Mickey Thomas battled for his life after being diagnosed with cancer

A meeting with Bryan Robson made Thomas realise he needed to be treated

Initially Thomas was told frankly that the outlook was extremely bleak

After surgery he is clear, but has has no guarantees that the cancer won't return

It was in hospital two weeks ago that Mickey Thomas briefly contemplated giving in. Maybe, after six months of treatment for cancer, this was to be his time.

'I was on the bed with yet more needles in me and yet more wires and just thought that maybe I couldn't take any more. This time I was terrified I wouldn't be coming home,' Thomas admitted on Friday.

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'It was an infection but when you have had cancer, the infections are the really dangerous things. But here I am. I am not cured for life — nobody can ever say that — but I have a chance don't I?'

Here he is, indeed, sitting on a sofa in his smart flat with a balcony overlooking the beach at Rhos-on-Sea in his beloved North Wales. It is a foul day, not one for a stroll.

Mickey Thomas, 65, had bad days and good days while fighting cancer of the oesophagus

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But this weekend — if the sun shines — Thomas may be out there, just for a while, feeling the sun on his face and sea breeze at his back. Coming towards the end of weeks of post-operative chemotherapy for the cancer of the oesophagus that could have killed him, the former Wales, Manchester United and Chelsea forward is looking cautiously towards the future once again.

'I walked to the shops the other day and thought it was great,' he smiled. 'The fresh air, the sounds. For me it's everything. But it's day by day. I am OK here with you now but yesterday I was so wiped out I was in bed for 24 hours.

The former Man United man is coming towards the end of weeks of post-operative chemo

'They say the chemo may save me but at times if feels like it kills me. It's so traumatic. But I know I have to get it done. I want to live so much.'

It was over dinner with Bryan Robson during a United visit to Bangkok earlier this year that Thomas realised the time had come to take control of his own welfare.

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'I had been not right for about a year and he had not been able to eat properly 'cos I couldn't swallow,' recalled Thomas, who has spent his recent years working for United's in-house TV station.

'Robbo has had throat cancer and looked at me struggling in this restaurant and said: 'You need to get this sorted out'. It was the way he looked at me. I thought: 'He's right. I do'.

'I had been told so many times by my GP that I was fine. I'd had blood tests and tablets and things. But Robbo really made me think.

'So back home, two friends — Mike and Shaun Walsh — paid for me to go private and get checked. My old team-mate Joey Jones — still my best mate — drove me in and went home. We weren't that worried. Then the doctors said they hadn't even got the camera down my throat because the blockage was so big.

'The exacts words were: 'It's a very large tumour. This is not looking good for you'. I panicked and asked how long I had left. They said they didn't know.'

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Soon after, on hearing further details of his diagnosis, Thomas passed out in the consulting rooms of Wrexham's North Wales Upper Gastro unit. At 65, he was desperately ill and needed surgery almost immediately.

During his career Thomas was an FA Cup runner up with Manchester United in 1979

'I felt like I was on death row when I walked into theatre,' he said. 'I had eight teeth out on the Thursday before the Monday operation as there was an infection there that could have caused a problem. That was an easy decision. I couldn't give a damn what I looked like, I just wanted them to save my life.'

Thomas had the six-hour surgery in May. Fortunately for him, consultant Andrew Baker was able to remove the whole tumour. Subsequent scans revealed no spread and currently Thomas is free of the disease.

'They have said they can't guarantee it won't come back,' he said. 'But the good news is that the last chemo will be a week next Friday. People say I look the same but I don't feel the same and probably never will.

'When they said it was life-threatening I just didn't know what to do. But football people have helped me so much. I genuinely didn't know I was so well-liked.

'I was a bit of a lad wasn't I? I said things that got me in trouble. I did strange things, I was headstrong. But it's been amazing, the reaction. Oh my god, its bowled me over.

'People like Robbie Fowler, John Hartson, Denis Irwin, Peter Reid, Sharpey (Graeme Sharp), Robbo, Rushy (Ian Rush), Kevin Ratcliffe, Lou Macari and then a missed call and a text from Sir Alex Ferguson.

'Fergie told me I was strong and that I could beat cancer. My god, that was like a drug in itself when I read that.'

Thomas was a waspish, creative, instinctive footballer. His career was a little nomadic, meandering from Wrexham to United, Everton, Stoke City, Chelsea and beyond, and he admits now that it reflected a restless, nervous personality.

Thomas pictured scoring his famous FA Cup goal as Wrexham beat Arsenal in 1992

In Manchester, Thomas is well-loved as much for his colourful back story as his football. In person, he has always been intensely likeable but to those who cared to look he has always appeared rather vulnerable too.

'Your life swirls round your head when you think it may be about to end and I have been thinking about mine,' he said. 'When I was a kid I couldn't read or spell. I was too scared to walk into a room on my own.

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'As a footballer people always saw the cocky Mickey Thomas but it was a front. At United I wouldn't go into the first-team dressing room. I would get there at half nine, get my kit on and sit in the sauna and wait. After training, I would wait for them all to go home and then get changed.

'At my medical I stood naked and thought: 'Why do they want me?' I felt intimidated and it came from being uneducated, from standing in a schoolyard in Colwyn Bay and being sent to a hut for 'thickos'.

'Even there they put me on a table on my own. I am not joking. They would just f*****g leave me alone. But they all wanted to be my friend in the schoolyard didn't they? Yeh, I could always play football. But without that ball I was nothing.'

At Chelsea in the mid-1980s, Thomas didn't earn enough to actually live in London. So why join them?

'I liked the kit,' he said, with only half a smile. 'Joey (Jones) was there too and we both lived in north Wales. So we drove there and back every day.

'I stayed on a Friday before a game and sometimes slept in the referee's room at Stamford Bridge. He would walk in the room for the game and I would be walking out.

'We stayed in a hotel for the homeless a couple of times. Ten pounds a night. F*****g awful.

'You would wipe your feet on the way out, not on the way in. I don't know how we qualified for that. Maybe it was the way we dressed!

'Joey and I put a notice in the programme a couple of times, asking if anyone wanted to put us up for a night. You think I am joking. I am not.'

Thomas spent 18 months in prison in the early 1990s after being convicted of money laundering. He has always maintained his innocence but it never harmed his after- dinner patter.

'When a policeman stopped me for speeding, he said there was no point fining me cos who would really want my money?' he smiled.

'But look, jail is a stigma that will always stick with me. I was in Walton in Liverpool — not great as an ex-Man Utd player — but I was OK. I had to try and show confidence to make sure I wasn't bullied.

'I learned how to do it and that helped me a lot in life when I came out.

Thomas later went on to play for Chelsea, even though he struggled to afford living in London

'They were all football fans inside and that helped too. I had played for so many clubs I was popular with just about all of them…'

Last Sunday, Thomas was back at Old Trafford for the United game against Chelsea. The club sent a car to his home and drove him back again when he started to tire with 20 minutes to go.

United have continued to pay him during his illness and executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward has written and kept in touch. He has heard from Chelsea and Stoke City too.

'The club have been amazing,' he said. 'People don't see that side of them but Man Utd sticking with me even when doctors didn't know whether they could save me has been overwhelming.'

A father of two and a proud grandfather too, Thomas also admits that he likes his own company. That has its drawbacks, though.

Still in the early days of his recovery, he worries and why wouldn't he?

'I have prayed most nights, maybe a walk if I can,' he said. 'But the chemo drains you. You can't get away from it.

'When it's over I will try and get back to the same person I was before. But I doubt it. It will always be in the back of my mind, what has happened to me. Every time I feel a little pain, I worry what it may be.

'You know that? When I walked in that hospital in Wrexham earlier this year, I realised about the real world.

'I had been so lucky and then to go in that environment is devastatingly scary. The kids in there, for example. God, you just want to help them.'

With that thought in mind, Thomas has a decision to make over the next fortnight. Six months ago, he would have done anything to have been promised this dilemma but it is troubling him all the same.

'When you are cancer free and finish your chemo, they like you to ring a bell in the ward as you leave,' he said.

'They say it's to give other patients strength and to show that you can survive it.

'I am a catholic and when this is over I will thank god for letting me live. But they want me to ring the bell and I don't want to, if I am honest.

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'What about the people who will never get to ring it? How will they feel if I do it? I worry about them. I really don't know what to do.'