Johnny Phillips column: Football is not a matter of life and death... it is far less important than that

You’re wondering what it’s really going to be like, all these signings from the continent and a new manager too. Will Wolves be OK? There’s talk of three at the back. Then the next minute Carl Ikeme has been diagnosed with acute leukaemia.

How can that be football news? It is numbing. Any train of thought just disappears. The sentence flying around in a scrambled mind for a long time, the salient words piercing the heart as you try and digest such news.

Not Kemes, surely? A role model. A 31-year-old man struck like that in the prime of his life.

There are no words of comfort that can make a difference to the many thousands that have already been expressed. But it is comforting to know that so many care and that, as hoped and expected, the esteem you hold him in is being reaffirmed elsewhere by those who really know him. His close friends who have spoken out in support.

Message after message popping up from his team-mates, his management, all the staff at Wolves. So many of them, but a common thread to them all.

One of the club’s youngsters, Jordan Graham describes Ikeme as ‘like a second father’, Dave Edwards calls him ‘a role model to so many’, ‘One of the most genuine people you could wish to meet’, says Jed Wallace.

Good. I’m glad you think of Kemes like this because that’s what I hoped he was really like too. The love and affection that has poured in means a lot to supporters and must mean so much to the man himself. How could a routine blood test end with this? Where do you find the resolve to deal with something like that?

As an outsider, you can only ever take someone on face value.

There has never been a moment in those times after any defeats, when stood there in the tunnel waiting for the manager to appear and give his thoughts as the players troop past, that Ikeme has walked through and not been polite, courteous or engaging. Very often he will have been the last man in a defence that has shipped a few too many goals.

Critical eyes may have been aimed at him, but he always seemed to remain calm and affable.

There have been occasions when he has been at the centre of a mix-up but still walked out of the dressing room and spoken about what went wrong.

Not necessarily on camera or in front of waiting microphones, just a quick chat about an incident or moment in the game. Maybe not even about the football, merely a cordial exchange on his way out to the team bus that sums up how approachable and down to earth he remains in a profession that all too often can seem arrogant and aloof.

Ikeme’s mistakes are rare, though, for he is a very decent keeper. Nobody gets to play for the club over an 11-year period without being good enough. In the 2013/14 season his 22 clean sheets deservedly earned him a place in the PFA League One Team of the Year. He has a big heart too.

After that debut in August 2006 he suffered a knee injury that kept him out for more than a year.

There was no easy route back in to the first team.

There have been seven different loan spells since his first team debut for Wolves. That’s your proof, right there, that he is no quitter.

Time and time again Ikeme went out on loan before eventually winning the trust of a Wolves manager.

Talking about Ikeme as a footballer appears trite given this news but it counts for something because it demonstrates the physical and mental fortitude he is equipped with to take on this horrible, gut-churning challenge.

Tony Daley, Wolves’ former fitness coach, knows this. “You’ve taken charge, showed courage and strength throughout your career; I know you will meet this challenge head on and win,” he wrote on hearing of the diagnosis.

It is obvious Ikeme won’t want for love and support in the Wolves community. For it is still a community despite the comings and goings in recent years.

If ever fans thought that the fabric was changing and the club was moving away from its roots then Ikeme’s presence would allay those fears. He may have hailed from down the road in Birmingham but he is a Wolves man.

He can count all the heroes of the club’s recent history as team-mates.

As a 17-year-old academy graduate Ikeme joined Paul Ince, Kenny Miller, Matt Murray and Co in the first-team squad as long ago as 2003. Matt Jarvis, Michael Kightly, Kevin Doyle and many more came and went in Wolves colours alongside him too.

When the legendary Spanish No.1 Iker Casillas posted a message of support on social media it told us how far Ikeme’s presence reaches. All will have him in their thoughts over the months ahead.

In the often noisy and fickle world of football, let us hope Carl Ikeme’s quiet dignity and towering strength mark him out as a man best equipped to deal with this.

He has the support of so many, for every step of the way.