Lewis Aldersley, 17, showed promise as a soccer player.
He was the star player on his school’s team and was even set to undergo regional academy trials prior to turning pro. But when he received a bone cancer diagnosis in July 2017 where doctors advised that his leg be amputated above the knee, all his dreams were shattered.
Watch to learn more of his story in the video below.
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Video credit: Rumble
However, Lewis loves soccer and losing one leg wasn’t going to stop him from playing the sport he loves. The talented teen from Coventry, West Mids, now plays for West Bromwich Albion’s amputee team once a week.
Lewis said: “I loved football and played for a Sunday league team – I was told if I carried on the way I was playing I could go pro and I was just about to play games with scouts attending. I was so excited.
“When I was diagnosed with bone cancer my world came crumbling down.
“The chemotherapy wasn’t working; it was making my tumor grow larger, so they were going to need to amputate my leg and that’s when I knew my football career was going to end.
“It was a hard decision; I had always wanted to either be a footballer or join the army and suddenly I couldn’t do either.
“I was heartbroken at the thought of not being able to play sports, but at the end of the day, it was stop playing sports and live or try to save my leg and die.
“Spending a year in hospital and coming out on one leg was a huge adjustment but I’m just so glad I can still play ball.
“I’m so grateful that I found the amputee football league.
“The support there is priceless, I have met people who have gone through what I have gone through, so we have this united feeling of surviving what life has thrown at us which brings us together every week.
“I met a guy there and we are good friends now, he has a leg amputation on the other side so we buy a pair of boots and keep one each, so at least I’m saving a bit of money on boots.”
Prior to the devastating cancer diagnosis, Lewis had been having on and off issues with leg pain. But in 2017, his knee suddenly locked up and he fell down the stairs.
Marie, his mother, immediately took Lewis to the hospital. When the doctor heard that the teen had been struggling with leg pain for several years, he decided to do an MRI which revealed a tumor in his knee.
Marie said: “One of the doctors at my GP told me he would need his leg to be amputated and my heart sank.
“We had three options, one of them was to operate on the knee and try to remove the cancer, another was to remove from below the knee, or we could remove from above the knee and removing from above the knee was the safest choice.”
Lewis’s leg was amputated five months later in November 2017 and has since gone into remission.
Lewis said: “I was not scared or upset, I just couldn’t believe it was happening to me and I couldn’t bear the idea of not being there for my mum.
“Almost a year later, after my leg had been removed and my chemotherapy was finished, I went to an amputee football camp with England and I loved it, it was the first time I had kicked a ball in over a year.
“The head coach put me in touch with West Brom’s coach and told me to go down, little did I know when I got there they were going to throw a jersey at me and get me in the team.”
Lewis is grateful to the amputee football team because it gave him a new direction in life and made him realize he can still be the athletic person he was before his amputation.
“Being able to play football again makes me so happy, it’s one of a mixture of things I realized that I could still do.
“Walking out and seeing my grandparents and mom on the side-line watching me has changed my life, my positivity about life is sky-rocketing every time I hit the ball.”
Lewis added: “Joining the lads once a week really helps keep me going, we all have been through the same sorts of things and that connects us in a way that I can’t connect with others.
“It’s been a really difficult couple of years, but I finally feel like I’m back to my old self and I’m excited about the future.”
Harry Smith, Lewis’s coach, said: “Lewis was a part of this team before me but what I’ve seen from him in the last year has been amazing.
“He’s like a sponge, he absorbs what he’s told and remembers it, his movement is exceptional, and he’s picked it all up so quick.
“The biggest thing Lewis has is his confidence on the ball, the way he moves is very fluid, he knows where to pick the pass, where to dribble and when to shoot – which is all you need in football.”
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