Ex-Carlisle United man on cancer fight and spotting Mellish

The hardness, though, benefited McAlindon most of all when he was confronted by cancer. Five years ago, a trip back to Cumbria was followed by the toughest of challenges. “I’d been to play in [the former Carlisle and Workington defender] Kyle May’s testimonial, and I felt what I thought was an ulcer on the side of my tongue," the 43-year-old says. "It wasn’t going away, so on the train back the next day I thought, ‘I’ll maybe have to see about that’.

“I left it a little bit longer, went to the doctors, got referred – and it was a tumour.”

McAlindon, a dad of two young children, found it difficult to accept the news. “The doctors at the Freeman [Hospital in Newcastle] were asking things like, ‘Do you smoke? Do you drink?’ I said, ‘Well, if I go out, I go out, but I never smoke’. None of my mates could believe it.

“It was quite quick after that. I had to go in for a 12-hour operation, and they cut the tumour off the side of my tongue. They actually then took skin off my calf and lapped it over to form my tongue. Then they took all the lymph nodes out of my neck on the left-hand side.”

Microscopic cancerous particles were found in the lymph nodes. “It had got to Stage Two,” McAlindon says, “so I had six weeks of radiotherapy, which wasn’t great, like. After three weeks I thought I was alright, but after that, the side-effects started – tired, ulcers all over, lost weight, and the skin on my neck…it sort of burns you from the inside, so that wasn’t nice.

“Because I was 38, they said I was getting really strong doses because my body could take it. It left me in a bit of a state. It took me quite a spell to get over it.”

McAlindon gradually recovered, and says his experience of playing a hard game equipped him for the struggle. “Football, with all its highs and lows, gives you that hard exterior. My idea was to look at it as though it was a bad injury, something to try and battle back from.”

This was the mindset McAlindon adopted after the initial shock. “My first thought, when I was told it was bad news, was for my kids,” he adds. “You don’t want anything to happen to you for them. My little boy’s 11 now and my little girl’s eight. They still don’t really know what happened to me – they just know that daddy had a bad tongue.

“It was hard for my wife. I remember when I came back from the hospital and, because I’m no good just sitting around, I would try to go for a jog by the river at Hexham. I mentioned it to her and she rang the hospital, telling on us…”

He laughs. “They said, ‘Look, he’s gonna get better, so just as long as he doesn’t go overboard…’ – which I couldn’t anyway, because I couldn’t move, hardly.”

McAlindon is, all being well, close to the end of that difficult chapter. The check-ups have become less regular, the cancer having not returned in the years since his treatment, and he is now waiting for a Covid-delayed appointment with his consultant in the hope that he will be fully discharged.

Perspective, in the last five years, has often been within reach. McAlindon refers to his admired former team-mate Tony Hopper, who died from motor neurone disease in 2018. “I was probably feeling a bit sorry for myself at the start, but I had light at the end of the tunnel," he says. "What happened with Hoppy brought it home for me. There’s always somebody worse off. I went to see Hoppy a few times, and I still can’t believe it. It still gives me that horrible feeling when I think about it.”

McAlindon’s earlier time in hospital also encouraged reflections. “When you’re young and playing football, you’re always looking forward,” he says. “When you’re in bed for days, not able to move, it does give you a chance to look back, and I did think about football in that time. At 38, it was the point when I was finishing playing and I thought, ‘Well, I might not have had the longest professional career, but I was a decent player and I had a good time’.”

This included four years at Carlisle, McAlindon having joined in 1995 after leaving Newcastle, where he was an apprentice. “We were quite successful, but the youth thing wasn’t on top of Kevin Keegan’s agenda,” he says. “I got a free and was offered a two-year contract at Sunderland, but the manager, Mick Buxton, was sacked the very next day. I then got invited up to Carlisle on trial.”

McAlindon joined Carlisle in 1995 after leaving Newcastle United, and spent four years at Brunton Park

McAlindon, from Hexham, was a young addition to a squad going places under Mick Wadsworth and Mervyn Day, amid the best years of Michael Knighton’s ownership. “There was a big group of us that were similar age – Paul Murray, Rory Delap, Rich Prokas, Hoppy, Will Varty, Scott Dobie, Matt Jansen, Paul Boertien. They were already getting called the Brunton Babes and I ended up in that group. We were together on the pitch and always knocked around together off it.

“Mick Wadsworth’s sessions were brilliant. It was a great place to play football. When I first got on the pitch, against Bradford at home, I’m sure there was 9,000 there.”

McAlindon made 71 appearances, scoring 10 goals, earning a Division Three promotion winner’s medal under Day in 1997 and playing in a couple of absorbing League Cup ties the following season, setting up a goal for Andy Couzens in a 3-2 first-leg defeat at White Hart Lane against a Tottenham side including Sol Campbell and David Ginola.

“I remember standing in the tunnel, looking over and thinking, ‘Wow, how big are these?’ But we did ok. They scored early on and you were thinking, ‘God, I hope it’s not a cricket score’, but we went in at half-time winning. Second half was a bit one-way traffic, and we got beat in the end, but we didn’t do badly.

McAlindon takes on Tottenham's Sol Campbell in the League Cup at Brunton Park in 1997

“We had a good side. I think what stifled me was the fact that, just when I was starting to get in regularly, it was when Knighton was mucking about. They sold Rory and Janny, and also let the experienced players go. I was still just 20, and appreciated having people like Owen Archdeacon, Warren Aspinall and Dean Walling there.

"When they left, there was a sour taste around the club. It had been so successful, but suddenly the life was getting drained out. It got quite toxic in the end.”

He left in 1999, after Jimmy Glass had saved Carlisle. After a season with Scarborough, a long spell at Gateshead followed before he moved on to Blyth Spartans and then on to the Northern League with clubs such as Bedlington Terriers, Dunston Federation, Newcastle Blue Star and latterly Newcastle Benfield.

McAlindon coupled part-time football with a joinery apprenticeship, setting up as a self-employed builder and joiner, also moving into coaching. A couple of years ago he was assistant manager at Ashington when a raw young defender caught his eye.

“I was at a game at Morpeth looking for players,” he says. “ Jon Mellish was playing for Benfield. He was on loan from Gateshead and he scored that night from a corner. He was one I kept an eye on.”

McAlindon spoke regularly to Paul Murray, a close friend who had accompanied him to some of his cancer appointments, and who later returned to Carlisle as first-team coach. “After I left Ashington, Muzza asked if I would go and watch some games,” McAlindon says. “I always said that if you look properly, there are good players in those non-league levels. I’d been to Darlington and spoke to Muzza about Harvey Saunders who went to Fleetwood.

“I said there were a few others, and I mentioned Mellish. He’d started doing well for Gateshead by this point and got picked for England C. I told Muzza to go and watch their game and see what he thought. He went, and said he liked him – good size, left-footed, decent with the ball and had a bit of a background as well, having been at Sunderland when he was younger.

“Muzza mentioned it to [manager] Steven Pressley, he went to watch, and he liked him as well. He was out of contract that summer and Gateshead were having their money troubles. I said, ‘If you want him, you’ll have a chance’.”

McAlindon spotted Jon Mellish playing for Newcastle Benfield on loan from Gateshead, and later recommended him to Carlisle (photo: Martin Swinney)

Mellish joined Carlisle as a defender, but has this season been transformed into a goalscoring midfielder by Pressley’s successor, Chris Beech. “I must admit, I didn’t see him playing in midfield,” McAlindon laughs. “He’s absolutely flying, isn’t he?

“There are certain reasons why I thought he could make the step, though. He is good over the ground and I know from playing in midfield in the lower leagues that it can be hard, but a bigger lad can still win a header, pull somebody out of the way and look like they’re having a good game when maybe they’re not.

“There's the hunger thing as well. I remember playing for Gateshead against Barrow when Grant Holt was there. He didn’t take the conventional route, but he pushed himself through. When you’ve played in the Conference at a young age, it hardens you, rather than, say, being at Newcastle’s Under-23s until you’re 22 without gaining any experience.”

McAlindon is now assistant manager of Newcastle University in the Northern League, and runs a youth academy, PGS Coaching, in Hexham with his brother and another former team-mate. He also coaches his son’s junior team, and, in good health now, there is much in life to enjoy – including the revival of more old memories.

“I saw Paul Boertien the other week when his young team played ours,” he says. “I used to travel in with him when we played at Carlisle. Every time you bump into people from that period, you just act like you did when you were 19 or 20.

“My little boy now loves the football. He supports Liverpool, but I took him to Carlisle once and he loved it – getting right down to the pitch, the atmosphere, the smaller ground. If there’s an opportunity to bring him to another game, I will. It’s always good to come back.”