The player who tackled cancer – and now wants to take on the world

ByChris Wathan

BBC Sport Wales

Arm aloft in celebration while wearing his country's shirt at the World Cup.

But the beaming smile David Brooks displayed to the cameras didn't quite tell the full story.

After all, the plan had been to be in the middle of the action and not among the fans as Wales reached their first global finals in 64 years.

But then what plan includes being diagnosed with cancer and having more than just your career put on hold?

Sat in the stands, Brooks had already been given the all-clear from Stage Two Hodgkin lymphoma when he watched friends and team-mates fulfilling dreams in Doha in 2022.

But the physical toll of serious illness and months of brutal chemotherapy had denied him his.

Four years on, with Wales on the cusp of qualification again, the challenge of the play-offs to return to the World Cup seem meagre in comparison for a player who hasn't just come back from serious illness, but become even better.

"He wouldn't have showed it, but watching those games and not being out there with us wasn't nice for him," says Tom Lockyer, a member of that Wales squad in Qatar and a close friend of the Bournemouth midfielder.

"But I know how much he has turned that into motivation.

"I don't think he gets enough credit for how good he is, or just to be at the levels he is at after everything that's happened."

That "everything" of course includes the moment the then 24-year-old Brooks discovered his diagnosis in October 2021 while on camp with Wales for a World Cup qualifier.

He had noticed for a while feelings of tiredness and trailing behind others in training, while his club boss at the time Scott Parker had queried why his running numbers had been so off.

Brooks hadn't been able to find an answer.

"I was actually on Facetime with him when he had the knock on the door," Lockyer recalls of the time Brooks had informed Wales medic Dr Jonathan Houghton of a few symptoms.

"I knew he'd not been feeling himself and he'd mentioned it to the Doc. I can remember asking him if he was going to be up to playing, when he had to hang up when the door went.

"When he called back, he'd said that he'd been told he needed some more tests because it might be a something more serious - as we all now know it was."

And a dark time for someone rarely without a smile, or not at the centre of jokes with team-mates.

"The most important thing was for him to get into a good place health-wise," says Wales team-mate Chris Mepham, a friend as well as a colleague at Bournemouth at the time.

"Like everyone else, you try to support him through that and be there for him. Then, when he was in a healthy place, it was about getting back to the level he wants to be."

Understandably, there were questions around that.

Brooks had been unable to take his dog for a walk on the beach during treatment, let alone cope with any cardio exercise.

By the time he returned to training after the all-clear in May 2022, there was 20kg of extra weight to deal with before even thinking about trying to return to top-level fitness.

Brooks says he always knew he would be able to return to club football but whether he would have the chance to represent Wales was another thing.

Yet, invited back to camp to watch as Wales qualified against Ukraine in the June, no-one was ruling out making the November World Cup.

"I knew it had been a goal and then to not be able to make it there would have been an element of 'what if?' or 'why me?' that he wasn't out there with us," says Lockyer, Brooks' having had to accept defeat when a torn hamstring suffered in an under-23 match in the August ended any lingering hopes.

Brooks admitted he had pushed too hard to try and make it and could only witness Wales' group stage exit as part of the Red Wall.

"He would have watched games thinking he could have affected things," adds the former Luton defender, who knows all too well about such tribulations after his own life-threatening cardiac problems.

With Wales missing a spark and failing to shine with three defeats from three in Qatar, Brooks wouldn't have been alone in such wistful thinking.

Welsh fans have long adored his gliding runs, ever since he made his debut in 2017 and was quickly christened 'Dai' by the team's kitmen.

The player who was once loaned to Halifax, was the following year making an £11.5m move from Sheffield United to top-flight Bournemouth under Eddie Howe, nominated for the Premier League's young player of the year alongside Trent Alexander-Arnold, Declan Rice and Raheem Sterling in his first full season.

Two ankle operations the following year did impact some of that early potential but the talent has long been appreciated by those who've kept a close eye.

"Speak to anyone who's played with him and they'll tell you how good he is," says Lockyer.

"His football intelligence is up there with the best. The way he reads the game and thinks is a second ahead of most people.

"Others will pick up headlines but he picks up the right positions and gets in the pockets to create for others. He's such a clever player."

It is now three years since Brooks emotionally returned to the Premier League in March 2023, when he came off the bench to applause from all four sides of the ground at Aston Villa.

There was a loan spell with Southampton before re-establishing himself at the Vitality, earning a new four-year deal a few months back.

"I thought he was Bournemouth's best player in pre-season and he carried that on when the season started," adds Mepham, with Brooks now remarkably looking like he's never been away rather than missed almost two years of top-flight football.

"There have never been any question marks around his ability, the only concerns have been about his fitness, but his running data in games was a lot higher than before."

It would have to be, given the style of Bournemouth's approach under Andoni Iraola, both the Cherries and Craig Bellamy's Wales sharing an intensity to the way they want to play.

There is an effectiveness too. Brooks is fifth highest in the Premier League for expected assists averaged over 90 minutes, and in the top 10 for carries with the ball that result in a chance.

"I think he's really stepped up," says former Bournemouth and Wales Under 21 defender Joe Partington, part of the BBC Solent team that regularly cover the Cherries.

"You can see the influence he has on and off the pitch – he's been captain and you don't get that if the manager doesn't have real faith in what you can do as a player.

"I think it would have been natural for people to wonder if he would reach the levels again, but he's done that and when you think about it, it's incredible."

A sentiment agreed with wonderment by Kieffer Moore, another former Bournemouth team-mate who also shared Wales' Euro 2020 dressing room with Brooks.

"He's gone from strength to strength – remarkable, really, given what his body and mind have been through," says the Wrexham striker.

World Cup play-off semi-final

Thursday, 26 March, 19:45 GMT

Cardiff City Stadium

But also never in doubt, it seems.

"He has that determination, but he's always been just happy go lucky," says Lockyer, who had Brooks to call upon when he had his own health issues to contend with having collapsed on the pitch during a game at Bournemouth.

"I think the big thing for him – for both of us, really – is that we're not overthinkers.

"He just wanted to play and now he has this chance again. I felt so sorry for him in Qatar because he had his heart set on the World Cup.

"Now I'm desperate for him to get there. Not just for him as a friend, but because I know how good he is – and he deserves to be able to show the world the same."