Words John Richardson
DEBAUCHED
iMPriSONED
SURVIVED
He embarrassed Arsenal, angered his bosses,
enjoyed some, ahem, ‘special’ times in the
Stamford Bridge centre circle, and even had
a stretch at Her Majesty’s pleasure. There’s
only one Mickey Thomas, alright – and he’s
cheated death to regale FFT with a few talesThomas. His madcap career had enriched
the game, but in May 2019 the former
Wales international was going under the
knife after being diagnosed with stomach
cancer three months earlier.
Thankfully, surgery was a success – so
much that three years on, Thomas will
be walking to the summit of Snowdon
alongside Andrew Baker, the man who
saved his life. For someone who often
hit the heights as a waspish winger, the
67-year-old will look back down on the
Welsh mountainside with real emotion.
“I want to give the people who operated
on me some recognition because they
don’t generally get that,” Thomas tells
FFT. “You can’t do much better than save
someone’s life. So I’m going to walk up
Snowdon with the guy who saved mine.
It’s amazing he’ll be walking next to me.”F
or once there was no sense of fun;
no razor-sharp wisecracks from one
of football’s most lovable rogues. The
player who lived the life of a maverick
was now fighting for his: a tumour in
his oesophagus the size of a golf ball
was threatening to call time on MickeyThomas’s ‘Walk For Life’ will raise vital
money for the unit at Wrexham’s Maelor
Hospital that ensured he’s still here now
to tell the tale – and just a few more
besides from his chaotic career. Before
that, though, it took a former Manchester
United pal to urge him towards medical
help in the first place.
“Bryan Robson had recovered from
throat cancer and noticed that I was
having trouble swallowing,” says Thomas,
referring to an episode when the pair
were working for United’s in-house TV
station on a pre-season trip to Bangkok.
“It got so bad that I was even struggling
to eat an apple. He said that as soon as
I got back home I should see a doctor.”
It soon became evident that Thomas
might have left it too late – diagnosed
with the tumour, he passed out.
“The blockage was so large that they
couldn’t even get the camera down,” he
explains. “I just remember the surgeon
saying that they’d have to operate then,
otherwise I’d be dead the next week.
“It was frightening, but thankfully
when I came around after the operation
he told me, ‘We’ve got the whole lot out’.
But then came the chemo, to try to make
sure it never comes back. At times, the
side effects took me to the brink of not
wanting to go on any longer. When you
see the photographs of me all wired up
and looking as if I was on death row, it’s
a miracle I’m able to recount the story.MICKEY
THOMAS