How Hilton Head soccer club, English superstars are helping a cancer survivor see the pros
When John Burk, 34, finished chemotherapy in September, his plan was to enjoy remission after a whirlwind summer of treatments for stage 3 testicular cancer, which had appeared in his lymph nodes, neck and kidney.
His teammates on the Hilton Head Wanderers soccer club had a different plan to celebrate his remission: Send him to England to see his favorite professional soccer team, Manchester United, play a match.
With the support of international soccer superstars Marcus Rashford and Gary Neville, that plan is now in motion. Burk and a friend are heading to Manchester, England, next week to see United play Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club on Nov. 10.
The effort, which has garnered international attention, started with a group of guys in strikingly different fields — including sales and insurance, utilities, restaurants, and heating and air conditioning — who shared a love for soccer. They gathered every Sunday to play at Barker Field on Hilton Head.
“This isn’t really a story of cancer, and the negatives of cancer,” Burk said. “It’s a story of how incredible friends and family can be in getting through tough times.”
Burk, who works for a Savannah orthopedic company and lives with his wife and two children in Pooler, has played on the team for about two years. Playing with the Wanderers, he said, is like “trying to be superstars like we were in college.”
More than a decade ago, Burk and Dan Waymont were roommates and members of the soccer team at Mars Hill University in western North Carolina. After graduation, Waymont’s brother Matt lived with Burk for a few months.
Now, their team plays other regional clubs, but mostly meets to play pickup games on Hilton Head once each week. They lost their center back when Burk started chemotherapy — which forced him to stay home for most of the summer.
Waymont, a native of England who now lives in Bluffton with his wife and two children, hatched a plan for an international pilgrimage, hoping to raise money from his Wanderers teammates to get Burk on a flight to London. Burk and Waymont would stay with Waymont’s parents in Storrington, England, and make the three-hour drive to Manchester to see his first-ever match at Old Trafford — often referred to as “the theatre of dreams.”
“I thought: When he gets through this, I’ve got to do something big to celebrate his victory,” Waymont said of his teammate, who has been a Manchester United fan since he was a child. “He’s never been to England, let’s take him to Old Trafford to see Manchester United play.”
Waymont, who works in insurance, pieced together the plan on a shoestring budget, but when he went to the 15-member team for help, the guys delivered. Members of the team raised $1,000 over several weeks for to pay for Burk’s budget flight to London.
“John being the guy he is, everyone just loves him,” Waymont said.
Getting by with a little help from the Reds
To celebrate the news of his remission in September, Waymont and Burk held a dinner party with their families, where Waymont presented Burk with a cherry red Manchester United jersey and certificate detailing the trip his teammates had planned.
“The more and more I started looking at it ... that’s when my eyes got big and I realized what had been planned,” Burk said Tuesday. “Part of me wanted to tear up. Part of me wanted to jump for joy.”
As plans started to materialize, Waymont’s brother Matt sent a tweet to United forward Rashford and midfielders Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba about the upcoming trip.
That’s when the international soccer stars stepped up.
Rashford said he’d take care of securing tickets for the match against Brighton, and recruited right back Gary Neville to set up accommodations. Neville owns Hotel Football — a boutique hotel right across the street from Old Trafford.
Rio Ferdinand, a center back, set up dinner reservations for Burk, Waymont and his two brothers. The group said they’re giddy as they think about meeting Rashford, 21, an up-and-coming player who said he was looking forward to seeing them in Manchester.
The outpouring of support was overwhelming, Burk said. Members of the English media contacted him to do live interviews that will be broadcast all over the country.
“Why are they doing this for me?” he asked The Island Packet on Tuesday. “I’m an average guy that got a crappy diagnosis.”
But Waymont and Burk said this is a story of love. With some luck, it may also be a story of winning.
United, ranked seventh in the 20-club English Premiere League, has had a spotty season so far with a new manager. Brighton, a smaller club, is ranked 14th.
“We might actually win one,” Burk said excitedly. He traces his start as a Manchester United fan to a single souvenir his brother brought back from England when they were kids: a red drawstring United bag that he carried around until it wore out.
Waymont and his brothers said they’ve been touched by the generosity of United players and fans, who have offered to buy the group pints before the game and connect Burk with men’s cancer recovery groups.
But, as fans of another English soccer club, they may not be wearing United jerseys.
“I will stay true to my beloved Tottenham Hotspurs, but we’ll put the rivalries aside,” Waymont said of his team, based in London and ranked 11th. “Even as a fan of other teams, you want to go see Old Trafford. ... For that day, I’ll be a Red.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 4:05 PM.
