ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

Football fan Rowan Pethard used to spend most of his time outside kicking a ball around, but can no longer do so after being diagnosed with leukaemia.

Chemotherapy left the seven-year-old unable to raise his foot properly, so the avid Spurs fan has to make do with playing Fifa 16 on PlayStation against his 10-year-old brother Corey.

But when his club found out about Rowan’s plight and the amount of time he spent at Great Ormond Street Hospital it invited him for a tour of White Hart Lane and arranged for midfielder Harry Winks to visit him at home.

Doctors at GOSH know that for a child, boredom is one of the worst things about being in hospital and that patients can feel they are missing out on what is going on outside.

The visit from Winks, 19, was organised after family friends got in touch with Spurs to tell them about Rowan’s plight. The surprise provided a huge morale boost for Rowan, who had been perfectly healthy until he was six.

Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino said: “We were extremely sorry to hear of Rowan’s situation and everyone at the club sends their best wishes. We hope he is managing to keep his spirits up and that he gets well soon.”

Rowan’s mother Abby, 39, said: “The visit from Harry Winks really cheered Rowan up and he is really looking forward to the visit to the stadium in December. It is all he is living for at the moment!”

The Evening Standard’s Give to GOSH Christmas Appeal will help fund dedicated play specialists who design activities for children to aid their treatment, recovery and understanding of their illness.The Pethard family took great comfort from the activities organised to keep children’s spirits up at the hospital. Rowan particularly remembers a magician who came to his ward and showed him tricks.

Mrs Pethard said: “Rowan was feeling a bit grumpy that day but the magician cheered him up and completely turned the day around. He actually looks forward to going to hospital because he knows they are not just giving him medicine or sticking needles in him.”

Winks, who popped in to see Rowan before training, lives so close to the youngster’s home in Hemel Hempstead that he can see Rowan’s garden from the high-rise apartment he lives in.

The pair worked out that he will be able to watch Rowan practising when the youngster is able to get back out in the garden to play football. The visit came after a gruelling nine months for Rowan.

At the age of six, he started getting coughs, colds, pains in his legs, tonsillitis and an itchy rash, but despite numerous trips to the doctor his mother was told nothing was seriously wrong. In March, he collapsed in the car park of his GP surgery, was diagnosed with leukaemia and was taken to GOSH, in Bloomsbury, for emergency chemotherapy.

He came home in April and started a course of intensive chemotherapy. He now has an implantable port in his chest so the medication can go directly into his body without new cannulas being inserted each time.

In December, he will begin “maintenance treatment” which will continue for two years and the family has been told he has a 90 per cent chance of being completely cured. Mrs Pethard and her husband Steve, 43, want to raise awareness about leukaemia. She said: “I always say to other parents, ‘Don’t be frightened to go to the doctor if in your gut you think something is not quite right. Have it checked out’."