone? No, personally I didn’t know anyone who’d had prostate cancer, even though it was so common."
Mick explained he was delighted to have spoken up and encouraged others to get checked. "I’m so grateful and thankful that I did that because I believe I’ve helped a few people along the way and people have gone to get tested," he said. "People have come up to me in the street and said, ‘Mick, thanks for putting the word out there. If you hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t have seen my GP and got tested.'"
Overall, almost 10,000 men each year are being diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer in the UK - and the latest NCPA figures suggest a significantly higher risk of this for men living in the most deprived areas. There was also a dramatic 29% fall in diagnoses during the first year of the pandemic - raising fears that cancers could be growing undetected.
Prostate Cancer UK is calling for action to tackle these health inequalities - particularly in the North-East, Yorkshire, and other badly-hit regions – by encouraging men across the country to use its30-second online risk checker to help them understand their risk and what they can do about it.
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