‘Football changed everything’ – Leeds United stars' key role in young Eddie’s leukemia recovery

As the son of a Leeds United supporter Eddie's football loyalty was practically predestined, but the role the club and its fanbase have played in his journey since a leukaemia diagnosis has cemented his place in the Whites family.

For some, the youngster's story will bear familiarity. You might remember the image of Stuart Dallas carrying him out onto the Elland Road pitch as a mascot. Or the photo dad Lee tweeted of the youngster looking distinctly unimpressed in a hospital bed, next to a grinning Ashley Young and a Manchester United Christmas gift. The one that will likely jog most memories is more recent, it's the one of him ringing the bell, having beaten the illness.

But few outside the family's circle will know how close they came to losing Eddie, or just how important a role Leeds United and their fans played during a torrid few years.

Eddie was diagnosed in November 2019.

"It came out of the blue," Lee told the YEP.

"He started getting very poorly, not wanting to play with mummy or daddy. He was becoming very pale. We took him to the doctor's three or four times and each time they basically told us to calm down, children get ill just let him ride it out, and he'll be fine. As the weeks went on, he got worse and worse and my partner Stephanie had to go and sort of demand they take blood tests. They say you should always listen to your intuition because it's never wrong and my gosh, we got a call a couple of days later, basically telling us to go to our local hospital, Oldham Royal and they told us that he wasn't good. He had leukaemia. He had just gone past his fourth birthday."

Incredulity was the overriding state of mind for the family. They didn't want to believe it, hoping for a false positive, clinging to straws that it was some other, more minor illness.

"But the doctors kept telling us that it's not good and he's got three, three and a half years of treatment ahead of him," Lee added.

Eddie, meanwhile, as kids do, got on with it.

"I think kids really do show us how to deal with problems," said Lee.

"As traumatic as it has been for him since day one he's got on with it and whatever traumatic event he's had to go through, any sort of major surgery that he's had to have, any needles, you know all the nasty stuff, he's taken it in his stride. It's not been pleasant and he's cried his eyes out but he's bounced right back from it. And he's just got on with life. He just loves life."

Any parents' most basic wish is for their child to enjoy life, just as any parent's worst nightmare is anything that threatens it.

"He almost almost died, the Christmas before last," said Lee.

"He managed to contract three things - Rhinovirus, seasonal Coronavirus, not the nasty one we've all been scared of, and something called PCP which is a really rare form of pneumonia. He was on oxygen. His SATs [percentage of oxygen in a person's blood] kept dropping and the doctors kept coming around to us saying those awful words 'we're doing everything we can.'

"Me and Stephanie we really kind of feared the worst. His immune system wasn't working, the antibiotics or any other medicine they were giving him weren't working. And it was just getting worse and worse.

"Then one morning he woke up, I remember being next to him in hospital and he was like a brand new kid again. He was full of it, his number started going up all of a sudden, the medicine started working and he bounced right back. A couple of weeks later we were discharged from hospital and we got him back.

"There's been a few close calls, it's not been easy street by any means. His numbers drop from time to time, he has been completely immunocompromised. We had to shield all the way through the pandemic. It's been rough but to get to the point where he's rang the bell, and it's almost behind us now is a wonderful feeling for everybody."

Football, in this context, can only ever be seen as a distraction but as fate would have it, football proved to be an almost perfect distraction for Lee and Eddie.

"Just as he got diagnosed, Leeds were doing incredibly well under Marcelo Bielsa," said Lee.

"Football changed us, not just for Eddie, but for me. Football changed everything as soon as he came in and we started playing well. And then we got promoted during the pandemic. Enjoying Premier League football with my son, watching it side by side, letting him stay up for the late games was lovely. And staying up on the last day of last season was also a wonderful moment that I shared with my lad. We let off some fireworks in the garden, he held some flares and we took some nice pictures and stuff. Football has been a positive distraction from what's been going on."

During the promotion season Eddie welcomed baby brother Cory to the family and had two special Leeds United encounters - the aforementioned walk out onto the pitch in the arms of Dallas and a home visit by Adam Forshaw.

"Walking out with Dallas, with Jack Harrison and Pablo Hernandez behind him, is one of those moments in life he's never, ever going to forget," Lee told the YEP.

"It's something he always talks about. And at Christmas just after he got diagnosed we had a lovely, lovely moment when Forshaw visited our house in Littleborough, next to Rochdale. It was so nice that they drove all that way. Dominique Grant at the club sorted all that out. Forshaw brought him loads of Christmas gifts, which he really enjoyed. We felt nothing but support and love from the football club."

So as his treatment progressed and Eddie, now seven, neared that special moment when he could ring the bell, he was clear on how he wanted to dress.

"It's all we've been talking about in terms of what we're going to do at the end of it," said Lee.

For months and months he's been badgering me to get this Leeds shirt and to get his name on the back. He wanted the black one. I couldn't actually find one - they were out of stock in his size in the Leeds store so I had to get one second-hand on eBay. It is very symbolic in terms of the end of the treatment and he was looking forward to it for a very long time."

Eddie, who has already made his Elland Road return this season, will go back to school around Easter time and take things from there. The family have to tread carefully until his immune system returns to what it should be, but he's looking forward to doing the normal things that kids do, like kicking a ball around with mates. Yet to move on from the Brazilian's departure, Eddie still tries to be Raphinha, although Patrick Bamford is a close second favourite.

Being a Leeds fan, he'll get used to ups and downs being part and parcel of life, but he'll grow up knowing that thousands were marching on together with him.

"When you put a tweet out like that [Eddie's bell ringing photo], you just know you're going to receive love and well wishes," said Lee.

"I've shown him it and it's almost been like a well wishes card. Jermaine Beckford got in touch, who was one of my heroes in my younger years, so it's been really nice.

"I think any football club with a decent fanbase and nice people around the city are always going to respond well, but there's always been something about being a Leeds fan. There's always been something special about feeling part of something quite unique."