Alex Young Faces Stage Four Cancer Battle with Community Support
Alex Young, the towering former All White and Tauranga City AFC stalwart, is facing the toughest battle of his life after being diagnosed with stage four cancer – and the football community is rallying to help him fight it.
The 77-year-old discovered the illness after spotting a growth on his left groin and visiting his doctor, who sent him to hospital for tests. Specialists found what he has described as an “internal melanoma”, a cancer that has since spread.
“It was a strange one, but I've consequently got stage four cancer on my liver, on my lung, and on my chest,” Young said.
For six months he was on the immunotherapy drug Keytruda. Then the treatment stopped working. The next option was ipilimumab – a drug that, in his case, is not funded by Pharmac.
“I had my first procedure with that, which costs money, obviously. I think the first one was $10,400,” he said.
Ipilimumab is publicly funded for some cancers, but not for Young’s condition. His second round of treatment is scheduled for Wednesday at Tauranga’s Canopy Cancer Care clinic. He needs four treatments in total, and the bill is expected to reach $50,000 – a cost his friends say he should not have to shoulder alone.
Football has been the thread running through Young’s life. He left Scotland as a teenager, arriving in New Zealand at around 16 and climbing through the grades before shining for Hamilton City, where he lined up alongside names such as Keith Nelson.
“Soccer is my sport and life, I suppose,” he said.
His height – around 6 foot 4 – and his uncompromising style made him a natural defender. Strong performances against touring English sides, including Bournemouth and Luton Town, pushed him into national contention, and in 1977 he was named in the All Whites squad.
Later, he moved into a player-coach role with Tauranga, where he led the club through an unbeaten season and cemented his status as a local great.
Tauranga City AFC life member Mark Bougen, who served on the club committee with Young in the 1970s, said the diagnosis came as a shock.
He remembers a defender opponents learned to fear.
“You would call him a no-fuss football defender, a hard Scottish man,” Bougen said. “When he played, he took no prisoners.”
Now, those who once shared a dressing room with Young are sharing his fight. A Givealittle page has been set up with a target of $50,000 – money organisers say is needed “to give Alex the best possible chance” against the disease.
The page notes that the financial load of unfunded treatment is “too much for one person or family to carry alone, especially while navigating the physical and emotional toll of a cancer diagnosis.”
Young admitted he was reluctant at first to let friends launch the campaign. Pride and privacy had always come easily to a man who once did his talking with crunching tackles and commanding headers. But the determination of those around him eventually won him over.
“When they came around to see me, they were so good and they had so many good ideas,” he said. “I thought, well, if they're willing to go to this trouble, I'll try it.”
By the time of writing, donations had reached about $2000 – an early show of support for a player many in Tauranga and beyond still remember, and for a man now fighting a very different opponent.
Young has been deeply moved by those who have already contributed.
“I'd like to thank them from the bottom of my heart,” he said. “They're probably strangers. Thank you to them all.”
The defender who once took no prisoners is now relying on others. The question is how far the football family, and the wider community, can help carry him through this latest contest.
