The player who tackled cancer – and now wants to take on the world

David Brooks has made 41 international appearances for Wales [FAW] Arm aloft in celebration while wearing his country's shirt at the World Cup. But the beaming smile David Brooks displayed to the cameras didn't quite tell the full story. After all, the plan had been to be in the middle of the action and not among the fans as Wales reached their first global finals in 64 years.

But then what plan includes being diagnosed with cancer and having more than just your career put on hold? Sat in the stands, Brooks had already been given the all-clear from Stage Two Hodgkin lymphoma when he watched friends and team-mates fulfilling dreams in Doha in 2022. But the physical toll of serious illness and months of brutal chemotherapy had denied him his.

Four years on, with Wales on the cusp of qualification again, the challenge of the play-offs to return to the World Cup seem meagre in comparison for a player who hasn't just come back from serious illness, but become even better. "He wouldn't have showed it, but watching those games and not being out there with us wasn't nice for him," says Tom Lockyer, a member of that Wales squad in Qatar and a close friend of the Bournemouth midfielder. "But I know how much he has turned that into motivation.

"I don't think he gets enough credit for how good he is, or just to be at the levels he is at after everything that's happened. " Four hours inside Bellamy's office - and the Wales boss' complex mind Wales v Bosnia-Herzegovina - Your guide to the World Cup play-off That "everything" of course includes the moment the then 24-year-old Brooks discovered his diagnosis in October 2021 while on camp with Wales for a World Cup qualifier. He had noticed for a while feelings of tiredness and trailing behind others in training, while his club boss at the time Scott Parker had queried why his running numbers had been so off.