Arsenal legend Charlie Nicholas was the greatest footballer I ever saw play live. If Malcolm Macdonald was my childhood footballing hero, Charlie was the first proper hero I had when I was going to watch Arsenal games. I met him for the book at a hotel in Brentford not far from SKY Sports before a European Champions League night he was covering. A nicer man you couldn't wish to meet. Having been told I might get half an hour with him, we ended up chatting for an hour or so. It was absolutely fascinating and a brilliant experience. It is one of my favourite chapters in the book so get Lives & Times and have a read. Over £4000 has now been raised for Bowel Cancer UK (Beating Bowel Cancer Together).
Sadly my mother, the inspiration for the book, died in August 2016, four and half years after being diagnosed with bowel cancer. Bowel cancer is the second highest cancer killer in the UK. 16,000 people die each year. However, if detected early at stage 1 it can be successfully treated in over 90% of cases with patients surviving five years or more. This drops to only 7% when diagnosis occurs at the late stage 4. Only 15% of cases are currently diagnosed at stage 1, so much more needs to be done to improve early detection rates.
