This is Tom the 17 yr old son of ‘Gaz’ Moore, a popular goalkeeper coach at Stafford Town FC. Tom, Gaz and the rest of their families lives have just recently been turned upside down and they’d like to share far and wide to warn and hopefully inspire as many others as possible

This is Toms story as told by Gaz;

”We’d like to share and publicise whats happened in order to warn others but to also physically do something tangible as a way of ‘thanks’ to the doctors and nurses that are currently providing Toms immediate care. The funds we are able to raise will make the treatment time of future young people that little bit more bearable with the distraction of some communal department tech such as games consoles etc.

Tom has played football since the age of 7 at a variety of clubs including Cannock Town, Hednesford, Old Wulfrunians and recently Stafford Town. He was helping out Burton Manor U18s on a Sunday last season and in May first mentioned a pain in his knee after each game. We put it down to over playing and suggested playing through it for the last 3 games or so.

At training he still complained of soreness so took him back to the GP who suggested he see the resident physio who gave him exercises. Despite the exercises he still had pain and the last game of the season had to come off after 10 mins.

This was June so went back to the physio who suggested as a precaution to get an MRI scan done expecting this to be at worst a torn ligament or cartilage. While away on holiday abroad our GP called to say the MRI was showing something abnormal so we cancelled the rest of our holiday and flew straight back to have more tests. We landed on the Tuesday and Weds went straight into Royal Otrthopedic Hospital for scans where we were told by a consultant that Tom has Osteo Sarcoma (bone cancer) in his left knee. This was devastating news for us as you can imagine. The following day he had the biopsy to confirm the grade of cancer and this showed that it is high grade.

Since that day we have been in and out of hospital back and forth to clinics for scans and X-rays. The plan is to have 6 lots of chemo to shrink the cancer, then surgery to remove the whole knee with the cancer in and input a specially made replacement then 6 more sessions of chemo to kill any rogue cells. Then intensive physio therapy to regain mobility.

Tom had his first course of chemo on 23/08/22 and resumes 19/09/22 with surgery planned for Nov.

We would like to raise funds to be able to provide the YPU )Young Persons Unit) that looks after 16 to 24 year olds with sarcoma with equipment they need as well as recreational equipment that makes their stay a little more normal ie games consoles etc.

We’ll be doing various initiatives to raise funds and achieve our goal and this page will be the conduit to track and show what’s been accomplished. If you would like to support us by either sharing or donating please do and we’ll also publicise our planned activities here. Thank you for reading.”

Gaz