During his training years Walsall Football Club physio  Marc Czuczman spent a lot of time on Intensive Therapy and High Dependency Units at various hospitals and met many patients with Cystic Fibrosis or heart conditions.

“I’ll never forget seeing how ill some of those patients were and watching the transformation in them once they’d had organ transplants,” he explained. “While they weren’t back to full fitness the change in them was amazing.

“On the flip side I also saw patients become too ill to undergo transplants because their health deteriorated and there were also patients who I didn’t see again because they’d died.”

Marc, who signed up to become an organ donor when he got his driving licence, is backing Organ Donation Week 2018 which takes the theme “Words Save Lives” and encourages people to have discussions about each other’s wishes.

The father-of-two, who worked with Walsall FC in 2006-2008 before joining Oldham Athletic and Leeds United and returning to Walsall in January 2016, said it was important that the week also helped to dispel myths.

“I do appreciate that it’s a really hard thing to talk about but if more people could see the difference it makes I’m sure they’d think differently,” said Marc, aged 39, of Heath Hayes. “I know that if a member of my family was in a situation where a transplant meant life or death I’d want there to be every chance possible of them receiving what they needed.

“I have spoken to the lads about it to get them to think about becoming donors. Some of them didn’t realise that you can specify which organs can be taken and at least we’ve had a conversation to encourage discussions.

“I also think tissue donation is important because of the important research work that goes on. I hope Organ Donation week is a success and we see more people signing up.”