Tony Mowbray: Former Sunderland and Birmingham boss on battling back from bowel cancer

The ordeal of surgery and prospect of an uncertain future prompted a change of focus for the husband and father-of-three.

“When you get an illness like that it’s about the family,” said Mowbray, who has also managed Hibernian, West Bromwich Albion, Celtic, Middlesbrough and Coventry.

“I remember sitting in a hospital bed and my kids had tears in their eyes, not sure whether I’d get through it or not, to be honest. I was very, very ill.

“I did come home from that and the period was very up and down.

“Some days you were feeling great, and others I would collapse and black out and find myself on the kitchen floor.

“I phoned the chief executive at Birmingham and told him that health and family is what life’s about and I needed to get myself right, so I left that job.”

Mowbray describes the “amazing” support from both Sunderland and Birmingham by honouring the contracts he signed as “humbling”.

But the “normal working-class lad from the north east”, who played as a central defender for Middlesbrough, Celtic and Ipswich, is keen to earn his wage back in the changing room and pass on his experience of football and life to young players.

For now, however, he has a bigger message to impart.

“If there’s something that isn’t normal, don’t be afraid to go and see your doctor,” he said.

“If I didn’t do that I probably would not have been here today, or I’d have been in a situation where I wouldn’t have been able to have an operation and recover.

“It’s not only you, think about your family.”