So, 2025 can get in the bin. Seriously, this year can disappear into its Ozempic-laden, AI-generated hole and just do one.
Far be it from me to be the Grinch, but 2026 simply cannot come soon enough.
Sure, there have been highlights.
Scotland qualified for their first World Cup finals in 27 years, galvanising an entire nation.
Rory McIlroy won the Masters, Europe silenced America in the Ryder Cup, the Lionesses won the Euros, Scotland’s women reached the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup, and Scotland saved the Commonwealth Games. Standard.
Daily Mail Sport’s Heather Dewar was diagnosed with cancer earlier in 2025
Heather had found two lumps in her breast – and was then faced with having to tell her kids
Heather has interview many sports stars about their health conditions – and was then faced with an issue of her own
In sporting terms, 2025 has been utterly stupendous.
On a personal note, however, it has not been quite so temperate.
An ‘annus horribilis’, one might say, with a red card and an own goal thrown in for good measure.
Let me explain.
2025 was the year I discovered I had cancer. Not one lump, but two of the little buggers in my left breast.
I’d been to see a doctor in the spring of last year. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ I was told, despite my protestations. Fast forward 12 months, and intense nausea and fatigue had taken hold. One of my lumps – affectionately known as ‘Darth Vader’ – had also grown. It was now visible when pressed on the skin.
I tried the NHS. Couldn’t get past the militant receptionist. ‘Is it an emergency?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’ I replied. ‘Categorise “emergency”.’
Eventually, I went private. Too worried to wait. And in the space of a two-hour appointment, a mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy, I got told it was very likely I had cancer.
My diagnosis was confirmed while I was at a press conference for the Tour de France.
‘As I suspected, Heather, your biopsy has come back showing cancer.’
Great. A full-time membership to the most unattractive club in the world.
It wasn’t the worst of places to be told. No time to linger, straight into a presser with some of the biggest powerbrokers in cycling. Sir Mark Cavendish, the general director of the Tour de France Christian Prudhomme, and Paul Bush, the Bid chair.
Just like any other major press conference, but with a sprinkling of doom, thrown in for good measure.
I smiled, asked questions, and wrote up some copy. Those around me were completely oblivious of my terrifying diagnosis. Hours later, on the bus home, I finally took a breath.
The cancer diagnosis didn’t stop Heather but she knows how difficult it can be for many
‘S***, I have cancer. How the hell am I going to tell my kids?”
That’s when it hit me. I suddenly understood how the likes of Kenny Logan and Sir Chris Hoy – sporting legends I have been reporting on – and many, many others must have felt, in exactly the same moment. How on earth do you tell your young ones that mummy or daddy has cancer?
Disbelief, pain, horror, grief. They’re all in there.
My eldest, now 15, was simply incredible. Cried, asked all the right questions, said I had to fight this with everything I had. The youngest, who was 10 at the time, was extraordinarily quiet. Too young to fully comprehend the magnitude of our evolving conversation.
I promised to tell them the truth, every step of the way. Keep them involved. They thanked me for that. Honesty, I believe, is the best policy, when it comes to matters of life and death.
That’s not to say everyone will follow that same path.
This year, I have interviewed many people who have gone through cancer or had family members who have succumbed to it.
Everyone is different. There’s something about talking about one’s diagnosis that is intrinsically gut-wrenching. One minute, you forget it ever happened, the next, whoosh, a tidal wave of sorrow for the life you once led.
Speaking about it publicly opens the floodgates for raw, primal emotion. I guess it’s a subconscious awareness of one’s own mortality.
Earlier this year, I spoke exclusively to Team GB’s men’s curling team about their desire to win Olympic gold for a young footballer who had passed away after a long fight with cancer.
Charlie Watson was only 20 when he died, diagnosed with nodular malignant melanoma.
Charlie Watson was only 20 years old when he died from skin cancer – but Heather had been struck by how positive he had been and how he had continued to play football despite his condition
The Threave Rovers player hit the headlines last year after battling against adversity to feature in the Scottish Cup game against Stranraer. He was a remarkable lad.
I spoke to him in 2024, when he was still relatively upbeat about his prognosis.
Incredibly, he had played on throughout his treatment, despite suffering from stage four cancer, and raised tens of thousands of pounds for research.
His passing was felt by many within the sporting community. Scotland curler Grant Hardie was a close family friend.
He said Charlie’s passing had been impossible to fathom, but insisted the team would now battle on in his honour, when they take to the ice at the Winter Olympics in Milan next year. Whatever the result, their kindness and decision to do it for Charlie will never be forgotten.
Elsewhere, there was Rangers’ Kathryn Hill, who has vowed to continue raising awareness for her mother, Lesley, who passed away from breast cancer in 2017.
The defender was just two weeks into a scholarship in America when she was told her mother was dying. The very thought of it is almost impossible to comprehend.
Her mum’s wish was that she stayed in the USA, regardless, continuing to develop her burgeoning career. A selfless act from a mum that epitomised the sacrifices throughout the early years of Hill’s own footballing journey.
Rangers defender Kathryn Hill (right) has vowed to continue raising awareness for cancer after the death of her mother Lesley
‘My mum never complained because she knew football was something I loved,’ Hill told Daily Mail Sport.
‘She wanted me to do it. She was such a massive influence in getting me to where I am today.’
Lesley died aged 51 and is never far from her daughter’s thoughts. Every day she wears one of her rings. She plays football in a pair of pink laces, while she and her team-mates wear pink tape strapped around their wrists.
Her story felt particularly close to my heart, given her mother’s age and diagnosis. It made me realise that although the impact of my own cancer has been severe, I am truly one of the lucky ones.
Fortunate to have an amazing partner, fortunate to not have to have had chemotherapy, fortunate to have had two operations that may have saved my life.
Bryan Easson, former Scotland women’s rugby head coach, is of a similar mindset.
The former Exeter Chiefs fly-half had cancer in his 20s, and lost a testicle as a result. Years later, and while coaching the national side, he developed skin cancer, which he kept largely under wraps.
Former Scotland women’s head coach Bryan Easson spoke candidly about his own cancer diagnosis and treatment this year
Easson revealed to Daily Mail Sport his diagnosis and treatment had taken place in the build-up to Scotland’s WXV2 victory in 2023. Three tumours and a skin graft from his shoulder, yet he carried on quietly going about his business.
‘I had to tell Scottish Rugby,’ he told me, ‘because it was going to be pretty obvious. It was quite a big surgery that was required. I don’t know if the girls suspected anything. There were possibly a few that knew. I just cracked on with it. The most important thing in my job has never been me, it’s about making other people better.
‘Subconsciously, cancer changes your perspective on life. I don’t think I ever thought I was close to dying, but it makes you realise that life is for living. You get one shot at it. Get the people around you who want to be around you. Do the things you want to do.
‘Maybe it’s an age thing, but I’ve realised it’s important not to sweat the small stuff. Control what you can control. Do what you want to do. Don’t just get stuck in the rat race.’
I guess that’s the thing about cancer. It teaches you a hell of a lot about living.
As I’m rapidly learning throughout all of this, there is no easy fix. Add in other pre-existing conditions, and the whole shebang is a minefield. The diagnosis is just the start of it.
I ask myself constantly: How do people cope, should they have no financial support? Or nobody to listen to their concerns? What if you’re young, and you’re facing this before having children? Or if you’re fobbed off because you don’t fit the ‘age profile’ of those more likely to get certain types of cancers?
The latter point, in particular, seems a cause for concern. I’ll be honest with you, I was shocked at the number of young women waiting for consultations on both occasions I went to get checked. The breast clinic was packed with females who looked under the age of 50.
Now, it could be that more young women are presenting for checks, which is an undeniably good thing. But what if the incidence of breast cancer is actually rising in those not routinely checked?
At present in the UK, screening doesn’t start for women until they reach 50, yet around 10,000 women under that age are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the UK. Around 7,500 will be in their 40s. One in seven women will get breast cancer in their lifetime.
Sir Chris Hoy is campaigning for more prostate cancer screening since his own diagnosis
Anecdotally, I’m hearing of more and more young women being affected. It’s a worrying thought and not something I want to stand by and just watch happen.
In the same vein, Sir Chris Hoy is doing his utmost to push for nationwide screening for men with prostate cancer.
Males speaking openly about their own diagnosis will undoubtedly help.
I was listening to Off the Ball recently when my old BBC mucker Kenny MacIntyre revealed he, too, had been diagnosed. Kenny is one of the nicest men in the business, and I know that he will give this everything he has. I thank him hugely for speaking up.
At the end of the day, we can only do what we can do to try and raise awareness. It takes governments to really push the button, allocate more funding, provide more screening, dedicate more time and resources to those suffering the long-term effects of cancer. Let’s hope they are still listening.
For anyone who’s going through cancer, I send you the warmest of wishes. Do what you can do. Control what you can control. Don’t sweat the small stuff. And if all else fails, remember that Scotland are going to the World Cup finals.