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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/Sparksquidme on 2025-08-20 08:19:11+00:00.
In October 2021, he was diagnosed with cancer; 598 days passed before his next competitive start for Bournemouth, in May 2023.
As he rebuilt his strength and fitness following extensive chemotherapy, his return was delayed due to a hamstring injury in August 2022, while his pre-season last summer was hampered by a dislocated shoulder suffered in the 2023-24 Championship play-off final while on loan at Southampton. It is perhaps only now, after a full pre-season back with his parent club, that Brooks has fully rediscovered his fitness, form and confidence. “If you offered any footballer a year or two years out without injuries or illness, they would struggle to come back and be anywhere near Premier League standard,” Brooks tells The Athletic.
“But with the illness, especially chemotherapy, you are essentially being poisoned. That’s what chemo is. It kills all cells in your body, the good and the bad. You are extremely deconditioned, compared to what you are used to as a footballer. Plus, you haven’t touched a football in 18 months. Then you are expected to go at it with players who are worth £50million, £70m in the Premier League.”
Brooks’ diagnosis was stage two Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. It was detected by the Welsh national team’s medical staff when he reported symptoms including night sweats, weight loss and difficulty sleeping. He had noticed his running stats were depreciating, as well as losing body mass despite a muscle-building regimen to try to bulk up. He also felt unusually exhausted after training.
A biopsy followed the intervention by the Wales medics, and then six months of chemo. Brooks’ first battle was surviving, but upon receiving the all-clear from cancer, the road back to elite-level sport was only just beginning. He had lost muscle and gained weight while away. “During the six to 12 months of treatments, I didn’t do a single piece of exercise,” Brooks says. “I didn’t do any football, any gym, any cardio, just because, obviously, you don’t really feel that well to be able to do it. “It’s a lot to make up for. It’s not as easy as saying: ‘Well, I can run a certain amount of distance or I can run in this time’. You are so deconditioned; your muscles, your tendons. You are used to doing something for 14 years and not even thinking about it. But then, after two years out, it’s probably hard enough. But add that you’ve had what is basically poison going around your body for six months, it’s again another layer of difficulty.
“It was a frustrating period. It was just simple things; I would train, and the warm-up I could get through like normal, but I’d still be blowing out my a**e and struggling to breathe. I did a mic’d-up training session in Portugal two or three years ago. I knew I was a little bit overweight but I look back on that now and I was so overweight and not moving how I usually move. That’s probably what led to me getting injured.” His hamstring popped in an under-23s game early in the 2022-23 season, and needed an operation.
Did he ever wonder if he would make it back to being a Premier League player?
“It was never a doubt, up until the point I actually started trying to do it. When you’re going through (chemo), I thought: ‘Oh, I’ll be able to get back and I’ll play football again’. But then you see how deconditioned you are, and the standard of the Premier League is always going up. It’s tough to say whether it got miles quicker or I was just miles slower, just brain-wise and, obviously, body-wise at that time. “I just kept plugging away. I don’t really give up, and I always hoped I could get back there, which I’ve managed to do.”