‘Best 15 seconds of the season’ – football star and wife reveal cancer all-clear joy
SOL Bamba and his wife Chloe have opened up on the moment he told her he had cancer.
The Cardiff City footballer was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma on Christmas Eve before the club made the news public in January.
The Bluebirds hero revealed the wonderful update that he was cancerfree last week, with messages of best wishes flooding in from across the sporting world.
The defender and his wife Chloe sat down with BBC’s Football Focus to detail what happened when they found out the devastating news.
“I had a sore back on my left-hand side for two months, but I didn’t think anything of it,” Bamba said.
“I’ve been playing the game long enough and I’ve always got a sore back. But at night the pain was very, very sharp.
“I couldn’t sleep. I spoke to the doctor, club doctors, and we had a lot of games scheduled, it was crazy, we had games every two to three days, so the gaffer said to go in the free week so I can go and do a scan.
“That’s what we did, just before Christmas, and that’s how we found out, after a biopsy. That’s how we found out I had cancer.”
Chloe detailed how her husband broke the news to her.
“He came home and I remember him walking through the door and he said to me, ‘Don’t panic’, so obviously I panicked,” she said.
“He said, ‘They think I’ve got cancer’. I just couldn’t believe it.”
Bamba underwent six rounds of chemotherapy and admitted to WalesOnline that, while he largely coped well, there were some real low points during the course of his treatment.
He underwent the last of his chemotherapy sessions in April and has now been given the all-clear.
But, as he told the BBC, there was worry in the back of his mind.
“The first chemotherapy session was difficult and worrying because I’m normally going to training, busy, taking the dog, going to the gym, and after the first one I was knocked ked out completely for three or four days, ys, I couldn’t move. I was in bed,” he explained. “I remember I tried to come down here to watch TV so I’m not in my bed on my own. I just couldn’t. I was worried at that time e because I had another five to o go. I was, like, ‘I don’t know if I can get through this’.”
The support of former Cardiff ff manager Neil Harris was a real al strength to him, especially given n Harris fought his own cancer batttle during his career.
“I have to say I was fortunate at the time he was the manager, ger because he went through similar things as well” Bamba added.
“It was a shock for everybody, because you like to think you are a professional sportsman and you are fit, but the support I had from the gaffer at the time was very good.”
Bamba’s contract is now up in the Welsh capital, with discussions ongoing over his future. He was able to pull on the Bluebirds shirt in a brief cameo
on the last day of the season against Rotherham. Rotherham
As you can imagine, it was a day of high emotions for Bamba and his family.
“I was very, very emotional, I was almost going to cry, I was nearly there,” he said.
Chloe added: “It was fantastic to see. I know it was only 15 seconds but for me it was the best 15 seconds of the season, it was just magic.”
Now free of cancer, Bamba was quick qui to highlight the brilliant work of staff sta who treated him, with one moment mo of sentiment from the nurses who cared for him making him cry cry.
“I can’t talk highly enough of th them,” he said. “I even feel a bit emotio tional because the last day of my ch chemo sessions they all wore the Car Cardiff shirt with ‘Sol, we fight with you you’ and my name and my number on the back. That made me cry, actually. Honestly, they were very, very good and we are planning to go and see them again. They said they were going to come and watch a game when I’m back playing because they were sure and determined that I would be back playing too.”
■ You can watch the full interview on Football Focus, which is available on BBC iPlayer.