Johnny Nic is due out this week and he has some people he wants to thank in the football community

I’ve been in hospital now for three and a half months, having had what was described to me as ‘a massive’ stroke and I’m due to get out this Thursday. In the time I’ve been here I’ve learned a lot about a lot because it’s a kind of hot house for humans. It brings out the best and worst in people.

Firstly, some people are angels, some people are devils. I suppose I knew that anyway. But here it is written large. The nurses are the former. Nothing fazes them and they do indescribably awful things with good humour. Whatever they are paid (and some students on placement get nothing) they deserve double. They are the best of us. When all else fails, there are nurses. Anyone who doesn’t agree with that has never needed a nurse. They carry out the most heinous and important work, without judgement. If we don’t respect that, what do we respect?

The devils? Well that’s some of the patients who have mistaken the hospital for a hotel, the nurses for servants at their beck and call, night and day. Awful bastards who you’d gladly strangle in the night. People so thoughtless and selfish, they must wonder why the rest of us are so undemanding. We must seem weird. But those people are likely to be horrible in real life. Illness has not changed them. They exploit people in the most selfish of ways. The family members who visit are invariably the same.

Secondly, football. To me it’s been a life thread to hang onto. Every day is like the last here but knowing who was playing last night centres me. I know where I am with football. It keeps me sane. Life fell apart, but when I tried to put it back together again, football was there and was my routemap back to reality. And what we might call the football community has been very generous to me with their good wishes.

Although I’ve been nominated for Football Writer of the Year twice, I don’t really embrace or believe such accolades. It’s probably imposter syndrome born out of growing up working class and poor. If I’d gone to Eton, my self-confidence would mean I would think I was great, but I would also be an unbearable prick probably called Jacob. I can’t escape the feeling that I’m a scammer.

Except after my stroke and the good wishes that poured in from many presenters, pundits, ex-players, commentators, writers and readers it made me realise that my work was widely enjoyed and all those below-the-line abusive comments were just a self-eating minority getting off on their own nastiness; they are best ignored. A stroke shows you what is good and what isn’t. You have no time for such energy vampires. No-one should. They’re a waste of space and time. A lesson learned.

At a certain moment when nothing works anymore and the corrupt and venal has become a default, thanks to a vile and inept government, I was shown a better side of humanity and it has made me feel warm and validated and worthwhile. For which much thanks. It’s one of the positive things to come out of this experience. So I shall continue to annoy fans of rampant end game capitalism, by seeing football through a socialist lens. Not because I’m smart, but because I care about the game’s culture, politics and economics. It might not seem like it, but I have your best interests at heart. Even so, by all means, call me a c*** if you need a hit of negativity to justify your existence.

(I know you want to now because you think it is clever, don’t you, but are worried you’ll look predictable, I know, I know.)

This has been more than three months of the most profound and humbling and eye-opening experience which in the next few months you will be able to read all about in a book called ‘Help! I’ve Had A Stroke, Get Me Out Of Here,’ which will hopefully amuse, disgust and help in equal measure. I hope a stroke never happens to you and that if it does, you have a support community to inspire you, like I’ve had.

Despite 40 years of hard drinking, that didn’t cause it. ‘It’s just one of those things that happens for no reason. It’s in your genes,’ says the specialist who finds me in rude health otherwise. I was just unlucky.

It makes you confront your own mortality quite profoundly. You recognise that life will end at some point, that there is less of it to go than you’ve had, so you better enjoy every sandwich. You are helpless for the first time since you were a baby. And here are these wonderful people to look after you and be kind when your defences are at their lowest. I can’t exaggerate how you need support. You can’t fight this alone. And all of football’s kind words did that for me. For the first time I properly realised I was part of a bigger diaspora and not just a lone voice shouting at the moon.

People recorded videos for me, urging me on. My partner, Dawn who has been amazing, would come in everyday to read out more messages. I was gone, barely conscious and unable to speak but football was the Sellotape which held my life together. Complete strangers, who know of my existence only because I once wrote something about them, dropped by on social media to say get well soon. People who have nothing to gain by thinking of me in a moment of crisis and sending me warm wishes. And it has to be said that when I was at my lowest ebb and I wondered how I was going to cope, my editor Sarah, always a reliable shining star when the sh*t hits the fan, and the F365 people said, don’t worry, you’ll get your money anyway, just get better. That was kind and generous and much appreciated. I owe you guys.

This is just another section of a journey I never expected to take. I’m now disabled and as militant as an ex-smoker, coming at you for parking on a pavement and thus blocking my way. ‘You want this coined? Then move it.’ It’s taught me to appreciate what I’ve got, not what I don’t. Taught me to look forward, never backwards. Taught me that the people throughout the football community can be kind and thoughtful, sometimes in contradiction to the common perception. We are bonded by a deep love of the game at all levels and that is an immutable fact, but it’s also more than that, something bigger-hearted and unusual. Thanks to all of you. You helped make me much better than I would have been.

Now, can we get on annoying the hell out of each other?