Under the microscope

Former Arsenal goalkeeper and broadcaster Bob Wilson, 78, answers our health quiz

CAN YOU RUN UP THE STAIRS?

YES! I still exercise every day. I’m up at 7am and I cycle for 50 minutes then do 90 seconds on a Power Plate exercise machine.

GET YOUR FIVE A DAY?

NO. I’M not a fan of vegetables, except carrots and spinach. I get the nutrients through vegetable soups, which my wife Megs cooks.

EVER DIETED?

I NOW weigh 13 stone [he’s 6 ft tall], only 3lb more than when I stopped playing professional football 46 years ago.

ANY FAMILY AILMENTS?

MY DAD’S dad had prostate cancer, which I also had six years ago. My daughter Anna died of a very rare form of cancer of the nerve sheath called malignant schwannoma, aged just 31 in 1998.

WORST ILLNESS/ INJURY?

MY PROSTATE cancer. My first question to my surgeon was, ‘Was it my fault that Anna got cancer?’ he said, ‘absolutely not’. I was lucky as mine was caught early so the only treatment I had — brachytherapy, radioactive seeds inserted into the prostate — worked.

Due to my goalkeeping habit of stopping strikers headfirst I also suffered a punctured lung, broken shoulder, dislocated elbow, broken ankle, broken ribs, broken fingers, cartilage and tendon tears.

COPE WELL WITH PAIN?

YES, I did go through a period of painful migraines during disagreements when I was approaching the end of my 20 years at the BBC. But the most painful moment of my life was watching my daughter die.

WHAT KEEPS YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT?

WHEN I was playing I’d have restless nights about letting in goals. Now it would be concerns about our charity [The Willow Foundation, which he co-founded] or a family illness.

LIKE TO LIVE FOR EVER?

AS LONG as I had some form of usefulness to family, friends, or society and as long as I didn’t get into the dreaded dementia area, then yes.