Having an organ transplant doesn’t necessarily mean the end of your footballing career – just ask Denbigh Town’s Harry Lockley, who is celebrating an international call-up.
Lockley – who works as a teaching assistant and also runs a coaching business with his twin brother – has returned to Denbigh’s starting lineup at the start of this season after a kidney transplant in October 2023 meant he missed the majority of the last campaign.
Now he has been called up to the England squad for the inaugural Transplant Football World Cup, to be held in Cervia, Italy, this month.
Diagnosed with Alport Syndrome as a child – a condition that damages the blood vessels in the kidneys – Lockley, 22, had managed it perfectly well with medication up until two years ago, when his kidney function deteriorated rapidly.
He began dialysis in April 2023 and was fortunate enough to get a kidney transplant in October – after six months on the waiting list.
“I got the phone call one afternoon – you don’t expect it,” he recalls, “and just like that, I was rushed in there and had the operation and it was finished.
“You don’t have a lot of time to process it. It was a tough time but you have to take it as it comes – you can’t do anything about it. I tried to get on with as normal a life as I could and now I’m back to what I knew before.”
