George has been on our Active Recovery programme for almost 18 months, but his first taste of sport and exercise was playing Basketball for England, after years of “studiously avoiding the gym!”

He said: “It was a couple of friends who got me involved. Prior to that when I had been at school, I didn’t play any sport apart from darts in the sixth form common room then a couple of friends who I met at the youth club introduced me to basketball and I just took to it like a duck to water.”

As he progressed from youth level, George represented the Derby Vikings twice, either side of playing for future England coach Vaughan Thomas’ Loughborough side.

“I was lucky enough to go and play for the Derby Vikings,” George explained. “The team was a close knit group of players, not superstars but just gelled together as a team and eventually we became one of the top ten teams in the country.

“The reason I got into the England squad was because the coach Vaughan Thomas saw me locally and signed me up for the first team he put together called Loughborough All-Stars. I played for them for a season but it wasn’t like playing with my mates and for that Derby team so I left. He didn’t hold it against me though and when he was made England coach, he invited me down to train and play with the England team.”

George regularly trained with the England team, including people he had idolised, and competed against a variety of sides but unfortunately due to injury never received a full cap, though he did play until he was 50.

He said: “It was awesome, these were players that I’d watched in national leagues, played against and been totally in awe of their ability. Guys like Malc Campbell, who was a GB player, Vik Collins and people like that. To be invited down to London to train with people like that on a weekend and to play with those guys was a dream come true.

I represented England because we had a lot of training weekends and we used to play against American air force bases. It was the very last training weekend that we had before we were due to go to Holland for the European Championships that I tore my cruciate ligaments and that was the end of that. So, I played for England at training games but never a full badge.”

Years later, after his basketball career had ended, George was diagnosed with prostate cancer and after treatment he began attending the Trust’s Active Recovery sessions.

“I had radiotherapy for prostate cancer and was given the all clear,” he explained. “The aftercare team following that told me about Active Recovery and the first time around I didn’t think I could do it and didn’t have the energy for it.

“On a follow up call, I was persuaded to join the programme. I was told my wife could come along and it was super, we’ve been coming 16 months. I can barely walk and I’m not a fit person anymore, but if I didn’t come down here, I’d rarely miss it and it would do me no good. A little bit of exercise is a long way better than nothing, and the social side of it as well, seeing people who have gone through the same thing and being encouraged by the team from the Trust. It’s just great to be here.”

Learn more about Active Recovery below.

Active Recovery