Former Town chairman David Sheepshanks has revealed he has been undergoing treatment for bowel cancer, but has reassured supporters that he expects to make a full recovery.

Sheepshanks, 73, was chairman of the Blues from 1995 until 2009, playing a pivotal role in seeing the club return to the Premier League in 2000 via the play-offs and then finish fifth in the top flight to return to Europe for the first time in almost 20 years.

A former chairman of the Football League, FA board member and founding chairman of St George's Park, the national football centre, Sheepshanks spoke to Life’s a Pitch TV about his new book looking back on his 40 years in the game, Man on a Mission, which is published on June 1st.

However, he also talked for the first time about his recent cancer diagnosis, surgery and upcoming chemo therapy.

“Big shock,” he admitted, speaking to Mark Murphy, who in addition to his Life’s a Pitch TV role is CEO of Cancer Support Suffolk. “At my age, you get poo tests in the post and I actually had some blood in the autumn and somehow I convinced myself that I had piles and used some piles medicine and it went away, at least I thought it did.

“And then I had the test thing kit and I didn’t do it immediately, I left it on the sideboard for a few weeks. And then, finally, I did it and it came back with blood.

“I had to go and have a colonoscopy at the fantastic new unit at Colchester and the guy showed me on the screen, a little thing, sort of half the size of your thumb and said it doesn’t look very nice and so it was going to be tested. And it was tested and, sure enough, it was malignant.

“To cut a long story short, I went to Ipswich Hospital but then I decided to go to London, so I went to the Royal Marsden and they tried to take it out up the bum, so to speak, which is easier.

“But then they said, it’s too deeply rooted, so I had to have surgery. I thought I was having a laparoscopy, which is keyhole, but apparently in the operation my lungs couldn’t handle it and they cut me, and I have a 12-inch scar and I had 90 staples. Big shock. I only know that because they count them when they take them out.

“It’s sort of healed, but your guts take a long time to work properly and it’s a nightmare. I’m getting there, I will be fine.

“They say they’ve got it all, but it’s at a level of T3, so I’m going to have to have chemo to be sort of belt and braces, which I don’t look forward to.

“But I’ve got a very dear friend, all of us have, in George [Burley], who’s just been through all that so courageously and what he can do, I can do.”

He and Burley, who he worked alongside in the late 90s and early 2000s at Town and who went through his own pancreatic cancer battle last year, have spoken regularly during his treatment.

“We have and he’s been incredibly kind and generous and supportive, as have many people,” Sheepshanks continued.

“But it’s just such a shock and my message, I’m not telling you for sympathy or anything, my message is that it can happen to anybody. I had a few health problems a couple of years ago with my ticker but I was fine, over the winter and in the spring I was as right as rain. And then suddenly, bang, I got this little thing.

“There’s no rhyme nor reason for why you get it and I know all the great work you’re doing in the cancer world.

“It took me a while to even be able to say, ’I’ve got cancer’ because it just didn’t feel right. But I do, or I did.

“The message is, if you get a test, do it, quickly. And if you’ve got any blood or any symptoms like that, do it.

“The key point I want to say is that when I did go in and had a sigmoidoscopy, the doctor who did that said, ’David, if you’d have come to me a couple of months ago, I could have taken this out easily and that would have avoided all this’.

“And I would have avoided chemo because I wouldn’t have been so advanced, and so that’s the message to everybody.

“I’m here, walking, talking. I’m going to be fine and there’s no reason why I can’t live a full, proper life and be an advocate for the great work that you and so many other people do.

“So, thank you for asking. All Town fans, I’ll be back for the Premier League and enjoying it as much as everybody else.”

Reiterating his message regarding early diagnosis, he added that he will join Burley in working with Cancer Support Suffolk, the Scotland international having become a patron.

“I am an advocate and I’ll be there to support you in whatever you want to do,” Sheepshanks added. “But I’ve just got to get over this in the next few weeks, but I will.”

Photo: Life's a Pitch TV