West Ham United is partnering with the Bobby Moore Fund to help raise vital funds for life-saving bowel cancer research at tonight's Premier League fixture with Fulham at London Stadium.
The Hammers’ greatest-ever player and captain, Bobby Moore OBE tragically died from bowel cancer aged just 51. Shortly after his death in 1993, his widow, Stephanie Moore MBE, established the Bobby Moore Fund in partnership with Cancer Research UK to fund pioneering bowel cancer research and help raise awareness of the disease.
Since Bobby’s death, mortality rates for bowel cancer have fallen by more than 30% – but sadly the disease still kills 44 people every day in the UK. So, there is still much more to do.
We know that 54% of bowel cancer cases could be prevented and that early detection of the disease is key: when diagnosed at an early stage, more than nine in ten people survive for at least five years. This drops to less than one in ten when the disease is diagnosed at the latest stage. So, the Bobby Moore Fund supports a number of important awareness-raising projects, as well as vital research into ground-breaking new treatments.
For example, the Fund is currently supporting a project at Queen’s University in Belfast which is exploring whether immunotherapies – treatments that harness the power of our immune system to fight cancer – could be used to treat advanced bowel cancer in patients for whom chemotherapy is not effective.
All of this potentially life-saving work is only possible thanks to the tireless efforts of supporters, who go above and beyond every year to help the charity beat bowel cancer. Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the Bobby Moore Fund and during 2018, the Fund reached the £25m milestone.
One of these special supporters is James Cullen, who battled bowel cancer for several years before being given the all clear in 2018.
Before his diagnosis, James was a healthy and very active father-of-four who had run the London Marathon three times. His diagnosis shook a very close-knit family to its core, so a clean bill of health should have made 2018 one of the best years of James’ life. However, in December, his mother, who had been his rock throughout his cancer treatment, died very suddenly on Christmas Eve.
Despite everything, James is determined to bounce back in 2019 and is undertaking a series of fundraising events for the Bobby Moore Fund. The first culminates at tonight’s game: along with his four sons, James has completed a 27-mile run, walk and jog between historic sights relating to Bobby’s career, including Craven Cottage, Chadwell Heath, Rush Green, Upton Park and the London Stadium.
Please show your support for a fellow Hammer by donating to his fundraising page
Looking ahead, the Bobby Moore Fund’s flagship event, the London Celebrity Sports Quiz, returns to The Brewery in November for its 21st consecutive year.
Join some of the sporting world’s most-recognisable faces as they come together with blue-chip companies from across the country to take on the UK’s largest interactive sports quiz and raise money for life-saving bowel cancer research. Previous quizmasters have included Dan Walker, Jeff Stelling, Steve Cram CBE, Mark Chapman, Gabby Logan and Clare Balding OBE.
Early bird tables of ten are available from £2,750. For more information, please contact the Cancer Research UK Special Events team on 020 3469 5551 or [email protected]
For supporters attending Friday's game, look out for bucket collectors in red Bobby Moore Fund t-shirts and please give generously!