FARNWORTH-born footballer Alan Ball had to fight his way to the top of his sport.

But nothing prepared him for his greatest battle - when cancer struck two of the people he loved most in life, his wife and his daughter.

Small and fiery, Alan Ball was one of the best-known footballers of his generation, as his entertaining and informative autobiography * published this week highlights.

He was born at 2 Brookhouse Avenue, Farnworth, during Victory in Europe Week in May, 1945, and went to school at St Peter's C of E Primary School.

His football-mad father, also Alan, was a lower league, journeyman player who became a manager at that level and had stints in charge of Preston North End and Halifax.

As his son recalls, "all he ever wanted was for me to be a footballer because of his love of the game."

As a result, young Alan's earliest memories were of football grounds, and the pervasive linament smell of dressing-rooms.

Alan senior was to be a huge influence throughout his son's life, especially on his playing and later managerial career. He nurtured him through the early years before and after his undoubted talent was spotted, and guided his teenage times spent quite happily training, playing and trying to improve and hone those skills.

But one thing continually held back the keen youngster: his height. Young Alan was always small and light for his age. But he had, he recounts, "determination in every pore and a level of skill that belied my size" - a facet recognised by his sports master at Farnworth Grammar School, Mr John Dickinson.

Under him, the school won the prestiigous Daily Dispatch Shield, and young Ball captained Farnworth and Worsley Boys before his dad got him a spot in his own team, Ashton United in the Lancashire Combination League.

It was his first brush with gnarled old professionals. "I remember a big left-back playing for Hyde United trying to kick me over the stand in a Cheshire Cup match," he recalls.

"It was a shock to the system when he growled 'If tha' comes near me, lad, I'll snap thee in half'."

With his size still threatening any hope of a professional football career, Alan fancied being a sports journalist and applied to the Bolton Evening News. Unfortunately, we failed to snap up the youngster, but journalism's loss ultimately proved football's gain.

He was also rejected by Bolton Wanderers when "an old martinet called Bill Ridding" was managing.

Alan wondered if there was any chance of a football apprenticeship at Burnden Park only for Ridding to tell him: "The only apprenticeship you'll get lad, is an apprentice jockey."

Fortunately, hope beckoned in the shape of Blackpool FC, with a job on the ground staff and shared digs with a young Emlyn Hughes.

Hard graft and many hours of dedicated training followed. But, eventually, he found himself in a practice match with the great Stanley Matthews, a revered veteran whom the red-headed rebel soon found had his own ideas on a youngster's importance - or lack of it - on the pitch.

Nevertheless, Alan won his break, inadvertently thanks to Matthews who was injured before a big away match against Liverpool in front of 57,000. This was his first high-profile game, and he loved every minute.

It was just the start of a remarkable career which took the sporting maestro to Everton, Arsenal and Manchester City in a well-chronicled, high-profile life of playing and managing.

He made 72 appearances for England, including two World Cup campaigns and, of course, was in the team that lifted the World Cup in 1966.

What is less well known is Alan's more recent, private battle to save his wife and daughter from the ultimate challenge of cancer.

Tragedy first struck the close-knit Ball family in 2001 when Alan and Lesley Ball's eldest daughter Mandy was diagnosed with breast cancer.

A young mum herself, Mandy faced radical surgery and debilitating chemotherapy sessions to stem the aggressive disease. This was a time when she and her loving family needed all their strength and love to survive.

By a dreadful twist of fate, the very day that Mandy, her parents, brother and sister learned of the illness, Lesley felt a pain in her groin. She dismissed it, but very soon, it could not be ignored.

Just months later, without telling her husband, she finally saw a specialist who told her she had ovarian cancer. The Balls' biggest battle was starting.

What followed for Lesley, Alan and their three children was a terrifying roller-coaster of months which turned into years as both mother and daughter underwent treatment.

But, while Mandy's condition began to respond to this, Lesley's did not.

Alan - the enduring sports star who had learned to cope with all of football's most pressurised situations - took up the new challenge of becoming his wife's carer and companion.

He had to learn to run the home, too. "I was brought up a typical, macho Lancashire lad by a father who considered it soppy if you went shopping or held somebody's hand," he says.

Now, he had to learn to do all the domestic chores and cope with the daily reality of Lesley's illness. There was, however, still laughter among the dark days, like the first time he used the dishwasher - he left the wrapper on the washing tablet "much to everyone's delight."

But Lesley was now fighting a battle she could not win, and in May this year, she died in hospital, peacefully and with Alan close by.

Now 59, Alan Ball - obviously devastated by his beloved wife's death - feels he has finally understood the real balance of life. "When I think of Lesley," he concludes, "I realize that football, the game which was my lifelong fixation, is, after all, only a game."

* Playing Extra Time by Alan Ball, published by Sidgwick & Jackson at £17.99, available from Sweetens and Waterstones, both Deansgate, Bolton.