Motherwell star Johnny Koutroumbis opens up on brave cancer battle as he reveals devastating conversation with parents

Johnny Koutroumbis felt numb with fear.

But he couldn’t let his mum, Anna, sense it. After all, she had her own devastation to deal with. Her little boy had cancer. He was 19 years old – but age was irrelevant. Koutroumbis had just received news that would change his life forever.

Initially, he put a brave face on it for the sake of Anna and his dad Alex. But when reality hit, he was scared. What would surgery entail? How successful would it be? And most importantly for him – as ridiculous as it might sound in the situation – would he ever play football again?

As he sat motionless in an Australian hospital office, those were the questions swirling inside his head. Fast forward six years and Koutroumbis is now in Lanarkshire, Scotland. As he walks into the Fir Park press room, the main thing on his mind is getting into Motherwell’s first-team.

After arriving in the Premiership in the summer from Perth Glory, an early injury has hampered the right-back’s progress. He’s frustrated, of course. But after what Koutroumbis went through back in October 2018? It’s just another obstacle he has to overcome. If he’d waited longer to see a doctor about a lump on his neck, his thyroid cancer might have been worse.

A lot worse. So now, he can be philosophical about football and about life. In an exclusive interview with MailSport, the Motherwell defender said: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, doesn’t it? There will be many hurdles in life. And I guess it’s too short to dwell on these things. What that did was make me look at life differently, in terms of what people don’t have.

“Some people don’t have eyesight or hearing. That puts it in perspective. I’m lucky that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. When you’re 19, 20,