Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Three members of Bahrain Rugby Football Club (BRFC) fly into the Scottish capital of Edinburgh this week to play rugby against the might of London Wasps Legends and to help raise much-needed awareness of male cancer.
The three amigos Mehdi Honar, who is also the new Crusaders’ president, Sal Wilson and Mike Burton, who at 72 is believed to be the oldest man in the world still playing full contact rugby, will play for The Crusaders RFC on Saturday at the renowned Murrayfield Stadium.
The trio will be up against a Wasps Legends team that includes two British Lions and a host of international players.
The Crusaders are a unique team made up of players that have either had cancer themselves or had close family or friends that have been stricken down by the disease. Their aim is to encourage all men to ‘front up’ to cancer.
The partnership between the Crusaders and the rugby club came from an old friendship with Duncan Wilson, one of the Crusaders’ founder members, which led to an invite to play in Bahrain last year during the British Week celebrations in a charity game of rugby to boost awareness of male cancer in the kingdom.
The team does not just raise awareness about cancer, they bring with them a team of people able to screen for prostate cancer at events and spend many hours talking and educating others of the symptoms to look out for. Fronting Up is a campaign that encourages all men, young and old, to follow three simple steps:
Talk about cancer
Check for cancer
And react to the symptoms of cancer
Men, in general, don’t talk about cancer as illness is often deemed to be a sign of weakness and, anyway, going to the doctors is an inconvenience to most men and some are even too embarrassed to raise the subject of their manhood in front of even their own doctor, the campaigners say.
Mark Dainter, the Crusaders CEO and founder member, said: “Sadly these are just the things that are causing many men to die, simply embarrassing themselves to death.
“In fact 41 per cent of men leave it a year before visiting their doctor with symptoms of prostate cancer; this is a statistic that simply has to change. Many young boys are also too embarrassed to speak to their own mothers about testicular cancer. This is another thing that must change in the future.”
BRFC members have taken up the Crusaders mantle and are in the process of purchasing computers able to screen for prostate cancer in Bahrain and it is hoped that in the not too distant future they will form a new Bahrain Cancer Crusaders team.
For more details visit www.crusadersrugby.org
