English Premier League referee Mark Halsey has offered to share his experience of battling leukaemia with Aston Villa s Stiliyan Petrov.
Bulgarian Petrov was diagnosed with acute leukaemia this week, a disease 50-year-old Halsey successfully overcame in 2009.
Halsey returned to refereeing in 2010, and has promised to support Petrov in any way he can.
I ve refereed Stiliyan a lot and he is a lovely guy, Halsey told The Daily Mail.
It needs Stiliyan to get his friends and family, and the whole of football, round him. People will rally round and that is a major help.
He has got to go about his life as normally as possible. There will be bad days, but you get them in life anyway.
I have offered Villa my support. You don t know what it is like until you go through it. I have had chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
My wife, Michelle, has leukaemia and is on drugs every day. She leads a normal life, too, although she also has her bad days.
If Stiliyan wants to give me a call, I am here morning, noon and night.
At first your whole world caves in. My instant reaction was, Am I going to die? But you have got to battle.
