Tony Mowbray thanks Sunderland during emotional interview after bowel cancer diagnosis

Former Sunderland and Middlesbrough boss Tony Mowbray has delivered a lengthy update on his health during an interview with the BBC.

The 60-year-old was forced to step away from his most recent role with Birmingham City in February and has been absent from the dugout ever since. Mowbray officially resigned from his role in the Midlands in May Earlier this season, the former defender was a guest of both Sunderland and Middlesbrough - delivering a speech at half-time during his visit to the Riverside.

Providing a fresh update on his health to BBC Radio Tees, Mowbray thanked his two most recent former clubs, Sunderland and Birmingham City, for their support following a bowel cancer diagnosis during the 2023-24 season - and detailed his journey through a hellacious past 12 months.

“It's been the toughest year of my life, of our lives because I talk as a family really,” Mowbray told BBC Radio Tees. “Out of the blue, my illness was diagnosed. I probably was still Sunderland manager this time a year ago, and then pretty soon, I think I was, because I remember my house got burgled, believe it or not, yesterday actually, a year yesterday. I was at Sunderland in a board meeting and I got a call from my young son.

“So I left that meeting and raced home to see the house full of police officers and everything. So the start of this year started really badly for us as a family and then, pretty strangely, but I understand football, I lost my job at Sunderland. I had an amazing phone call and meeting about joining Birmingham City and the plans that that football club had and they saw me as the guy who could bring that together and take that on the journey, hopefully back to the Premier League for them I was happy to do that and then my world came crashing down, really.

“I'd had a doctor's appointment through the League Managers Association to go to Manchester and have a checkover. You get one every year, sort of a full-body MOT, really, everything. Your hearing, your eyesight, everything and I went along and out of the blue, part of it was having a colonoscopy because I'd mentioned that I'd had some issues. The way I would go to the toilet had changed and so they had a look and I got diagnosed with bowel cancer out of nowhere, really and it's quite shattering. I had to go to the football club I was just newly employed at. I'd only been manager, I think when I left I'd had eight games, won four, drew two, lost two.

“We were doing pretty well and we'd just beaten Sunderland and Blackburn, my two previous clubs and things were looking good, the place was bouncing, the stadium was full and I was really looking forward to having a great time there. Unfortunately, ten days later I was in a hospital bed in Manchester having a ten-hour operation and my life changed, really. The sadness of it, professionally I feel, I watch Birmingham every week and I look at the players and they have changed practically the whole team. There's only maybe two or three left from when I was there.

“I knew the plan that the owner had and it was going to be an exciting part of my career, I think.I wish them very well, all the very best and hopefully they can get the job done in League One this year. Mainly it's about, when you get an illness like I got, it's about the family really. I remember sitting in a hospital bed in Manchester, not on Teesside, in Manchester and my kids were tears in their eyes. Not sure whether I was going to get through it or not, to be honest, I was very, very ill. I did come home from that and the period is very up and down.

“Some days you were feeling great and other days I would collapse and black out and find myself on the kitchen floor. I sat down with my wife and I phoned the Chief Executive at Birmingham and told him that health and family is what life's about and I need to get myself right. I left that job. I would like to say on record that both Sunderland and Birmingham City have been amazing to me. A year without work really, a year without money and yet those football clubs have looked after me and honoured the contracts that I'd signed.

“Again, that's quite humbling really that the people are almost giving me money not for working for them but because I signed a contract in good faith and they deserve that. I mentioned that they've been so fantastic for me and my family. That's it really, I don't want to go too much into things other than I still have issues. I'm still at this moment not 100% ready for work. I am thinking in my mind, hopefully in another couple of months and my body will settle down after a recent operation that I had and I do want to go back to work.

“Football is in my blood, it's what I do. I want to get involved with a group of young men and try and talk to them about life and football and what it takes to be a winner and what it takes to get to the next level really. The sacrifices you have to make and try and inspire them with some of the stories I tell about life and fighting and work and quality and talent and that's what I want to do. Somewhere down the line not quite ready, my body's telling me I'm not ready yet. I'm here today, I almost phoned this morning and said I had a really bad night last night, really bad night but I want it to come because I want to come and watch live football.

“I've loved the border my whole life and hopefully we'll see a good victory, a good performance today. Somewhere down the line, hopefully, I bring another team here to Middlesbrough and I can applaud the fans before the game and hopefully, what they know is there's going to be two great teams on the pitch trying to win a match. Look, thank you for being so open and honest because you didn't have to do that and everybody listening, look they love you already obviously don't they from a borough point of view and beyond of course.

“I know there's a really high profile Chris Hoy at the moment telling men and he's had a horrific situation but he's actually telling people and I think it's right, if there's something not right, not normal in your life, whether it be prostate and it's more difficult to go to the toilet, for me it was the back end of my body and it was different. It wasn't I couldn't go, it was different and I wanted it checked out and so they stick a camera up and if I didn't do that I probably would have not been here today or I would have been in a situation where I wouldn't have been able to have an operation and recover.

“That's the situation for me so the message for me loud and clear is men particularly, this is both sexes of course, but I know men generally don't like to go to the doctor. I feel as if I'm a normal working-class lad from the North East. People don't really want to go and see the doctor and yet I've been fortunate all my working career to have a club doctor which has been a big help and without that club doctor, I might not have been here today.

“The club doctor is ultimately the one who said let's have a colonoscopy which is what happened and so if there's something not normal, don't be afraid to go and see your doctor. Make an appointment, I know they're difficult sometimes on the NHS to get an appointment but make an appointment, go and have a chat with the doctor and if they think colonoscopy or they want to do a test for your prostate, it's worth it because it's not only you.

“So think about your family, if you've got kids, think about your kids and what they like and they want to see their dad until he's an old man and they can hopefully take him on holiday or push him around in a wheelchair or whatever it might be. But it's about your family, that's what I found sitting in that bed in Manchester and making a big decision I was going to leave the job and have no money coming in, no work because I need to be ready and in that life for them and for my wife.”