Paul Canoville runs a finger along the scar snaking for about 10 inches down the outside of his right knee and recalls the game when one tackle effectively ended his career.
‘No keyhole surgery in those days,’ he smiles drily, and flexes the other leg to relieve the discomfort as he drifts on to the subject of arthritis and a conversation with a specialist who told him that, at 59, he was too young for replacement knees.
Canoville, the former Chelsea player, glosses over the cancer. ‘Nah, nah, that’s been all right.’ He waves his hand, not keen to dwell on the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma he fought off in his 30s. ‘I just can’t overdo it.’
Of more urgent concern are two wounds yet to heal properly in his abdomen, reminders of a very serious brush with death earlier this year during which doctors warned his next of kin more than once that he was unlikely to survive the night.
‘I won’t lie, my resilience was tested,’ says Canoville. ‘I’m not someone who gives in, but I was in so much pain I asked the doctor to put me to sleep and I didn’t mean sleep, I meant sleep-sleep. It was that bad.’
It was January and he was just over the worst of a midwinter bout of Covid-19 when he noticed a disturbingly familiar pain in his gut caused by a bowel obstruction similar to one he encountered four years earlier.
After failing to beat the pain with paracetamol and sleep he called an ambulance.
Within nine hours he was on the operating table at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Emergency surgery led to complications, an alarming loss of blood and a second operation where surgeons discovered cysts and blood clots.
Further surgery was required and the ordeal rendered his body weak and exhausted. He remained in intensive care, heavily sedated for six weeks. He picked up Covid again as he recovered and by the time he was finally discharged in April he had lost five and a half stone.
Those footballing knees have been giving him hell ever since. He has fallen twice. He has recovered the strength to graduate from a Zimmer frame but cannot walk far without his cane, and has had to change his flat because he could not cope with the stairs.
Considering all of this, however, Canoville looks well and is in fine spirits, savouring the sunshine, excited about the direction of Chelsea under Thomas Tuchel and charged with purpose to continue his work fighting against racism.
‘It has inspired me,’ he says, reflecting on his health. ‘It’s probably the reason I’m still here. I look at it and think the man above must have something for me to do.
‘I’ve been given another chance. That’s the reason he’s made sure I came out of this one. To do that work. And I will, trust me. Not for me, for the young players in the game because things have gone too far.
‘Three lads born in England put their hands up to take a penalty for their country and that alone is hard enough. They miss, unfortunately, or their shots are saved. You don’t know how they’re feeling about that but to see them racially abused on social media… that got me so upset.
‘It’s time for the FA, the Premier League, the EFL, the Met Police, the Government to get together for the safety and support of the players. What are they going to do? Because I think they can do more to stop abuse whether that’s happening in the crowd or on social media.
‘Don’t tell me “we’re looking into it” or “investigating”. I’m tired of that because a few weeks pass and we hear nothing and then it’s forgotten. It’s time for solutions.
‘Name and shame, ban these people, large fines, close down accounts. If I know what’s coming how come they’re not ready for it? It’s not good enough.’
Canoville’s personal contribution to the fight has been to establish his Foundation to go into primary schools and tell his story, to share his experiences about racism and its effects, about the importance of inner resilience.
‘It’s what I love doing and I can’t wait to get back out and do that,’ he says.
Canoville was Chelsea’s first black player. He signed at 19 from non-League Hillingdon Borough in December 1981 at a time when there was a menacing National Front element on the terraces at Stamford Bridge.
In his excellent autobiography Black and Blue, first published in 2008, is a chilling account of the vile racist abuse he suffered at the hands of his own team’s fans before making his debut as a substitute in a game at Crystal Palace.
They spat out their hate from a few yards away, made monkey noises, threw a banana and sang: ‘We don’t want the n*****, la la la laaa, la la la laaa’. ‘I felt physically sick… absolutely terrified,’ wrote Canoville. ‘I made history and the fans made my life hell.’
It was not a one-off. The abuse continued as he helped Chelsea win the old Division Two and twice finish sixth in the top flight before he left for Reading in 1986.
Two months later, at Roker Park, came the tackle to curtail his professional career and he slid into a spiral of drug addiction and mental health problems before putting his life back on track.
‘What happened to me in the 80s did leave a scar and it will never fully heal,’ says Canoville, almost 40 years on. ‘It bruised my soul to be honest.’
Under Roman Abramovich, however, Chelsea reached out to acknowledge his cultural significance.
First, by bringing him back to the family of the club as an ambassador, inviting him to talk regularly to young players in the academy and then, this summer, naming one of the hospitality suites in his honour. Canoville was there on Saturday for the win over Crystal Palace.
He grins: ‘A packed Stamford Bridge, the European champions take the field and I’m watching them from the Paul Canoville suite in the Shed End.’ Canoville accepted an invitation to see Chelsea in the FA Cup final only a month after leaving hospital, although he had to decline an invitation to the Champions League final in Porto because of his health.
Even so, as he settled down to watch at home on TV, he received a message from chairman Bruce Buck to let him know the two-tone ‘Love Chelsea Hate Racism’ T-shirts, produced to raise funds for the Paul Canoville Foundation, were proving a hit in Porto.
‘Chelsea Football Club must escape its notorious past,’ says Canoville. ‘And it is the past, because now it’s one of the greatest clubs in world football through the achievements of its black players. Ruud Gullit was the first black manager to win a domestic trophy. More black players have won the European Cup with Chelsea than with the other English winners combined.
‘Chelsea are playing their part, a big part. I’ve seen the work they’ve done. Roman Abramovich has sent out that message and they’re asking me, “What can we do, Paul?” Nobody has ever asked me that before. It’s only taken 40 years.
‘There is still much work to do to tackle racism and see Britain become the fair society I know it can be. If my football club can overcome its past to become a beacon of multicultural excellence then so can my country.’
For more information and to support Paul’s Foundation visit www.paulcanovillefoundation.co.uk