A stockbroker claims getting 'bashed in the balls' during a crunch football match saved his life - when his testicle tripling in size turned out to be cancer. Liam Landers was contesting a header during the penultimate match of the season when an opposition player's hand accidentally hit him in the crotch. After momentarily sinking to his knees in pain, the wincing 27-year-old got up and finished playing the game, but as the day progressed his right testicle remained sore and started to swell.
Days later Liam's testicle tripled in size and felt solid to the touch so he visited his GP who, during a second visit a week later, referred him for an ultrasound scan. Thinking it may be a cyst or hernia, Liam was stunned when a urologist confirmed the mass was likely cancerous and he needed an operation to remove his testicle. The sporty lad then underwent a gruelling three-week course of chemotherapy to blast any remaining cancer cells.
A year on, Liam is sharing his ordeal to urge blokes to check themselves and get anything unusual checked out. Liam, from Chelmsford, Essex, said: "Getting bashed in the balls saved my life. The urologist said there can be no symptoms of it [testicular cancer] so getting bashed flared up something that was going on inside that I didn't know about.
If I'd not had that incident at football I could probably be dead now, in a hospice or really fighting for my life." Striker Liam was playing the penultimate game of the season at the end of April 2023 for .