Tony Mowbray has opened up about his battle with bowel cancer and the most challenging year of his life.
Mowbray, who was Coventry City manager from March 2015 to September 2016, had just returned to football with Birmingham City, just a few weeks after losing his job with Blues’ Championship rivals Sunderland, and had made a good start when his diagnosis necessitated stepping back from his duties.
While it was initially hoped that Mowbray could return to St Andrew’s, he was ultimately forced to step down and his recovery is still ongoing. Despite the toll of his illness, he plans to return to work at some point in 2025.
In the meantime, Mowbray continues to watch every Blues game and expresses gratitude for the support he has received from the club during this challenging period.
“I’m okay. Strangely enough, because of the illness I’ve had, I’m not probably not as well as I was then [Mowbray’s last visit to the Riverside on the opening day of the season],” He revealed to BBC Radio Tees. “When I came to that game, some people won’t know, I had a stoma bag attached to my stomach.
“I felt fine, there was no problem. The stoma bag has been removed and my body functions are all active again, but because I haven’t worked my stomach muscles for nine, ten months, I’ve got a lack of control in a pretty delicate area. It’s a bit of a gamble for me coming today.
“It’s difficult to keep me away from football. I’m here because I love the game, I want to watch the Boro. How am I? I’m fine in myself, but it’s very difficult the condition I’m living with at the moment. The doctors tell me it will resolve itself in time and I look forward to that day.
“Humbling is the word [as regards to the goodwill and support he has received]. I played with my emotions and hopefully, people feel, I talk with my emotions, whether I’m a player or manager, I think the supporters of football clubs know that with me they get truthfulness, honesty. People warm to working class values of honesty and hard work.
“It’s been the toughest year of my life, or our lives, as we talk as a family. It was out of the blue that my illness was diagnosed. I was still Sunderland manager this time a year ago. My house got burgled a year yesterday. I was at Sunderland in a board meeting and I got a call from my young son.
“I left the meeting and rushed home to see the house full of police officers. The start of the year started really badly for us as a family. I understand football, I lost my job at Sunderland. Then I had an amazing phone call and meeting about joining Birmingham City. That club saw me as the guy who could bring them together and take them on a journey hopefully back to the Premier League. I was happy to do that.
“Then my world came crashing down. I’d had a doctor’s appointment through the LMA, where you go to Manchester and have a check up. It’s like an annual, full body MOT – your hearing, your eyesight. Part of it was having a colonoscopy. I got diagnosed with bowel cancer. It was shattering – I had to go to the football club I was newly employed at [and inform them I couldn’t continue].
“I’d had eight games. We’d won four, drew two, lost two and we were doing pretty well. We’d just beaten Sunderland and Blackburn, my previous two clubs. Things were looking good, the place was bouncing, the stadium was full. I was really looking forward to having a great time there. Unfortunately ten days later I was in a hospital bed in Manchester having a ten-hour operation. My life changed.
“Professionally there’s a sadness. I watch Birmingham every week. I look at the players and they have changed practically the whole team, there are maybe only two or three left, but I knew the owner had a plan. It was going to be an exciting part of my career. I wish them all the very best and I hope they get the job done in League One.
“Sunderland and Birmingham City have been amazing. A year without work, a year without money, yet those football clubs have looked after me and honoured the contracts I signed. That’s humbling, they’re almost giving me money not to work. They’ve been so fantastic to me and my family.
“I’m hoping that in another couple of months I might be ready for work, once my body settles down after a recent operation, but I do want to go back to work. Football is in my blood, it’s what I do. I want to get involved with a group of young men again, talk to them about life and football and what it takes to be a winner, try and inspire them – but I’m not ready yet.”
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