The ballad of Callum Flynn: From cancer diagnosis at 14 to leading England and dealing with trolls

SAM DALLING: Flynn beat cancer but lost his right leg from the knee down. Within 12 months of receiving his titanium replacement, he was back playing cricket. Soon he trialled for England, and went on to be a world champion

On his 14th birthday Callum Flynn went trampolining. He loved trampolining. With a competition looming, he needed the practice.

He wasn’t able to compete. In fact, Flynn would never trampoline again. Hours before his final session, he attended what he believed to be a “little check-up”.  

As it transpired, it was far graver: “When I got to the hospital I was taken onto a cancer ward,” he recalls. “I was then pulled into a little side room. Still it didn’t click. That’s when they told me.”  

Flynn had bone cancer. He pauses then, tempering darkness with humour, says: “It wasn’t the best of birthdays.

“I just cried and asked if I was going to die. As a young kid that’s the first thing you think when you hear cancer. Even for adults, death and cancer go together. Unfortunately, that’s what tends to happen lots of the time.”

The adolescent mind is a curious creature, and Flynn’s next thought surprised the doctor. Could he go jumping that night?

“I just got on with it. I don’t think they really wanted me to but I’m glad I did because I can never go trampolining again. I went and enjoyed myself that one last time.”

Flynn would beat the cancer but lost his right leg from the knee down. Within 12 months of receiving his titanium replacement, he was back playing cricket. Soon he trialled for England, and has since become a world champion. Now, with a pride that bursts through with every word he utters, Flynn leads his country.

^{Callum Flynn in international action}

Before his illness, Flynn had been a promising young cricketer. An allrounder at Swinton Moorside CC, he broke into the senior setup as a teenager, while also trialling at Lancashire.  

“Then I got the cancer news and that put a dent in cricket. I thought I might have been out for a long time but luckily it was just the one season.”  

Something had been awry for 18 months, the first symptoms visible when Flynn was 12. “I woke up one morning with my knee locked at 90 degrees. I couldn’t straighten it. We went to A&E but they didn’t X-ray it. They thought it was viral, gave me some tablets and some crutches and off I went.”

For a time came respite. Flynn’s knee would loosen off and normality – and trampolining - was resumed. But it flared up periodically and eventually the family GP was consulted.  “He felt behind my knee straight away. I think he knew but because I was a young kid didn’t want to say so with me in the room. He instantly put me in for an x-ray and we rushed to Wigan hospital.”

This was in March 2009. For three months Flynn underwent a gruelling course of chemotherapy.

“I’d dip into school here and there when I got a week off from chemotherapy. It was tough wearing a hat… especially when a teacher took it off my head. He thought I was being naughty. My friends said they wanted to punch him but I was glad they didn’t.

“It wasn’t too bad, though. I was quite young and you just get on with it don’t you?”

By mid-summer Flynn found himself at Birmingham Orthopaedic Hospital having his replacement fitted. Rehabilitation started immediately. “The physios get you going the day after your operation. You need to get the muscles moving and you work on finding the clunk. That’s where you fully straighten your leg and the titanium locks so it can’t give way on you. It was dead weird being able to balance on your leg like that. Now I can’t fully straighten the leg. The muscles are so tight around the titanium that I don’t have the clunk anymore.”

^{Flynn celebrates after taking an Afghan wicket during the Physical Disability World Series in 2019}

Unsurprisingly, cricket was not top of Flynn’s immediate agenda. But in 2010 out came bat and ball again. He soon got wind that Lancashire’s disability team trained locally at Bury CC.

“Someone said ‘do you fancy coming down’ and that’s where it started. I’d never heard of disability cricket before that.”

On May 22, 2011, Flynn made his Lancashire bow in a Roses clash. Batting at No.5, he smoked an unbeaten 39 from 32 balls to steer his side to a comfortable four-wicket victory. Earlier in the day, his four overs with the new ball yielded just 13 runs. No sign of nerves.  

In the opposition that day was England Pan Disability opener Gordon Laidlaw.

“By the time we played the return fixture at Yorkshire, I’d had a letter from the ECB inviting me to trials. Gordon asked if I had heard anything and explained he had recommended me.”

To Malvern, then, where Flynn - alongside a host of other hopefuls - was put through his paces. Laidlaw had predicted Flynn would breeze through the trials and was proven correct. The coaches liked what they saw and Flynn was invited to join the PD squad, one of four disability sides run by the ECB.  

While the Visually Impaired team had been running for decades, the PD, Learning Disability and Deaf XIs were relatively new. In February 2012, less than three years after his lower leg was removed, Flynn made his international bow in Pakistan.

Of all cricket’s brimming pot of beautiful tales, that Flynn opened the batting with Laidlaw is amongst the most poignant. Or in Flynn’s words: “A nice little touch.”

^{Flynn (left) receives his award alongside Joe Root and Anya Shrubsole}

Flynn retained his place for a second tour of Pakistan two years later, where he made a first international half-century. And then, if his 14th birthday was his nadir, 2015 was the apex.

That September, a five-team World Cup – albeit not under the ICC’s auspices - took place in Dhaka, England competing against Bangladesh, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. Vice-captain Flynn starred, earning both Player and Batter of the Series awards, to help England claim the inaugural title by defeating Pakistan.  

“That was an amazing trip- although we didn’t think that when we rocked up at this hostel at midnight and saw the accommodation,” he remembers with a laugh. “But actually, it was all on a campus in Dhaka with strict security. The whole thing was a really professional setup. And to win the first major tournament we’ve ever had… well it was the best tour in memory. We were a really close-knit group and I still speak to loads of the lads every day.”

And there was more to come, Flynn’s success earning him the ECB’s Disability Cricketer of the Year award, the award ceremony seeing him claim his prize alongside fellow winners Joe Root and Anya Shrubsole.

Both got told we would never play cricket again. Now we are World Champions. @BCRT @jamietgoodwin pic.twitter.com/xjTutfeaIR

— Callum Flynn (@CallumFlynn4) September 10, 2015

The runs and wickets continued to flow, as did the individual accolades: in 2019 Flynn was crowned Lord’s Taverners Disability Cricketer of the Year following his performances in that year’s Physical Disability World Series. In the tournament – held at Worcestershire’s New Road – he made 180 runs at 45, also snaring four wickets. Agonisingly though, England failed to retain their crown, succumbing to India in the final.  

“We bottled it a little bit,” he admits. “Since the 2015 win we’ve been in every series final possible but just not go over the line. That’s a shame. Fingers crossed for next time – although that could be a while.  

“But the standard is unbelievable now. We also had a tri-series at Worcestershire in 2018 and we stayed at the university campus. We always get the best access to the facilities and the way we are looked after – with the coaching staff, the science, the nutrition – that has a knock-on effect on the players. Look at India: they finished last in the group in 2015 but won it last time.”

^{Flynn leaves the field after making a match-winning, unbeaten half century against Pakistan}

Throughout those tournaments, England were led by Iain Nairn, a Chester-le-Street native who had lost his right leg aged just 16 months. Having played age group cricket for Durham County, Nairn was aged 32 when the England PD team first toured. Quickly he became the team’s elder statesman. After the 2019 defeat, Nairn – who was recently awarded an MBE for his services to physical disabilities cricket – announced the time had come to pass on the baton.  

“Nairny is a legend to everyone in that dressing room really,” Flynn told The Cricketer. “He was the glue that kept us together. A great leader who we all looked up to. He was an unbelievable player, and an even better bloke. He went out of his way to look after everyone. He knew exactly when to put an arm around your shoulder and when to give you a minute.  

“When I was vice-captain we were in each other’s pockets. He fully deserves his MBE: of all the England players, he is the one I look up to most.”

Nairn’s ears must have been burning as Flynn’s WhatsApp lights up. “He’s just messaged me now: one of our ex-players (Hugo Hammond) is going on Love Island”.

As well as losing Nairn, the England side were rocked by the departure of head coach Ian Salisbury. He had to step away to care for his wife Emma, who would tragically pass away in January 2020, six years after first being diagnosed with a brain tumor.  

Both Nairn and Salisbury broke the news during the last pre-Covid training camp at Edgbaston in October 2019.

“That was a really emotional weekend. They both told us they were leaving on the same day. Sals was explaining that his wife’s situation had deteriorated so badly that unfortunately he had to give us up.”

^{England celebrate a wicket, with Flynn front and centre}

Salisbury has since returned to the game as joint head coach at Sussex.

“Sals is another person we all look up to: an unbelievable coach, and an unbelievable person. He got on so well with everyone.  We took to him so much because he was an ex-professional putting so much time into use – we are just normal lads who play for England part time on the side. Most ex pros with a reputation like his could walk into a private school coaching or a county job. We really appreciated that he put his time into us.”  

And under his stewardship England worked on those marginal gains. “He had us focus on our fielding at training camps. Before we even picked up a bat or a ball, we felt we had an advantage over the other sides. We pride ourselves on being the fittest and strongest team. We always try and select quite a mobile XI. And we have our lads who are boundary fielders sweeping – the quickest ones with the best arms – and the ones in the ring.”

And that is part of the misconception they fight against. It is a team packed with finely tuned athletes: “That’s the biggest battle for the squad: with society’s standards. A lot of people who haven’t see the squad might think… well, everyone has their own view of disability in their head and a lot of the time it is people in wheelchairs.

“But bloody hell, about 10 of our squad have played good first-team cricket since they were teenagers.” Flynn is amongst them, starring for Denton West in the Greater Manchester Cricket League Premier . He joined the club over the winter having finally relented to international teammate and close friend Jordan Williams’ pestering.  

“Jordan and I are probably the two best fielders in our first team. We’re constantly out on the boundary sweeping or in the catching positions. We just see ourselves as normal cricketers really. Once people come down and see their initial game then they realise it’s just cricket. Normal cricket, like you see every week. Nothing different really.”  

Those club games have been a lifeline for most of the England PD team, who played just one fixture last summer. That came against the Lord’s Taverners, for whom they had raised money in early lockdown with a marathon challenge.

We have discovered that new kit images shared have attracted hurtful & personal comments about our England Physical Disability Captain, Callum Flynn

We wish to share Callum’s story once again, so that everyone could be aware of his incredible contribution to cricket and society pic.twitter.com/2rhZ5FVKlW

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) June 17, 2021

While on-field international action has not yet returned, Flynn was part of the England’s new kit launch, his picture appearing alongside men’s Test captain Joe Root and women’s star Danni Wyatt.

“The ECB have always been amazing at getting us involved as much as possible. As a kid I dreamed of playing for England. So, to get asked to do the kit launch was special. A little bit of a shame it was a in a Covid year, because normally everyone is there together. But I was still buzzing just to be there.”

But the cesspit that is social media meant things soon took a sour twist. The comments flooded in to ruin what was supposed to be the moment of a lifetime.

“It was the number of nasty ones that got to me. Not necessarily the actual messages themselves but the volume of them. ‘Who is this fat lad who looks like a supporter?’ ‘He looks like a garden gnome.’  I don’t mind being called fat, but after I had seen it all on Twitter and Instagram I checked Facebook and there were hundreds more.  

“And they kept coming in. I’ve never had this sort of national publicity before: maybe an article here and there but usually if there is a photo it is just me playing cricket. Nothing has ever got to me like that before: it felt crap. Totally downgraded. And it was something I had been so looking forward to. When I was just stood there wearing longish pants that didn’t fit and a top that didn’t fit it didn’t look too great.”

Flynn quickly contacted operations manager Neil Bradshaw, who in turn reached out to head of disabilities cricket Ian Martin. Within an hour the ECB had removed all the offending posts and put out a statement.

“We have discovered that new kit images shared have attracted hurtful and personal comments about our England Physical Disability Captain, Callum Flynn. We wish to share Callum’s story once again, so that everyone could be aware of his incredible contribution to cricket and society.”

Graeme van Buuren: Lost in limbo

Flynn received a personal apology from Ashley Giles for the ill-fitting kit. “He said it was out of order. I can’t thank the ECB enough for how they reacted, though, they were brilliant.”

And typically, if there was any dwelling, it was on the positives.

“It has made me realise how much attention people pay to the disability side though I’ve had so many comments from randomers saying they are all behind me. Even people I don’t know, saying that I am a good cricketer and that they’ve seen me playing. That part of it was great.”  

Spoken like a true captain, world champion and formidable human being. Which just about sums Callum Flynn up.