My Story

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that I will be sponsored by J-A-C-K (Joining Against Cancer in Kids) for the forthcoming football season with Essex Senior League club Tower Hamlet’s F.C.

J-A-C-K (https://j-a-c-k.org/about/) is a charity organisation which funds research and treatment options in the UK and offers support for families with children diagnosed with neuroblastoma. The charity was set up by the family of a young boy called Jack, who sadly passed away in 2009 aged 7. Jack’s father has kindly agreed to sponsor me for the 2018–19 season with Tower Hamlets F.C.

 

Jack Brown.

 

All football fans will recall the story of the late Bradley Lowery (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39883344), which resonated with fans all around the world. Like Jack, Bradley fought against neuroblastama.

The Institute of Nuclear Medicine at UCLH NHS Foundation Trust, my employer, is one of few centres in the UK which delivers molecular radiotherapies to children with neuroblastama—this is something which I am personally responsible for.

I would love it if you could help the cause by making a donation, however small it may be. While flat donations would be hugely appreciated by myself and the charity, I am also asking for donations with a twist: I’m encouraging donors to offer football-themed incentives which are related to my performances on the pitch. I, for example, will personally pay £5 for every game I appear in but don’t score in. Meanwhile, someone else has agreed to donate a fixed amount per goal. Someone else could make a donation based on the team’s performance in games or across the whole season. I’m sure you can think of many more ideas. Please get involved in the fun by challenging me with your creativity and kindness!

My season starts on Saturday 4^th August against Clapton F.C. I will update people on my progress via my social media pages (Twitter and Instagram: @jamesclarkross) as the season progresses. Contact me directly on one of these pages or on Facebook or by mobile phone (07518387400). Once you declare your idea I will keep a record of how much you owe and ask you to make donations via this page.

 

Me (left) signing up for the 2018–19 season with manager Ajay Ashanike (right).

 

Jack and Bradley may not be here today, but while remembering them and their brave fights, we can keep pushing to find treatments and, ultimately, a cure!

 

Below is Jack's story, as told to me by his father, Richard Brown:

Jack Brown.

I didn’t know anything about cancer until 2005. My three-and-a-half-year-old son Jack introduced me to it. The introduction came slowly and surreptitiously—a pain became a limp, then a fever, and, only after much invasion and investigation, a diagnosis. Jack led us from one scene to another in this opening chapter; and while fear crowded us, drowned us, the illness inoculated Jack from scare: Jack had neuroblastoma and that didn’t change Jack.

What is neuroblastoma? In simple terms it’s a cancer that only affects little kids. We are all made of nerves and something makes those nerves. Normally, once born, the cells that form our nervous system retire and expire: job done. But kids with neuroblastoma have an imperfection in the cells’ mechanism and they continue to grow and spread. Being nerve cells means the body accepts that they have a passport to travel to whichever limb or organ they desire. Once installed the cells settle in and take over.

In my experience the wayward cells are the only imperfection these children possess.

Lots of things happened with a year at Great Ormond Street and local hospitals. At the end of that year came news and it began as it should at the end of a fantastical journey: “We can’t find any of the cancer cells”...

And that is where it should have ended if this had been fair or a fairy tale.

“We think it will come back. If it does, there is nothing more we can do. Take Jack home and enjoy the time.”

This was 2006 and it didn’t seem fair because Jack had fought really hard and won; he’d survived and thrived, keeping himself intact and supporting his family. There must have been an answer to the 23 words which terminated hope with such disdain for the unheeding child. Well, there was and it arrived in the form of novel therapies being conducted in the USA. We discovered that the UK might have run out of options but Jack had other options.

In May 2009 we realised that Jack need not continue to take the fight to the cancer any more. We said goodbye, knowing Jack had fulfilled his life and fuelled the lives of hundreds of others.

So the charity Joining Against Cancer in Kids (J-A-C-K) was formed. The charity is currently funding research at University College Hospital London (UCLH) into improving molecular radiotherapies. We are also funding a further trial also being conducted at UCLH and at Southampton Hospital. This trial seeks use, in a new way, immunotherapy to help the children’s own bodies recognise and destroy the cancer cells. This trial, called Minivan, will also be opening in America and Germany thanks to J-A-C-K and two other children’s cancer charities.

For more information on the charity and its work please visit www.j-a-c-k.org .