Ipswich Town’s Kieron Dyer ‘wouldn’t be here’ without liver donor

A former Ipswich Town and England player has urged people to become organ donors after saying he “wouldn’t be here today” if not for a life-saving liver transplant.

Kieron Dyer, who started his footballing career with the Tractor Boys in 1996, had the operation in 2023 after being diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis in 2019.

The chronic liver condition, characterised by inflammation and scarring of the bile ducts, caused the former Ipswich schoolboy’s eyes and skin to turn yellow.

The 46-year-old spoke to the BBC after the NHS revealed 30 people from Suffolk had died or been removed from the transplant waiting list in the last decade.

“I wouldn’t be here today without a donor, so I will always be forever grateful; it is a matter of life and death,” said Dyer, two years on from his operation.

“I had a very rare disease and I looked like Bart Simpson at times, so it was really worrying but when it comes to critical conditions, the NHS is absolutely fantastic.”

The NHS has released its figures as part of Organ Donation Week, which show 359 people across the East of England region died in the last 10 years before they could have a transplant.

Dyer believed he could have been one of those fatalities, given that his donor’s family was initially opposed to the idea of him giving away his organs.

“It was just by chance they were watching a TV show and someone had to give an organ, and my donor said ‘When I am gone, they can have all my organs’,” he said.

“So without that conversation maybe I wouldn’t be here today; that’s the importance of raising awareness about it.”

Dyer played for the Blues between 1996 and 1999 before signing for Newcastle, followed by an injury-hit period at West Ham. He returned to Portman Road during a brief loan spell in 2011 before later becoming the club’s Under-23s manager.

He also appeared in TV show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here in 2015.

“Volunteer to give your organs up and help millions and millions of people,” he said.

“I am on the organ list to give everything, the lot, and the more people who are donators, the more chance people – including children – will have of living.”