Football team promotes prostate cancer awareness

Rose players with Grant Stott and Adam Gaines, director for Prostate Scotland. Picture: Ian Georgeson

The amateur side has teamed up with Prostate Scotland to raise awareness of prostate disease – which will affect nearly half of men in Scotland during their lifetime.

The charity’s logo and the slogan, which highlights one of the symptoms, has been printed on the team’s home and away shorts to try to tackle health problems in an often hard-to-reach group.

Forth One presenter and ambassador for Prostate Scotland, Grant Stott, kicked off the campaign.

“It’s great to see this partnership being formed and it’s a great idea from the club,” he said.

“Hopefully it will help to get the message out there about prostate cancer and its symptoms to us men folk who often don’t want to listen or may not have had access to information.”

The club chose to back the charity after learning that one in 11 – the equivalent to a player in every club’s team – is likely to develop the condition.It is the most common cancer in men, killing 1000 Scots a year, and with an average 3000 newly diagnosed cases. Like most diseases, early diagnosis is key to successful treatment but many patients are put off by embarrassment.

Supporter Tom Lambie, 73, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009 after going to his GP with pain in lower region. He was treated with brachytherapy, where radioactive pellets are inserted next to the cancer.

He was one of the founder members of a buddy support group for people with prostate cancer in Edinburgh and the Lothians and urged people to get checked out.

He said: “The important thing is that if you have got urinary problems then going and get checked by your doctor. It’s the same old story – if you find it early enough, it can be treated but if you turn a blind eye, you don’t know what is going to happen.”

David Ridd, captain of LRCFC amateurs, said the team was keen to tackle men’s health issues head on.

He said: “Some of our players have been indirectly affected by cancer and we wanted to do something to publicise the symptoms and causes of this awful disease more widely.”

“We hope that by having the Prostate Scotland logo on our shorts and other marketing materials around the club, it will bring it to the attention of our team and those we play against. We have already done some fundraising and have more planned. We also hope to arrange a celebrity football match in Linlithgow at the end of the season.”

Calendar strip boosts funds

AN image consultant has bared all for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

Lindsay Kirkwood, from Stockbridge, stripped down for the month of May after a colleague Maria Hastings was diagnosed with the disease.

The body confidence calendar features classy images of fellow style advisors from across the UK, draped in their most flattering colours, along with a confidence boosting quote and helpful style tips. Printing costs were covered through £7000 raised in a crowdfunding campaign, meaning every penny raised in calendar sales will go to charity.

Lindsay said: “We were all trained by the same company and wanted to do a calendar. We thought body image and body confidence were obviously relevant to breast cancer.

“Every single person you talk to knows someone who has been affected by it.”

The calendar, which costs £10, has been endorsed by Lorraine Kelly.