Kamara’s comeback
TV presenter Chris Kamara reveals how speech apraxia crushed his confidence and threatened his career. Hannah Stephenson speaks to him as his moving tell-all autobiography is released.
FOOTBALL pundit Chris “Kammy” Kamara, whose enthusiastic commentary, legendary gaffes and riotous laughter have endeared him to millions, is reflecting on how his life has changed since developing apraxia of speech, a rare neurological disorder that slows down his speech and thought processes.
Today the affable commentator and former professional footballer and manager, who left Soccer Saturday in 2022 after 24 years with
Sky Sports, speaks slowly, working to find the words that once came so naturally, becoming emotional when he recalls descending into the depths of despair as he became unable to engage in his trademark quick-fire banter.
He recalls: “In the beginning I hardly slept, I was so worried about my speech. Tomorrow, would I be able to talk, would I be able to have some quick wit, off the top of my head? Slowly but surely that went away.
“It was so hard for me to do a report on something that had come naturally. The excitement, the enjoyment of watching a football match and relaying that to the public all of a sudden became car-crash TV. People were looking at me thinking, ‘Oh my God, Kammy, have you been drinking? Have you had a stroke?’”
He admits he was in denial for 18 months before his diagnosis two years ago, even though he was clearly having problems at work and his family – wife Anne and sons Ben and Jack – had noticed a change.
“I was stupidly ashamed of my condition,” he says candidly. “So I would like to apologise to every single person who has a speech problem or neurological problem. These things happen randomly and I didn’t handle it well in the first place. But now I want to put the record straight and raise as much awareness as I can.”
Last year he made a documentary, Lost For Words, exploring the condition and has now written his memoir, Kammy, charting the speech deterioration that he felt sounded the death knell to the life he loved and left him with dark thoughts.
But the book is also full of tales that show how much people love him and his infectious enthusiasm, his on-air blunders and that big, wide Kammy grin. You sense he’s grateful for everything, despite everything. “My life had been fabulous, fantastic, one good thing after the next. To have this hit me and realise I’m not the same person any more, that I possibly had dementia or Alzheimer’s, the worry about being a burden, had taken over my thoughts.”
He tried a number of treatments – hypnotherapy, exercises, diet change. “I felt so good in myself but it didn’t improve my voice in any way, shape or form.”
However, after appearing on Good Morning Britain, presenter Kate Garraway told him about the experimental treatment her husband Derek had undergone in Mexico for long Covid.
With nothing to lose, Kamara and Anne flew to the NeuroCytonix clinic in Monterrey, Mexico, where he had treatment for over a month in what he calls the “wonder machine” – similar to an MRI scanner but without the noise – which transmits radio frequency and magnetic fields into the body to halt and even reverse the condition.
“It’s been great. It’s three months since I’ve been there and now the thought process goes straight through to the mouth. It’s incredible. The speed of my voice isn’t up to scratch at the moment but it’s getting there.”
Kamara, 65, says he wouldn’t return to Soccer Saturday but hopes to get back to reporting on football in the New Year and has continued to present programmes and podcasts including Ninja Warrior UK and Cash in the Attic.
The treatment has made him more positive about the future. “I’ve got so much to look forward to. Now I realise what an idiot I was for being ashamed of my condition. Five per cent of children in the world are born with speech conditions and need somebody like me to look up to.”
His resilience is partly explained by his upbringing. His father Albert, from Sierra Leone, served in the Navy when the country was part of the British Empire and after the war his ship docked in Liverpool in 1949 and he settled in Middlesbrough, securing a job in a factory.
Racism was rife and Kammy encountered his fair share of it. People stared and spat abuse when he went to matches at Leeds, he was refused entry to pubs, there were monkey chants and a banana was hurled at him at Millwall.
“In the Sixties and early Seventies, this country was a different place. People might say today, ‘We’re still suffering the same abuse’. Unfortunately racism is still around but it’s like chalk and cheese compared to what it was then, when people said the N-word to your face. It gave me determination and nothing surprised me.”
Apraxia has given him another huge hurdle to jump. His family – he lives with Anne on a smallholding in Wakefield and his two sons live nearby – have been amazing, he says.
“I couldn’t have done it without them. The grandchildren (he has four) don’t care if I can’t talk properly. When my apraxia was at its worst they didn’t know anything about it. They still loved Grandad as much as ever. My children, Ben and Jack, and my wife couldn’t have been more supportive.
“I’m getting some offers of work but I pick and choose. People asking me know my voice isn’t 100 miles an hour so know what they are getting. I don’t have to pretend any more.”
‘People asking me to work know now that my voice is not 100 miles an hour. I don’t have to pretend anymore.’