Wally meets... Mark Halsey

By Mike Walters

Published 05:00 13/03/10

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At last, after all the rapacious tales of vanity, greed and sleaze, this is a story everyone in football can celebrate.

Premier League referee Mark Halsey's comeback in the middle this week, after his remarkable recovery from cancer, was not just a personal triumph amid the moral bankruptcy of the grand old game.

It procured a minor miracle among the torrent of goodwill messages he received from players, managers, colleagues and complete strangers.

For among the sackfuls of mail, endless bleeping of text messages and phone calls, there was even one from that celebrated referee-baiter and pantomime dame himself, Neil Warnock.

Queens Park Rangers fan Halsey told him: "Neil, I'm glad you've joined my club - because it means I don't have to referee you any more!"

Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce and David Moyes have also been supportive during Halsey's battle against a disease everybody fears - but which grown men are often too macho to confront until it has taken root.

Hours before Manchester United's Champions League demolition of AC Milan at Old Trafford, Halsey - whose return at Hinckley United's Greene King stadium last Tuesday passed without a hitch - was given the all-clear to take charge of another match next Wednesday.

David Beckham's latest photo opportunity, in a green-and-gold scarf, had its transient value, but to Halsey Blackpool reserves against Rochdale's stiffs at Fleetwood will be every bit as magical.

Reunited with his consultant, Professor Tim Illidge, at the world-renowned Christie hospital in Manchester, where 14,000 new cancer patients are treated every year, the referee who refused to accept the final whistle spoke movingly of his fight to stay alive.

Casting his mind back to Arsenal's 6-1 romp at Everton on the opening day of the season, Halsey still wonders how he ever got through it.

The day before, doctors had solved the riddle of a sore throat which wouldn't go away - a lump, larger than a golf ball, was growing around his tonsils and had spread more than halfway across his windpipe.

"I thought it would be my last game," he said. "I remember leaving home, looking at myself in the car mirror and I looked ill. Medical people will tell you I should never have done the game, but my heart ruled my head.

"Four hours before kick-off, I arrived at the hotel and the other lads - fourth official Mike Jones, linesmen Trevor Massey and Andy Garratt - were already sitting there waiting for me.

"They took one look at me... and that's when I knew I had to tell them. I just said, 'Look, lads, I'm going to need your help today - I've got cancer.' They just sat there in a stunned silence.

"Funnily enough, I didn't feel as though I refereed that game under a sentence because on the previous New Year's Eve my wife, Michelle, had been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia, which is treatable but not curable.

"Two days later, I had to referee Hartlepool v Stoke in the FA Cup third round, and on the pitch I kept thinking of her. When I gave one decision against Hartlepool, a few of their fans had a right go at me. I remember looking at them and thinking, 'If only you knew what I was going through right now...'

"People get very emotional about football, but my illness has put the game and life into different perspective. As referees, we all worry about getting the big decisions right - but perhaps we worry too much."

Halsey's tumour was removed 48 hours after he took charge of his last Premier League game. Six gruelling chemotherapy sessions, which invariably made him sick, and three radiotherapy sessions later, his hair had fallen out but his spirit was unbroken.

On the day of his comeback, he compared his excitement with a "little boy who comes running home from school to tell his parents he has been picked for the school team."

Ten minutes into the game at Hinckley, one of Scunthorpe United's reserves ran past Halsey, shook his hand and said, "Great to have you back." Shortly after half-time, Halsey booked him. A moment of pure class from a referee who has never been quickest on the draw with yellow and red cards.

Hopefully, that incident was a snapshot of the future. Halsey's ordeal may yet have done more for the Football Association's Respect campaign - the manifesto demanding more compliance, and less back-chat, towards officials from Hackney Marshes to the Premier League - than any billboard adverts or plaintive TV campaigns.

And if the FA are truly serious about revitalising the FA Cup, what better message to beam around the world that cancer can be beaten - by appointing Halsey to lead out the teams at Wembley in May?

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