Town comes together to help with former Worksop Town player’s cancer fight

Lee Bradford, 47, who played for the Tigers in the early 1990s, was told he had stage 2 cancer after finding a lump the size of a ‘pea’ on his neck on Christmas Eve.

An ultrasound discovered that the cancer had spread to his larynx, tongue and lymph nodes.

Father-of-one Lee - who is well-known in the town having played in the Sunday league since he was 16 and later as a trainer - has gone rapidly downhill since then.

His devoted wife Michelle, also 47, told how the lump had now grown to 15cm and her husband was facing two months of aggressive, combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

He is now being fed through a feeding tube and it is unclear whether Lee will be able to speak or eat without it again.

Special needs child carer Michelle said the couple were shattered by the news as she had just recently won a three-year battle with leukaemia.

She said: “This disease on top of everything is just devastating - and finding out at Christmas was terrible.

“We just feel all the way through our lives we’ve had so many battles - but my husband has been there for me and I will be there for him.”

Grandmother-of-one Michelle said her husband found the lump while lying on the sofa this December thinking it was ‘just a little gland’.

Michelle said the shock diagnosis was the latest in a string of painful experiences the couple had been through - having tragically lost two children at birth in 1990 and 1999.

However she added: “We’ve been together since we were 16 years old and sometimes the hardest battle is just staying together.

“We’ve had some lovely times and have just pulled together.”

Doctors say it is too early to say what Lee’s chances of survival are through his treatment but Michelle said ‘we’re going to give it the best fight we can’.

Lee and Michelle are raising money for head and neck cancer Macmillan nurses - who they said had been ‘amazing’ throughout Lee’s treatment at Sheffield’s Weston Park Hospital.

To help raise funds a charity football tournament will be held at Worksop Town Football Club.

The event will be attended by Sheffield Wednesday players as well as Worksop Town president Keith Ilett.

There will be entertainment from DJs and live music from band Ruby Tuesday as well as raffle prizes, food and drink.

Michelle said: “We’ve just had so many local businesses donating things for the day - it’s been overwhelming.

“Worksop gets such a bad name but the community has just come together to help us.

“Lee is so well known for helping young people but it’s amazing how people have got together to give something back.”

The charity tournament - played over four games and made up of players Lee has played with during his career - will be held on March 29 at 2pm.