Alex Young's Fight Against Stage Four Cancer
Alex Young spent a lifetime stopping trouble at the back. Now the former All White and Tauranga City AFC stalwart is facing a fight no defender can simply head clear.
The 77-year-old has been diagnosed with stage four cancer, and friends from across his football life are scrambling to help him meet a $50,000 bill for treatment not funded by the public health system.
Young first noticed a growth on his left groin and went to his doctor, who sent him for hospital tests. The scans brought a brutal verdict: what he describes as an “internal melanoma” that has already spread.
“It was a strange one, but I've consequently got stage four cancer on my liver, on my lung, and on my chest,” he said.
He initially went on the immunotherapy drug Keytruda and stayed on it for six months. Then the treatment stopped working. The next option was ipilimumab, a powerful drug that, in his case, is not funded by Pharmac.
“I had my first procedure with that, which costs money, obviously. I think the first one was $10,400.”
Ipilimumab is publicly funded for some cancers in New Zealand. Young’s isn’t one of them.
He is due back at Tauranga’s Canopy Cancer Care on Wednesday for his second round of treatment. Four infusions are required in total. Each one carries a price tag that would scare most households, never mind a 77-year-old navigating the physical and emotional toll of advanced cancer.
Football, as it has so often in his life, has stepped in.
Young arrived from Scotland as a teenager, around 16, and quickly found his way into the local game. He climbed through the grades, then made his name with Hamilton City, sharing the pitch with the likes of Keith Nelson.
“Soccer is my sport and life, I suppose,” he said.
Tall, tough and uncompromising, the defender’s 6ft 4in frame made him a natural presence at the back. His performances against touring English sides, including Bournemouth and Luton Town, caught the eye of national selectors. In 1977 he was named in the All Whites squad, a pinnacle for any player in New Zealand.
His influence stretched beyond his own playing days. Young became player-coach at Tauranga, steering the club through an unbeaten season and cementing his status as a local great.
Those who shared dressing rooms and committee tables with him are now coming to terms with his diagnosis.
Tauranga City AFC life member Mark Bougen, who worked alongside Young on the club committee in the 1970s, said the news hit hard. On the field, he remembers a defender opponents quickly learned to avoid.
“You would call him a no-fuss football defender, a hard Scottish man,” Bougen said. “When he played, he took no prisoners.”
That same no-fuss attitude meant Young was reluctant at first when friends proposed a fundraising drive. A Givealittle page has since been set up with a target of $50,000, a figure organisers say is needed “to give Alex the best possible chance” in his fight.
The page notes that the financial strain of unfunded treatment is “too much for one person or family to carry alone, especially while navigating the physical and emotional toll of a cancer diagnosis”.
Young only agreed to the campaign after seeing how much work his friends had already poured into it.
“When they came around to see me, they were so good and they had so many good ideas. I thought, well, if they're willing to go to this trouble, I'll try it.”
At the time of writing, donations had reached about $2000. A start, but still a long way from the total needed.
For Young, every contribution matters.
“I’d like to thank them from the bottom of my heart. They’re probably strangers. Thank you to them all.”
A man who spent decades protecting his goal now waits to see if his football community can help him win the biggest contest of his life.
