Last updated at 09:33, Saturday, 26 April 2008

FROM the anxiety and confusion of this engrossing season comes an unexpected contribution from a Carlisle United player, one which should be cut out and stuffed into the back pocket of anyone preparing to speak of pressure and pain these next few days.

Happy days: Ernie Cooksey, the former Oldham and Rochdale player afflicted by malignant melanoma, a cancer of the skin. Inset: United keeper Keiren Westwood says: ‘He’s the sort of character you like as soon as you meet him’

It is a moving statement on a stricken player, one which takes an axe to the idea that footballers are unable to lif t their heads from the most comfortable, and maybe sometimes shallow of lives.

Your attention, please, for Carlisle’s goalkeeper Keiren Westwood, as he sounds an appeal on behalf of Ernie Cooksey, the former Oldham and Rochdale player afflicted by malignant melanoma, a cancer of the skin.

Raising his view far above the promotion push which takes United to Millwall today, Westwood speaks vividly of the day he learned an old colleague had been attacked by this vile disease.

“I was at a leaving do for Les Pogliacomi, the Oldham ‘keeper, who was going back to Australia,” Westwood recalls. “Ernie was there and you wouldn’t have known a thing was wrong.

“At one point I was talking to Paul Murray, and he said, ‘Have you heard about Ernie?’ I didn’t have a clue. When I found out, it was just horrible news.

“Your heart goes out to him, especially because his partner’s got a baby on the way. I was at Oldham for a season with him and he’s the sort of character you like as soon as you meet him.

“He was a good professional who always did his job right. Because of what’s happened, he’s had to retire. It makes you feel really lucky to be in your own position - playing football, in a promotion race, and everything that goes with it.”

We need not dwell on the detail of Cooksey’s career, but it at least ought to be known that the 27-year-old was a paid-up member of football’s lower-league infantry, a committed midfielder whose attributes led Paul Simpson to make a failed pitch for his services at Brunton Park four years ago.

It is the minutiae of his illness which seizes the attention and appals the heart. Malignant melanoma, typically caused by over-exposure to harmful UV rays from the sun, is notoriously difficult to treat when it spreads around the body in multiple tumours. This, known coldly as Stage 4, is Cooksey’s desperate position today.

“Every day is hard but I’m up for the fight ahead,” says Cooksey; a fight which obliges him to seek out treatments and trials being carried out across the world, a quest likely to lead him to America and which comes as cheaply as it sounds.

This is where Westwood and, hearteningly, so many of his fellow professionals come in. Fundraising events have sprung up at a rapid pace. One is a charity match at Oldham’s Boundary Park on May 11 in which Westwood intends to play, along with a cluster of other players with Carlisle connections such as Murray, Grant Holt and David Beharall, and some stellar names from the sport including John Barnes and Chris Waddle. The website www.erniecooksey.com carries full details.

Westwood is also putting forward for raffle a signed jersey from his impressive season between the Carlisle posts. Tickets are £1 and available from Brunton Park’s main reception, and the Blues Store and BS2 shops. The winner will be drawn at half-time in next Saturday’s home game with Bournemouth.

“I didn’t think twice about helping Ernie,” says Westwood. “Hopefully my shirt is something Carlisle fans might like to get their hands on, and we can raise a good amount for him.”

Charitable appeals won’t dominate this column on a weekly basis but we make no apologies for choosing this subject to fill our space today, instead of one of the weighty matters currently engaging the brains of most Carlisle United fans, such as takeover rumours and tactical permutations.

This is not an attempt to hector the Cumbrian public. Cancer’s indiscriminate finger taps the shoulder of thousands of people whose suffering receives considerably less publicity than Cooksey’s.

But to my mind, there could not be a more piercing exposure of the mirage of the indestructible sportsman. Cooksey’s story shovels perspective onto the page at the time of the football season when people frequently speak of other strains and stresses. The response of men such as Westwood to this dreadful tale does his profession great credit, and it is a cause we support without reservation.

First published at 09:14, Saturday, 26 April 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk