Bobby’s battle
Williamson reveals how cancer fight has helped him change perspective
BOBBY WILLIAMSON has been out for lunch. He couldn’t taste much but starting to eat again is progress from a diet of 20 pills a day and protein shakes, forced down in pain to dodge huge mouth ulcers. Food feels rough and highly sensitive to digest. However, he says he looks dreadful so it’s time to start putting back on some of the two stone-plus in weight that’s dropped off.
He is back in Kenya with partner Michelle and daughter Saoirse. That is preferable to two months in India undergoing punishing chemotherapy and radiotherapy courses.
Being settled around home is a comfort compared to being carted through airports in a wheelchair and on to a Dubai hotel room to spend the first week of January sleeping fitfully, hallucinating.
Williamson welcomes all these small steps, taken to bring him through and out the other side of an ordeal that began late last summer with a diagnosis of undifferentiated nasal carcinoma, a rare cancer.
He wants it be known that there is a giant leap in him, too.
‘I’ve had agents on asking if I’m interested in working again,’ says the 56-year-old. ‘So, I have feelers out and if something came up, I would jump in. I’d work anywhere in Africa and I could get through it. My interest in football has been rekindled. I’d kind of lost that.’
That Williamson is considering a career move while health issues remain in the balance tells you that the draw to the game has been fully reawakened amid these desperate circumstances.
Williamson has had plenty of thinking time during his treatment to figure out where that passion went missing. Some was lost in the court room. The rest in a bar room.
He traces a wane in interest to a protracted legal battle with Football Kenya Federation. And a love for socialising in The Roadhouse where only out the corner of an eye did TV action capture attention.
All the while that sporting love slipped, the former Kilmarnock and Hibernian manager was troubled by what he felt was a blockage in his throat affecting his breathing.
Michelle, believing his troubles to be alcohol-related, persuaded him to visit an ENT clinic. A colonoscopy and endoscopy acted as an MOT for vital organs and all seemed fine.
Then, in August, Williamson underwent a full medical at which he was determined to discover the cause of increasingly unbearable breathing issues.
‘It was a tumour,’ he says. ‘Results of the biopsy weren’t conclusive. But I wanted the whole lot out because I couldn’t breathe. We went on holiday for a couple of weeks and went back in.
‘That’s when I was hit by the bombshell that it was cancerous.’
The lack of facilities in Kenya persuaded Williamson and his family to head for Delhi in November where many people from east Africa requiring lengthy hospital care travel for treatment.
‘I’ve never worried about anything, always believed if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen and, if it happens to you, then deal with it,’ he says. ‘It’s been a hard struggle. I admire people who’ve gone through chemo now I’ve been through it myself. I took it in my stride to begin with. Sure enough, it hit me. ‘Hospital to get radiotherapy, back to the house, watch English football at 1am, sleep, on to the next day to take medication all over again. ‘That was hard enough but I was taking pills with a mouth full of ulcers. Can’t put a straw in your mouth. Swallowing 20 tablets over the day. I was all over the place. ‘Thankfully, Michelle took over with the pills and sorted my days to take them. Forcing them down my throat, downing protein shakes to get the pain over with. ‘It was hard for her as well. Trying to cope with me being a pain in the a*** for a while now and our five year-old daughter. We got a tutor in to help her with school work.
‘It’s taken its toll on all of us. Coming back from Delhi, we went to Dubai and I just stayed in the room, didn’t eat anything.
‘They did sight-seeing, water parks. I lay in my bed, dozing on and off, taking medication. When I remembered. Hallucinating.
‘Too many tablets and probably taking them at the wrong time. I went to the pool twice, I was too hot, uncomfortable. Every time I stood up, I was dizzy. I tried to watch TV but I didn’t find much football.’
The life-changing medical ultimately delivered two punches. The first was diagnosis of type two diabetes, the initial trigger for lifestyle evaluation. That, in turn, led to rediscovering his feelings for football.
Williamson hasn’t worked since being sacked by Kenya in February 2016 and is still fighting to be paid the year’s salary owed.
‘I stopped drinking after they told me about the diabetes,’ he reveals. ‘At least it proved to Michelle I wasn’t an alcoholic. I can take it or leave it. But I preferred to take it. I enjoy the craic.
‘It was a social thing. I never drank in the house, I only drink beer. Now I’ve lost this weight, the diabetes has disappeared. Hopefully I can have a couple of pints again.
‘But it will be different to the way I drank before. I do miss football now. But I wasn’t missing it. When I was a consistent drinker, if football was on television, I’d play pool and keep an eye on it.
‘Then, once I stopped drinking in August, I paid more attention. I noticed more. I watched Indian football during my treatment there, and saw Steve Coppell and John Gregory managing.
‘I got in touch with an Indian agent and they were looking for big names. Half of them I’d never heard of. I started to think I could maybe still do something.
‘I have a lot more to offer. It’s not about money, never has been with me. It’s about the challenge more than anything else.
‘The Kenyan fall-out sickened me. There’s a backlog of court cases to 2015. The way it’s working, it will be 2020 before they look at mine.
‘I have to look at FIFA now. The Kenyan federation admit they owe me money but say they don’t have it. The government say that the federation should pay it.’
Williamson remains a big noise in the continent’s football scene because of his work with Uganda’s FA, who he joined in 2008, Kenyan giants Gor Mahia then their national side.
There is no appeal for a move back to the UK, never has been since he settled in Kampala then Nairobi, although a flying visit in July to Scotland is pencilled in.
He has not been short of
After chemo I would watch English football at 1am, sleep and then take more medication
companions on previous return trips to Glasgow but may have to extend the stay this time, such is the extent of the goodwill that flooded his way last month.
‘I’ve been overwhelmed with people asking how I am and sending best wishes, some I’ve not heard from in years,’ he reports. ‘It’s good to know they’re still going strong.
‘I’ve kept in touch with John Hartson. After what he went through a few years ago, he’s done tremendously well.
‘You think about everything when you’re going through this.
‘I remember people I went to school with, have flashbacks to who I played football with.
‘As a former West Brom player, I was stung by the news about Cyrille Regis passing away. I met him many times. A great guy. It’s got me back in touch with a lot of people who I tended to ignore. Strange things go through your head when you feel your life is being threatened. But I never felt close to death’s door.
‘I’ve always enjoyed life. Always looked to make the best of bad situations, been one to look forward rather than look back. WhatsApp doesn’t cost a penny for a call.
‘So, I can listen to other people’s problems instead of mine. Not that I can speak too well. I feel congested, I hope that’s the swelling from radiotherapy and will disperse.’
Williamson stressed he’s positive on the outcome, savouring not lying in bed most of the day, comfortable being patient until medication runs its course in March — and reliant on gallows humour.
‘I always looked old but I look dreadful,’ he says. ‘One of my eyebrows is falling out but if that goes, I need to shave the other one, so I don’t look even more ridiculous.
‘I’m hoping the beard will grow back and cover this face. But people have been through worse and got there. I believe I’m strong enough.
‘My cancer is undifferentiated which means it can come back. If it does, I’ll deal with it. Right now, they can’t tell. At least we know it was localised in the nose.
‘I’ll have to see doctors forever more. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully be free from this. But as soon as I’m feeling a bit better, I’m ready to go. I’m thinking of going to the gym.’
Football had been such an obsession in Williamson’s life that, almost a decade ago, he left his family and friends behind in Scotland for east Africa and the Ugandan national team.
Speaking in January 2009, after leading the Cranes to the Council for East and Central African Football Association trophy, he admitted: ‘I always said that football wouldn’t kill me.
‘But the longer I’m involved, it seems more important than anything else.’ He conceded then that the fascination was a touch unhealthy.
How the football world hopes he gets his fix again. This time, as a sure sign of well-being for Williamson.