IPSWICH legend Marcus Stewart has bravely opened on how he found out he had motor neurone disease.
The 50-year-old is best-known for scoring 19 goals for The Tractor Boys as they finished the 2000/01 Premier League season in fifth place.
But now, 12 years after hanging up his boots, he is preparing for the toughest battle of his life.
Stewart discovered he had MND in January last year and publicly revealed his diagnosis in September.
But in an interview with The Mail, Stewart and his wife, Lou, have now explained he was showing minor signs during the lockdown in 2020.
Lou started by recalling his hand cramping up while they were sat outside at a pub.
READ MORE IN FOOTBALL
Before Stewart went on to add: “I was doing home workouts and over the course of time my hand kept coming off the pull-up bar or I’d drop a dumbbell.
“Then I remember being sat down and turning the TV on and noticing my hand looked a bit skinny. I looked at my arm and compared it to my right. I’ve always been slim but I’m left-handed so my left arm should be a little bit bigger. That was it and it just went from there.”
Subsequent tests eventually put the problems down to a bone spur in his neck, but wife Lou was still concerned it could be MND.
And Stewart then revealed the heartbreaking moment he was told he had the disease.
Most read in Football
He said: “MND didn’t even cross my mind. Lou [Stewart’s wife] was worried, but I was like, ‘Shut up, soppy, I’m fine, there is nothing wrong with me’.
“I went to the appointment all happy, thinking they are going to give me the all-clear. The specialist got me on the bed and I had to stay as still as I could for five minutes as she checked my legs, arms and mouth.
“We then sat down and she went, ‘It’s highly likely you’ve got MND’. She was so cold. She was like, ‘There is not a lot we can do, I’ll book an appointment and see you in six months’. I was completely dumbstruck. I’m quite good at taking things, but I just didn’t expect that.”
Lou broke down in tears when she received the news – which she says sent her into “panic mode”, before Stewart returned home with flowers for her.
The ex-footballer, who is now the head of player development at non-League Yeovil, describes telling his two sons – Kian, 23, and Finley, 20 – as a “tough moment”.
But he is now focused on battling the disease.
And doctors have since revealed they are stunned by his ability to still walk, talk, drive his car and ride his bike.
During a check-up in June, he recalls: “She [the doctor] said, ‘Marcus, I am really pleased today because I didn’t expect you to be walking or talking’.
Read More on The Sun
“We walked out of there dead happy because it felt like a win.”
The football community showed their support for the former Bristol Rovers, Huddersfield and Sunderland man when he was the guest of honour at Ipswich’s 1-1 draw with Plymouth earlier this month.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
