Dylan Tombides’s back for Hammers as his cancer fight goes on

Dylan Tombides didn’t score — that honour went to team-mate Blair Turgott, who bagged a hat-trick — but no one at West Ham will forget the teenager’s cameo performance against QPR this week.

The Perth-born teenager (below) came on for 15 minutes in the second half, his first action since his senior debut against Wigan in the Capital One Cup last October.

What was extraordinary about Tombides’s run-out is the forward, who turned 19 earlier this month, is still having weekly chemotherapy after being diagnosed with testicular cancer in the summer of 2011.

Tombides had an operation immediately and needed further surgery after doctors discovered a four-inch blood clot in his abdomen and cancer cells on his lymph nodes.

Tombides, too tired to play again after his debut last year, could not hide his happiness at returning to action. “It had been five months since I last played, so it was great to get back out there,” he told the club’s website.

“I was more interested in seeing how I would get on fitness-wise than how I performed. When I first got the ball, I tried to nutmeg someone on the edge of my penalty area and lost the ball, so my first contribution wasn’t the best! Luckily, I got a few more opportunities to show what I could do.”

Team-mates and backroom staff at the club have been moved by the player’s courage and determination.

“I train every day apart from Fridays, when I have two hours of treatment at the hospital,” said Tombides. “I have two hours of intravenous chemotherapy every week. One bag of chemo lasts one hour, then they take it off and clean out all the tubes. I then have a second bag that lasts half an hour.

“It makes me feel terrible but it is something I have to do. I then have Saturdays off and return to training on the Sunday or the Monday, depending on when the boys are in.”

The club’s No39 is targeting more pitch-time between now and the end of the current campaign. He said: “I’m now in the final week of a 12-week training programme to get me ready to play again, so I am actually a week ahead of schedule.

“I have missed playing and everything else around it — the banter in the dressing room, getting nervous before kick-off, scoring and celebrating goals — so to get back on the pitch was brilliant.

“Now, I’m hoping to be available for every game, as long as I’m selected!”