Fabrice Muamba is planning on returning to English football 10 years on from having a cardiac arrest on the pitch in his playing days.
The former midfielder hasn’t been involved in the game he loves since he was playing for Bolton Wanderers, where against Tottenham in 2012, he collapsed on the field.
The 33 year old was miraculously brought back to life by medics at the ground, and subsequent checks showed that Muamba had an underlying genetic health issue.
He said: “I’m lucky to even still be here. Every day for the last ten years has been a blessing.
“To be back on the grass, kicking a ball at Bolton Wanderers, coaching in their academy, the club I was playing for when they brought me back round, feels fitting. I’m so happy.
“My dream is to one day manage, to be manager of Bolton and take them back to Tottenham, where I had my accident. Wow, that would be written in the stars.”
Fabrice spoke on how he has become close friends with the hero doctors who saved his life — and how he witnessed fellow player Christian Eriksen collapsed in similar circumstances last summer.
Muamba, who made 130 appearances for Bolton and played for England Under-21s, felt “completely fit and healthy” as he travelled to London for Bolton’s FA Cup game against Spurs on March the 17th, 2012.
The dad of four said: “The night before, I’d prayed with my dad, like I usually would.
“I felt fine the next day at the stadium. I remember walking around the ground and just feeling excitement — nothing strange.
“The game started and it soon became a blur. I can only remember five or ten minutes before it happened.
“I remember almost scoring and then running back. All of a sudden my vision started to be very blurry and literally out of nowhere I hit the ground, and that was it.”
Fabrice suffered a huge heart attack with players of both teams stood or kneeled down with their hands on their heads and tears in their eyes as medics desperately tried to resuscitate him.
Then out of the stands came a Tottenham fan and consultant cardiologist Dr Andrew Deaner, who quickly told staff what to do and to get him to the nearby London Chest Hospital.
As fans from both sides sang Fabrice’s name, he was given 15 defibrillation shocks to restart his heart — two on the pitch, one in the tunnel, then 12 in the ambulance.
Once in hospital, Fabrice eventually began to improve, and to the amazement, 48 hours later, he woke up.
He said: “I was heavily drugged up and came round for a couple of minutes. The first person I saw was Dr Deaner. He whispered to me, ‘are you a good footballer?’ I said, ‘I try’.
“I then started to come back more regularly. I didn’t know the severity of it. People I hadn’t seen for ages kept coming in. I was thinking, ‘this is surreal, what’s going on?’
“Two of the doctors eventually explained how big it was. I was in disbelief. I thought, ‘this can’t happen to me’. They said, ‘you are very lucky just to be here with us’.
“The longer I stayed in hospital I realised I was in big trouble. The first issue was getting my kidney working, then they put a pacemaker in. Even then I thought I could play again.”
Fabrice was in hospital for 41 days and four months later, was taken to Belgium to see another specialist to improve his condition.
He said: “I still thought the doctor could perform a miracle, but he said, ‘you going back to playing is like running into your own grave’.
“It was devastating. I felt like my dream had been taken away. But then I realised so many people had gone down the same dark path and had not had such a good outcome. I quickly realised I was just lucky to be at home with my family, alive.”
Ten years after he collapsed on the pitch at White Hart Lane stadium, Fabrice Muamba tells us what he remembers from that day, and his gratefulness for the medical team that didn’t give up on him 💜 pic.twitter.com/qMJsbEw8fc
— This Morning (@thismorning) March 15, 2022
Fabrice was reminded of what he went through when in last June, the Danish international Christian Eriksen collapsed with a cardiac arrest while playing for his country at Euro 2020.
The 30-year-old midfielder survived too, and re-started his playing career by signing for Brentford.
Fabrice said: “Christian’s collapse really brought it home for me. I was like, ‘oh my god, please, not this again, please come through’. I was thinking of him but also his family.
“Him being alive is remarkable. Him playing again is unbelievable. I just hope he is safe and well.”
For Fabrice, the toughest part of his recovery was adjusting to his forced retirement from football.
He said: “In the days after, I was getting up and thinking, ‘I’m going to training’ and then you realise you’re not. It was difficult. I had to find a new routine. I threw myself into the housework, taking the kids to school, stuff like that.
“I thought in my mind that I would retire at 34 or 35. But instead I was 23 and didn’t know what to do. When I collapsed on the pitch I was a professional footballer and when I woke up I was an ex pro, just a normal person. It was tricky.”
Fabrice went into raising awareness of cardiac arrests and the need for life-saving defibrillators.
He worked for the Professional Footballers’ Association and did his coaching badges however he found it hard to watch football.
He said: “Until very recently I found it very difficult to watch the warm-ups at live games or even the players coming on to the pitch because I missed the ambience of the ground and the camaraderie.”
He realised he had to try to find closure, and said: “I saw a neurologist and I went to a PFA therapist and had counselling. It was very helpful. I also decided I wanted to watch what happened to me.
“I watched it twice. It was emotional and hard to watch. It was surreal and like an out-of-body experience, like it wasn’t me. But it helped me to process it.”
In November 2012 he was invited back to White Hart Lane and at half time he stood on the spot where he had collapsed.
He said: “That was emotional, I needed it. I’m glad I did it. People were clapping and I was able to piece it together. It gave me great closure.”
At Fabrice’s home in Wilmslow, there is no reminders of his playing days. Instead, just photos of his wife Shauna, 35, boys Joshua, 13, Matthew, 8, and 5 year old Gabriel and 20-month-old daughter Zuri on the walls.
He said: “I don’t have much stuff around the house because we try not to live in the past and focus on the present.
“I’ve still got the boots I was wearing that day, and the ripped shirt and shorts which the doctors tore off me to treat me, but I don’t get that out very often.”
His eldest son Joshua was three when Fabrice retired and just old enough to have seen him play, but he said: “The other lot don’t even believe I played football. They think I’m lying.”
Fabrice added: “My life is so different now. I take the kids to school and get on with work at home. I usually try to go to the gym.
“On Saturday, instead of going to play in the Premier League, I’m the taxi man for the kids. I take them to swimming, football and jujitsu. It’s a new normal.”
Fabrice, who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bolton, said he talks to Dr Deaner and his cardiologist Dr Sam Mohidin most weeks.
He added: “We have a real bond. I will for ever owe my life to them. They came to our wedding in 2012 and I speak all the time to them. I always joke, ‘I’m a doctor too now, remember’.”
Fabrice still has regular check-ups, as do his sons who inherited the gene for the defect, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
The condition causes the heart muscle to grow abnormally thicker, and this makes it harder to pump blood and raising the risk of a heart attack.
He finds it difficult to deal with seeing others who were less fortunate than himself. He was “really set back” at the death of cricket legend Shane Warne from a heart attack this month at just 52.
Muamba said: “Things like Shane’s death get to me. It makes me question, ‘why me?’
“For me, it couldn’t have happened at a better place. Everything aligned. I had the best medical staff I could have asked for that day. They made sure they did the job. Dr Deaner was there as a fan. I was very fortunate.”
For now, Fabrice is counting the days until he begins coaching at Bolton’s Academy this summer.
He said: “Now is a great time. It’s been a while and I’ve wanted to get back in and make a contribution to the football club.
“It’ll be nice to help them. I feel I owe them one, I owe the people of Bolton. There’s an unfinished story there.”

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