Footballer, 11, receiving medical treatment in Sheffield aims to turn pro like his dad despite condition

Evan, aged 11, is an academy football player and winner of the BBC Young Reporter of the Year award after reporting on his arthritis, which he gets treatment for at Sheffield Children's Hospital.

For a while before his diagnosis in 2022, Polyarticular Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) stopped Evan from playing football at Grimsby Town academy.

He struggled to get up and down stairs, could not walk long distances, and was in pain despite taking a break from training.

He said: "When I couldn’t play I felt really sad. My team weren’t really winning any games so I felt like I was letting them down a bit.

"When I grow up I want to be a professional footballer like my dad was. And I won’t let JIA stop me."

Evan, whose dad is the former Grimsby Town FC player Ben Davies, heads from his home in Cleethorpes to Sheffield Children’s Hospital each month, where he is on a clinical trial for a new treatment.

He added: "Even though the injections hurt sometimes, I’m really happy because they help me go back to football.

"Arthritis isn’t just something that your granny has. Arthritis isn’t what you get from cracking your fingers, and it doesn’t just affect your joints."

Arthritis affects around 1 in 1,000 children in the UK, and Evan won the BBC Young Reporter of the Year competition in the national category for raising awareness of this fact.

Evan’s mum, Lisa, said: "To see Evan so unwell was utterly heartbreaking. He was in so much pain and couldn’t do all the things he loved.

"But, after only a month on the clinical trial, the results were remarkable. The pain he’d been in for the past year disappeared and he was back being able to play football.

"We never thought we would be back where we are now. The impact is indescribable.  We will forever be grateful for the treatment he has received at Sheffield Children’s."