John Terry sends message of support to Chris Kamara after emotional interview

Former Aston Villa coach John Terry has reached out with a message of support to Chris Kamara.

Kamara has been diagnosed with speech apraxia, and he made the decision to leave Soccer Saturday at the end of last season.

Over the weekend, the much-loved Kamara did an interview as part of the Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett.

And during the interview, he opened up on his battle with speech apraxia, which impacts how the brain receives certain messages due to damage.

People with speech apraxia can suffer from slurred-sounding speech, often unable to move their lips and tongue in the usual way to form speech.

Sometimes, people with the issue are not able to speak at all, and treatment focusses on re-teaching the brain to use muscles in a way that aids the production of speech.

The disorder is something Kamara has been struggling with as a result of a thyroid issue, and speaking on the podcast, he said: “I feel a fraud now in terms of broadcasting - I don’t bring to the table what I used to.

“I feel I’m doing these programmes and they’re not getting the best of me - they’re tolerating me, that’s how it feels. You take your old self for granted.

“It feels like someone has taken over my voice box.

“The voice that used to come out would come out at 300 miles an hour on Soccer Saturday, motormouth, talking and not even waiting for a breath, just keep going and going. Now when I hear myself or see myself on TV it’s someone else. It’s really strange.

“Some days the message from the brain to the mouth is really slow and makes it difficult, or some days the words come out different than what you’re trying to say - and that’s even weirder. That’s been hard to accept - and is still hard to accept.”

On the back of those comments, former Villa coach Terry reached out to Kamara on Twitter, sending his support by saying: “@chris_kammy You are a LEGEND. We all love you. Keep fighting.”

A nice touch.