Former Newcastle skipper relives the day he almost died -and tells the Chronicle of his delight at rejoining the Toon. Glenn Roeder was struck down by a brain tumour. His - thankfully, wonderfully - was benign. Emlyn Hughes suffered a brain tumour and died. Glenn winces at the stark contrast. Life is so precious and, approaching his 50th birthday, Roeder is sitting in the head coach's office at Newcastle United's spanking new academy. A high-profile survivor. Bubbling with bonhomie and boyish enthusiasm. Fear, bravery, heartache, determination - all swirling emotions experienced on a rollercoaster ride and played out, as a Premier League manager, in the harshest glare of the public arena. A time of immense trauma not just for Roeder himself but also for his family - wife Faith, daughter Holly and sons William and Joe. If he had given West Ham his all and come back from knocking on death's door his reward was to be four paltry matches before being sacked. Which was the cruellest cut of all? But then there was Emlyn - dear Emlyn, who always seemed to be wearing the widest grin on television. Sunny as a summer's day. He didn't make it and suddenly in that thought the balance is truly restored. Gratitude is the overriding factor for Glenn and those closest to him. "Emlyn was Crazy Horse, Mr Indestructible," said Roeder. "That's how the public saw him yet tragically he died. I didn't really know him. I only played against him at the end of his career when he was at Wolves, but I spoke to him because of what I'd been through. "What happened to me and to him made me realise we all hang by a thread. We must make the most of life." The date when Roeder was so cruelly struck down at Upton Park is etched in his memory. April 21, 2003. He was in the throes of a desperate battle against the growing threat of relegation yet had just won a football match that may - just may - have been his lifeline. Except that fate was to play the dirtiest of tricks. Roeder has never talked too much about precisely what happened that dreadful day or how he feels about West Ham brutally sacking him upon recovery. It was too raw and personal but now, hundreds of miles away and back full-time in a sport he adores, he is ready to give his side of the story. "We'd lost 1-0 at Bolton to a Jay-Jay Okocha goal and looked in serious trouble," recalled Glenn. "Next up were Middlesbrough at our place but we beat them 1-0 and I was mightily relieved. We were still alive and punching. "I'd done the press conference and was back in my office. I hadn't felt unwell or anything like that. It was a difficult period in my professional life but we were making a great go of it. I was happy. "Ludek Miklosko, our goalkeeping coach, asked if I fancied a glass of wine. I had two lovely leather sofas in my office and a local journalist who I trusted was sitting there. I walked across and joined him then, bang, I blacked out and keeled over sideways on to his knee. Everyone assumed I'd had a heart attack. "The club doctor, a brilliant man who has become like family, got me in the recovery position and called for an ambulance. Faith had arrived home from the match by now with William but Holly and Joe were waiting outside for their dad to take them home. "God forbid that it had happened 20 minutes later - I'd have been speeding down the motorway with my kids in the car. I daren't consider that to this day. "I was kept asleep for five days in the hospital before I awakened and was told I had a brain tumour. Those two words didn't make for good hearing." The national newspapers were heaping drama upon drama. The acute pressure of a relegation fight had taken Roeder close to death, a fate that could await any manager. He'd suffered a heart attack, a stroke, almost anything medically possible. Once thus tagged, it was always difficult to allay fears. Roeder, however, was prepared to fight. "The situation was a life-changing experience, for sure, but I had two brilliant men on my side - the surgeon Mr Afshar and the neurologist Dr Gauler," Glenn told me. "I'm not trying to appear very brave or whatever but once I knew precisely what the score was I couldn't wait for the operation. "I was sent home because the tumour grows very slowly but I wanted to get on with my life. The tumour was benign, that was the key. Had it been malignant it would have been a very different matter. "In a masochistic way that sort of thing does change you for the better. You appreciate literally everything you've got when you might have had it snatched away. "I had every single thing checked and double-checked in hospital and everything else was 100%. I had four scans in 26 months and each was perfect. They had got every part of the tumour out. "Both Dr Gauler and Mr Afshar stressed that my illness wasn't down to pressure. It could have happened to anyone. They said they'd give me a letter to that effect if I ever needed one." Glenn underwent neuro surgery during the close season and returned to his duties at the end of June as his players came back for pre-season training. Health remains a matter of good housekeeping. Medical checks are merely every 12 months now and Roeder is back where he belongs on the training pitch yelling instructions and encouraging inventive play. Football, a game where fit young men get paid to do what they love, reacts with horror to personal tragedy. Roeder escaped. Emlyn did not. Glenn was struck down suddenly, without warning, just as Terry Yorath's teenage son was, playing football with his dad in the back garden. An undetected heart defect killed him on the spot. But football learns from its fatalities. Roeder picks up a heavy sheaf of notes on the desk in front of him. "See this," he says. "It's the reports on every first-year kid we have in this academy. They all get tested for the thing that took Terry's lad. "Thank goodness some good comes out of terrible tragedy." Why a United front is vital His passion for Newcastle United, nurtured as skipper of a star-spangled side, overflows now he's back where so much happened for him. Glenn Roeder is a strict believer in loyalty and he made that abundantly clear upon taking over as the manufacturer of tomorrow's stars. "I've told them all that the name of this club is Newcastle United and not Newcastle Divided," he told me. "If I hear any young player bad-mouthing those in the first-team camp or joking on about a Premiership defeat they are out of here. I mean that." Nodding towards the first-team training complex half a mile across country, he adds: "We are all in this together and we must back our own club 100%. That's the way forward, not having an us-and-them policy about those over there. "I'm told that the two places were distinctly separate before but I go over to have breakfast or lunch with Graeme Souness once a week. I tell him what he needs to know and if a lad is suddenly showing big time he'll be invited to train with the likes of Alan Shearer, Scott Parker, Shay Given and Kieron Dyer. "When he comes back to us the word will soon get around and others will want the same experience." Roeder works on the accepted fact that "you can't put in what God left out" but you can encourage and bring the best out of what's there. Roeder - boss of the academy and "only answerable to the chairman and the boss" - insisted: "Some coaches treat young footballers very badly. "They are still children and their parents give us them to try and help on their way through life." Glenn's family loved it up here and last night dad took daughter Holly out for a meal in Newcastle to celebrate her 21st. "Faith was pregnant with Holly when we first came to the North East," recalled Roeder. "So it was perfect that we were all up here last night to celebrate. Faith and I are currently looking for a house in the area." Page 2: Arthur showed real Christmas spirit | 
