Ludek Mikloško My biggest battle West Ham United F.C.

“At the moment, I am feeling well,” he says. “Lots of friends have said to me that, if they didn’t know what I was going through, they would think that I was fine, which is nice for me to hear, because I want to feel like that for as long as possible.

“I am still working, I can be with the players and the people, and my life at the moment is very busy. I am trying to keep it that way – I want to be busy and be active, and be around football as much as I can, because that is what I love.”

Picking up the story of how and when his battle first began, Ludek says: “It started around three years ago now, with a small lump on my hip. I got it checked and the doctors found cancer, so I had an operation to have it removed. Everything was fine and for three months I just had some regular appointments to keep an eye on it, but they only checked my hip.

“They didn’t check other areas, and that was the problem, because it turned out there was another tumour in the stomach, which was growing. I had started to suffer some pain and some problems while on holiday last year and had to be rushed to hospital from the airport as soon as I landed back in the Czech Republic.

“The following day they did some tests and discovered that I had a big tumour in my stomach, too big to operate on and also in an area that was too dangerous. I had some radiotherapy, which helped to make it a bit smaller, and we spoke to specialists all around the world about what other options there might be.

“I had an exploratory operation to see if there might be a chance to remove the tumour, but it was impossible and I would not have survived the surgery. After that, it was just a case of trying to control it and seeing if it would grow, or if any other areas were affected.

“After three months it was looking okay, and maybe even looking slightly smaller, but then another three months on they found several new tumours. At that point, it became clear that the only further course of treatment would be a chemotherapy.

“I was thinking about this, and had another conversation with the doctor in Ostrava, and it was made clear to me that there could be no guarantees that it would work. Maybe it would help to slow it down a little bit, but it would not stop it and there would be other issues to deal with.

“I decided not to take the chemotherapy, because I want to live a normal life. I have very good people around me, and I have my work and my football, which is my life, all I have known. I want to keep doing that for as long as I can.”