Over Memorial Day weekend, John Burk found a lump in his neck. It was cancerous. Just over five months later, Burk was sitting at Old Trafford watching his beloved Manchester United play as a guest of Red Devils star Marcus Rashford.
No, the cancer didn’t get him. He was not in the afterlife. As surreal as it felt, Burk’s journey was reality.
It all started on a Saturday, when Burk noticed the lump on his neck and his wife insisted he have it checked out. Through his and his wife’s connections — both work or have worked in the medical field — he was able to have the growth examined on Thursday and he was under the knife the following Tuesday to have the node removed.
The biopsy came back positive. Stage 3 testicular cancer. Burk was dumbfounded.
How could he have testicular cancer in his neck?
It turns out microscopic cells can be left behind when the testes drop from behind the kidneys when a young man goes through puberty, and some of those cancerous cells made their way all the way up to his neck. The fear was there would be more malignant cells elsewhere, but Burk dodged that bullet. It appeared the cancer was confined to his lymph nodes.
Burk visited the same specialist in Indiana who treated cyclist Lance Armstrong’s testicular cancer, then returned home for a brutal nine-week chemotherapy regimen. When he returned to Indiana in September, everything looked normal.
“It’s still not a done deal, but even if it came back it’s still a 95 percent cure rate,” Burk said. “I never even had time to worry about anything.”
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Burk grew up in Atlanta and now lives in Pooler, but his soccer roots have spread to Hilton Head Island. He has played with the Hilton Head Wanderers semipro team the past few years, teaming up with former Mars Hill College teammates Dan and Matt Waymont.
After Burk’s cancer scare, the Waymont brothers began raising money to take their friend on a journey to fulfill a lifelong dream — to see his beloved Reds play at Old Trafford. They were able to fund the trip easily enough, but getting a ticket to see Man U in person proved more difficult.
It was Matt who had the idea to reach out to Rashford via social media, asking the star to help secure a highly-coveted ticket to a game against Brighton on Nov. 10. Matt sent the tweet on Sept. 15. Two days later, Rashford replied.
“Hey man, drop me a DM,” he posted. “I’ll sort this for you.”
Other strangers lined up in the replies to donate their tickets, and requests to contribute funds for the trip began flowing in, along with lodging at Hotel Football a stone’s throw from Old Trafford (thanks to owner and former Man U defender Gary Neville) and invitations to be a guest at top-tier restaurants in Manchester, including former United star Rio Ferdinand’s Rosso Restaurant & Bar.
Burk had no idea. He wasn’t on Twitter.
So when the story went viral and a friend sent Burk the link from the Daily Mail, he was certain he had been pranked.
“I’m reading it thinking someone went to a lot of trouble to pull this joke on me,” Burk said. “Then I realized, holy crap, this is actually real.”
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You can’t fault Burk for feeling as though he must have been in heaven from the time he boarded the plane to England until the Brighton match kicked off. The group — Burk, Dan and Matt Waymont, and their brother Andy — enjoyed incredible hospitality and delicious food and rubbed elbows with some of their favorite footballers. They took a VIP tour of Old Trafford, enjoyed a 3-1 Man U victory from Rashford’s private luxury box, and were featured in a short documentary of the experience posted on Rashford’s website.
It was, to say the least, a dream come true.
“It’s hard to put into words. Just an unbelievable experience,” Burk said. “Beyond lucky, regardless of the circumstances.”
— By Justin Jarrett / LowcoSports.com
A version of this article also appeared in the December 2019 issue of Hilton Head Monthly and Bluffton Monthly.