PSA Testing Day At The Crown Oil Arena

Rochdale Football Club, in conjunction with the Barry Kilby Prostate Cancer Appeal (BKPCA), will be hosting a PSA testing day in January.

Taking place before the home game against Fleetwood Town on Saturday 19 January, all men aged 50 and over, or 45 and over with a family history of cancer, are welcome to attend. Testing will be done between 11.00am and 2.00pm in the Study Centre, located on Willbutts Lane.

Rochdale will be the first club in the Greater Manchester area to hold such an event.

In 2015, following his own diagnosis, Burnley’s vice-chairman Barry Kilby launched the appeal to provide opportunities for men to be tested for prostate cancer, a disease which affects one in eight men in the UK.

Initially launched at the Premier League club, other clubs from the Premier League and the EFL, including Charlton Athletic and Portsmouth, have arranged testing days at their club. Rochdale AFC are keen for Dale fans to benefit from this potentially life-saving initiative and are the latest club to add their support to it.

Barry Kilby said: “I’m delighted that Rochdale Football Club have got involved.

“One of the problems with prostate cancer, as it was with me, is that it becomes advanced before you see any symptoms.

“This blood test will show if there is something wrong and act as the warning in the early stages. We’ve saved well over 100 lives doing it like this.

“When we first launched this at Burnley, we ran out of needles! We thought we’d get around 200 – we actually got to 400 and odd.

“It’s gaining momentum now and it has been a really successful way of getting men tested, using the football link.

“I hope as many people as possible get themselves tested on the day, I can’t stress enough how important it is to do so.”

The test measures the amount of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in your blood, and around 2,000 men have been tested to date and least 100 lives have been saved by this approach.

Those being tested will be asked for a minimum £5 donation, with the Barry Kilby Prostate Cancer Appeal funding the remainder of the test’s costs.

Manager Keith Hill will be amongst those tested on the day.

Players Joe Thompson and Ollie Rathbone recently attended Rochdale Infirmary to officially launch the promotion of the event, handing out leaflets to outpatients with the help of the Community Trust team.

In addition, thanks to the Pennine Acute Trust, leaflets will be distributed to over 500 homes across the Borough in the next few weeks.