I had a stroke but the magnetic power of football helped hold my life together

John Nicholson 25 Aug 2024 8:11 AM

Johnny has written some words

Our Johnny has written a book about his experiences of having a stroke. Football helped save him, hence why he rallies against the big money and corporate values.

As you might know, last November, I had a massive stroke out of nowhere. It was genetic and there was nothing I could’ve done. It was compounded by my doctor telling me two days before I had a stroke that I wasn’t having a stroke. Maybe I should sue. It left me in a wheelchair and I’m still in recovery but getting on pretty well, though there’s no point in pretending it’s not completely sh*t. But it could have been worse – my brain was unaffected, unlike many, and I’ve written two, nearly three books since.

I was in hospital for 14 weeks under the care of the stroke unit at Inverclyde hospital. The staff nurse was a man who had played amateur football in the ’70s and ’80s. He had a thousand often very funny stories, including being given the runaround by a young Pat Nevin. “I couldnae even get close enough to kick him.”

Similarly I had a night nurse who I would always talk about the night’s games with and which players teams needed or were good. Anything. In both cases they were so important and kept me connected to my real life when I was incredibly unwell and vulnerable. In a very real way football held my life together. The support and love and good wishes that I got from F365 and many readers was invaluable – once again, the casual friendships of people, who only knew each other because of football. I was amazed at the magnetic power of football as people crowded around my radio, listening to a Scotland game.

This was brought back to me last week because my booklet about the experience was published and because the previous week, I saw Matt Forde, the comedian and impressionist and he was learning to walk again after suffering from a cancerous cyst on the base of his spine. He talked movingly about how his club, Nottingham Forest, had been so encouraging and supportive, as had been Stuart Pearce.

This is an unacknowledged role football clubs often play in people’s lives, and shows the importance of the game more broadly. It often gets forgotten or ignored in the whirlwind of obscene wealth, heinous ownership issues and endless transfer rumours. It’s why the civic point of football and football clubs seems so important to me. This isn’t a branch of the entertainment industry in anything but a shallow way, it’s so much more than that and its tentacles spread far and wide in society.

It’s why the move towards big money and corporate values is anathema to me and why I resist the trend toward wealth and pursuit of glittering prizes, however unfashionable. Football is too important and profound to be despoiled in this way and these trends to big business, autocratic owners and endless business ‘partners’ selling official bamboo shoots does nothing for people who rely on clubs for comfort and identity in times of crisis and hang on to the game as a lifeline.

This isn’t just an opinion, it’s a deeply held conviction and drives my overall attitude to the game as primarily a force for civic good and not corporate exploitation. It’s why a night game in the freezing rain and a howling gale at Greenock Morton is more attractive to me than a game at Arsenal or any other big ground. It’s football as a culture as part of the community, not an element of profit or business branding. Very deeply, it is played for us all, not just for those who are wealthy. Not just a material purchase.

And this spirit is perhaps most impressed on you at times when the life you took for granted falls apart and you are plunged into a river of chaos and don’t know where you’ll end up, or even if you’ll sink or swim. It might not have happened to you. If so, you’ve been lucky, but trust me, take nothing for granted, your life can change in a heartbeat and be turned upside down and inside out. That’s when you need football and its community. Forget the big wages, the huge transfers, the billion pound corporate takeovers – they mean nothing. It’s the soul and roots and history of the game that will keep you afloat. That’s why I love football and why and I take none of it for granted and stand against anything which diminishes or disrespects the roots of the game.

As I publish my book about my stroke, it’s forced me to confront again what and who was important to me and how I got through it, because it was, be in no doubt, a seriously life-threatening thing. I could barely speak for a week, which for a dedicated bullsh*tter like me is huge.

As you might expect of a Yorkshireman who imbibed emotional repression from an early age, talking about this is hard beyond the superficialities, but I shall try. Reading back the messages and emails sent to me at that time, and answered by my poor partner while I was literally incapacitated, by people I didn’t know but had read my work in one place or another, offering words of support and concern, are absolutely lovely. These people are the best of us. And to Winty, who wrote some brilliant, heartfelt things, I shall be forever grateful. They still make me cry. I never knew such affection in all my years. And I have no doubt they all helped my recovery, not least psychologically.

The book is, in many ways, a black comedy, funny and yet tragic and will tell you exactly what is in store for you, if you’re unlucky enough to go through a similar experience. It is uplifting and positive, as well as depressingly inadequate.

Right, enough of all this stuff about feelings, let’s get the ball out.

Help! I’ve Had A Stroke. Get Me Out Of Here is £5.99 from Johnny’s website.

Johnny Nic