‘I still have hope’ Football hero remains positive two years on from shattering motor neurone disease diagnosis
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MARCUS STEWART feels like a fraud, even though he is anything but that. The Ipswich icon lives with motor neurone disease but can still drive and walk to the pub while the condition’s horrible effects are yet to fully take hold. It is more than two years since the diagnosis and Stewart’s right arm is starting to show the symptoms that first affected his left hand.
![[Ipswich icon Marcus Stewart was diagnosed with motor neurone disease two years ago]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/marcus-stewart-head-player-development-923607508.jpg?strip=all&w=710)
Yet the 52-year-old former striker confessed: “I feel a bit of a fraud sometimes. “I’m fine. I’m in pretty good nick considering a lot of other people with MND. I can still have a pint, I can still walk, I can still drive. “Life as it stands hasn’t changed that much. You see other people with MND in their wheelchair and they can’t speak, so hopefully that doesn’t come to me soon.
![[The ace is remaining positive as he is able to still do daily things in life]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/marcus-stewart-ipswich-town-runs-759063806.jpg?strip=all&w=662)
“If there’s no cure or treatment, then it will do but I still have hope. I always live in hope.”. Despite his outward persona, Stewart — who also starred for Huddersfield, Sunderland and both Bristol clubs during a 20-year career that saw him score 222 goals — admits frustration at no longer being able to easily do things he once did.
![[Stewart hopes to take inspiration from Kevin Sinfield, who was close pals with the late Rob Burrow]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-congratulate-efforts-raise-awareness-909495316.jpg?strip=all&w=795)
He no longer has use for his bike and golf clubs. But he hopes to be around when a treatment for MND is found, ideally before he has to sell his car. Stewart added: “My wife will tell you I get angry when I can’t do something like take my socks off or put them on or open a jar or a can of beans, I can’t do that.
