Soccer Aid’s Alex Brooker had leg amputated as baby and made ‘terrifying’ confession

Soccer Aid’s Alex Brooker had leg amputated as baby and made ‘terrifying’ confession

The Last Leg’s Alex Brooker, who will showcase his sporting skills as Soccer aid’s first ever disabled player on Sunday, was born with hand and arm deformities

Alex will join Soccer Aid’s charity football match this Saturday

Image: Getty Images for National Lotter)

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Alex Brooker came to prominence since 2012 following his coverage of the Paralympic Games and has since become a regular on our TV screens.

He is a familiar face on many popular shows, having made appearances on-screen on 8 Out of 10 Cats, Would I Lie To You?, Celebrity Juice, and as a co-host on Channel 4 panel show The Last Leg.

With his quick wit and belly-laughing humour, the comedian has become a household name over the last few years.

Alex will be hitting the football pitch on Sunday night when he plays for England in this year’s Soccer Aid, becoming the first disabled player in the history of the charity event.

“For me, football was the first time when actually my disability, genuinely, I can honestly say, it stopped me doing something and it bothered me,” he said ahead of the match.

The 38-year-old, who often highlights his disability within his comedy, was born with hand and arm deformities.

The Croydon-born star had a twisted right leg, which meant that he had to have his leg amputated as a baby.

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Alex wears a prosthetic leg and always appears to be in high spirits – revealing in an interview that some days he doesn’t “think about [his] disability at all”.

“Most days I don’t think about my disability at all, but doing that swim brought it clearly into focus,” Alex told The Guardian in 2020.

“It made me realise it was time now, as a father of two, to take more responsibility over my disability and to find out more about it.”

Having endured over 40 operations as a child, an abundance of check-ups, and spending most of his childhood at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the 38-year-old hasn’t had problems since.

Alex – who has been married to wife Lynsey since 2014 – candidly revealed his fears about becoming a father for the first time.

The married duo share two children together – a daughter called Daphne in 2017 and they also have another younger daughter, whose name and age isn’t known.

Ahead of their birth, Alex has since revealed in a touching interview that he was “terrified” about his children possibly inheriting his disability, or if he might struggle to hold them.

“Even though my disability is not genetic I was terrified every time we went for baby scans,” he told What’s On TV.

Speaking on a BBC Sounds podcast in 2020, Alex said: “I get very emotional talking about the idea of, how will they feel about having a disabled dad?

“And it’s one of those things that I slightly have made bigger in my mind over time. Ever since I was old enough to think about the idea of having a family, when you hit your teenage years, I thought, ‘If I have kids one day, I wonder if they’ll be all right about it.’

“So that kind of self-consciousness came very early on, and it’s always been there, and then all of a sudden my oldest was three and literally a couple of weeks ago she said something about my hand for the first time.”

Despite Alex’s initial fears, when the conversation finally happened, it could not have been easier.

“We were walking by a river and she said, ‘Oh, daddy, you’ve got two fingers haven’t you, and I’ve got more?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, that was how I was born.’

“That was it, and she didn’t say anything else, she wasn’t freaked out, she didn’t stop holding my hand, she didn’t cry.

“So these horrific scenarios that I’ve built up in my mind, it’s all done and dusted in about five seconds, and I thought, ‘Jesus Christ, like 20 odd years worrying about that and that was it.’

“Every parent worries about whether their kids are going to be proud of them or are they going to think they’re cool, this is just slightly different because it’s about my disability.

“So I’ve actually realised that, over time, I make a bigger thing of the disability angle in my head than maybe I should.”

Before Alex and Lynsey stepped into parenting life, the television host tried to shy his disability away from his partner.

In the early days of their romance, Alex revealed that his disability was never even a point of discussion.

He told Disability Horizons: “Looking back, that was madness because, inevitably, if things went the way I wanted it to, I wouldn’t be able to hide it forever.”

“I told her one day out of the blue when we were visiting a safari park. I remember standing in the queue and seeing a sign saying that disabled people can let their carer in for free. I turned to Lynsey and said, ‘Tell them you’re my carer and you’ll get in free.’ She said ‘what?’ and I just said ‘nothing’.”

Alex said he “couldn’t believe” he had said something so “surreal,” and that was their first conversation about disability.

“I was also nervous about taking my leg off in front of Lynsey and in previous relationships. Then the first time I did she didn’t say anything and we never talked about it.

“The concern was more in my head than hers,” he added.

Alex is tkaing part in Soccer Aid this year

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( Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

The comedian will take his sporting skills onto the pitch this Sunday to compete in Soccer Aid with the likes of Usain Bolt, Damian Lewis, and Liam Payne for the annual charity match

“I’ve not played football for a long time, but to be able to come back and be able to play in this is a really big thing for me,” he said.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, all goodwill aside, I’m still right footed and I don’t have a right foot, which is a big problem in terms of skill when playing football.

“It’s absolutely messed up, I don’t know how it happened. I kicked a ball long after I’d lost my foot and somehow, naturally for me, it’s with the side that’s missing. It would have been so much more ideal if it was the other side.

“But in terms of showing people, just get out and enjoy it! That’s what I’m here for, is to have this incredible experience.”

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