Non-league football legend Mark Maddox has died after living with motor neurone disease for 12 years
22.08.2023 - 14:53
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Altrincham FC have led the tributes to former skipper and club legend Mark Maddox following his death from motor neurone disease aged 50. Mark made over 300 appearances for the Robins between between 1996 and 2006.
But in 2010, shortly after beginning a career in management, he was diagnosed with the terminal muscle wasting condition MND and told he had just two to five years to live. The dad-of-three, nicknamed 'Mad Dog' due to his whole-hearted approach to the game, began a remarkable fund-raising and awareness campaign that would see him become the first person with MND to complete the London marathon, do a parachute jump and record an album with his band Last of a Dying Breed.
Speaking in 2013 he told Mancunian Matters: "When you are diagnosed everything is doom and gloom – and rightly so because obviously it's terminal. But the sooner you get over that the better it becomes.
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"Hopefully people with MND will look at me and say 'Well he's had it two-and-a-half years – why can't I do that?' That's what I'm trying to create.
"I just want to keep raising money and awareness for MND and I want to show people that you can still do things despite the adversity."
In 2021 his campaigning was praised in Parliament by his friend, Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne, who highlighted Mark's story to call on the Government to do more to help MND sufferers. He said: "Mark was told at diagnosis that he would be lucky to live beyond a year—that was 11 years ago.
"Mark believes that the love and support he receives from his family—his wife in particular—his friends and often complete strangers have helped him to get through to this day.
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