Tiny River ‘the Champ’ is battling a cancerous tumour – but he’s a hero to Man United aces Harry Maguire and Ronaldo
OVER the past six months, football-mad River Rhodes – AKA River the Champ – has met a host of the game’s heroes, including Cristiano Ronaldo.
But to dad Ryan, the plucky seven-year-old, who is under- going a year of gruelling chemotherapy for a tumour in his eye, is the real hero.
“River is always full of energy and never says he’s poorly,” says Ryan, from Wolverhampton.
“Not once has he ever complained, even a couple of weeks ago after his latest round of chemo, when he was throwing up for three or four days.
“Every day I say, ‘How are you today?’ and he says, ‘I’m good’. Since he’s been diagnosed I’ve met a lot of my sporting heroes, through my son, but River is now my hero.”
Ryan’s son began meeting the footie stars after being diagnosed with a rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancerous tumour, in October 2021.
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Ryan, 37, and partner Kerry vowed to put a positive spin on the difficult time ahead by making River’s dreams come true.
And the couple have now helped their brave son meet players from his beloved Wolves as well Man United, Man City, Everton and Burnley among others.
The mission to spread River’s love of football — which the family call his “journey” — has seen him welcomed at grounds up and down the country, enjoying meet-and-greets with Premier League players and being inundated with signed shirts.
An now The Sun has helped River fulfil another dream by inviting him and his family to Wolves Molineux Stadium so he could have a kickabout on the hallowed turf.
As we talked, the lively lad showed off a small fraction of his extensive shirt collection — including signed tops from Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt and Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk — chatted about Man United’s current form and whether he would have KFC or a chippy meal for tea (he decided on one for lunch and one for dinner).
Mum Kerry is keen to store up as many happy memories as possible.
“This is obviously a bad time for River in terms of the treatment,” she says.
“But we decided to start this journey so, when River looks back, he will see it as one of the best of times rather than one of the worst.”
Kerry, 42 spotted the first signs that something was wrong with River’s eye just before he went back to school, last September.
“It looked like a lazy eye. I took a picture and his eye looked wonky,” she says.
“He said his teacher had mentioned it at school so I spoke to her and she said, after six weeks off, she noticed he didn’t look the same.”
Unable to get a face-to-face appointment with her GP, Kerry was told River had blepharitis — an inflammation of the eyelid — and to just bathe it.
When it didn’t improve, Kerry asked to see a doctor but was refused and was prescribed antibiotic drops which still didn’t work.
She then took her son to the eye infirmary, at Wolverhampton’s New Cross hospital, where they diagnosed hay fever and sent him away with antihistamine drops, but the eye continued to get redder and more puffy.
After a worrying weekend, Kerry returned to the hospital where a specialist spotted a lump under River’s eye, and gave him an MRI and CT scan.
Kerry and Ryan — who also have a 15-year-old daughter Tatum — were told needed a biopsy to see if cancerous cells present so, after celebrating his 7th birthday with all his family and friends, he went into hospital for the procedure.
Every day I say, ‘How are you today?’ and he says, ‘I’m good’. Since he’s been diagnosed I’ve met a lot of my sporting heroes, through my son, but River is now my hero.
Ryan Rhodes
“At one point, the doctor said, ‘It got bigger overnight.’ The lashes had moved and his eye was bulging,” says Kerry.
“Within a few weeks it had gone from the eye looking small to really bulging out.”
After the tests, the couple were told River had an orbital rhabdomyosarcoma — a cancerous tumour — which couldn’t be removed by surgery because of the dense nature of the eye tissue.
Instead, he would need 12 months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to shrink the tumour. “When I heard the diagnosis I was just struck dumb,” says Kerry. “It was devastating.”
Since then River has had rounds of chemo through a Hickman line attached to his chest and six weeks of radiotherapy.
“He has the proton beam therapy which targets the tumour and less of the tissue around it than conventional radiotherapy,” says Kerry.
“That started in January and he had to be put to sleep every day for the six weeks, so that was hard.”
With River mid-treatment, the long term prognosis is not yet known, and there is a small chance he might lose some or all the sight in the left eye.
After each round of chemo, River just says he feels “dizzy” but Ryan says he usually has little energy and can’t eat much for a few days, before bouncing back to his cheeky little self.
Even a dose of Covid, which left Kerry sick, didn’t floor River, despite chemo leaving his immune system compromised.
“He wasn’t even a little bit ill,” says Ryan. “He’s like Superman.”
In hospital, River puts a smile on the faces of the other kids on the ward and Ryan says the worst thing for him is being hooked into drips.
When I heard the diagnosis I was just struck dumb. It was devastating.
Kerry Rhodes
“He hates it because he can’t move about and he’s got so much energy.”
As River faced weeks of treatment, in October, Kerry and Ryan contacted his favourite Wolves player Adama Traore, who is now at Barcelona.
“I messaged Traore and said we were coming to the game and that my little boy has been poorly, so he’s hoping to get a chance to meet you.’ He messaged straight back,” says Kerry.
Traore gave River his shirt at the match and the pair started messaging.
At the next match, cheeky River handed Traore his own Wolves top, signed with his name, as a souvenir.
When treatment moved to Manchester’s The Christie hospital, River visited Man City’s Etihad Stadium, and Man United’s Old Trafford in his Traore Wolves top and posted snaps on his River the Champ Twitter page.
As his followers grew, Burnley invited him to a February clash with Manchester United and stars including Cristiano Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho, David de Gea, Bruno Fernandes and Jesse Lingard stopped to pose for a picture with the young footie fan.
Ronaldo later posted a picture with River on Instagram, which got over 12million likes, captioned: “Children are and will always be the best thing the world has to offer, and we must protect them at all costs.
“Supporters are and will always be the best in football, and we must respect everything they face and endure for their clubs.”
The next day, the club contacted the family and said Harry Maguire wanted to meet River for a kickabout at luxury hotel Mottram Hall in Cheshire — and River now calls the England ace his “best mate.”
“Harry told him ‘You’ve signed for Man U now’ and he was great to River,” says Ryan.
“We’re in touch with Harry and his family all the time.”
River’s better at talking to them than he is with us as he loves football so much.
Ryan Rhodes
Since then he has met numerous Premier League stars, including Jack Grealish, Marcus Rashford and Juan Mata.
And Derby manager Wayne Rooney has invited him to come to train with the Rams.
Never starstruck, River always has plenty to say.
“River’s better at talking to them than he is with us as he loves football so much,” says Ryan.
“He sees them all as mates and he has great banter with them. Harry Maguire is a slow player so River said, ‘I’ve seen your FIFA (stats) and you’re only 50 for pace,’ which made Harry laugh.
“When he met Grealish, River was stroking his hair saying ‘I used to have long hair like you Jack’. They talked for about five minutes. I think he’d have liked to stay all day.”
“Grealish is good,” pipes in River. “And he can understand us because he’s from Birmingham.”
Always thinking of his friends from hospital, River asked Man Ciy’s Grealish to send a message to his pal, a Blues fan, who was also undergoing treatment.
Another five-year-old United fan was treated to a message from Maguire.
Now his fame has grown among football fans, River the Champ is keen to spread the love.
“The whole idea of what we wanted to do was to try and help other children in the future,” says Ryan.
“Obviously at the minute our priority is to get River better and if we can keep all these contacts we’ve made, we might be able to do some good.
“We can’t help every kid but if we can get a couple of poorly kids a football strip each month while they are in hospital, that would be nice.
“We’ve lived this life and we know what it’s like to go through this.
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“We know how much it’s helped us every month, to have something to look forward to or lift the spirits.
“I hope we can help bring a smile to other kids’ faces.”
