On Good Friday, striker Andy Scott started his 39^th game of the 2004/05 season for Leyton Orient, a League match at home to Cheltenham. 

Only 20 minutes had passed when Scott began to feel unusually tired.  He retreated into his own half for a while, but the problems became worse, and he felt sharp pains in the chest before eventually being substituted at half time. 

A doctor quickly diagnosed a lung infection, and Scott thought little of it until he was advised to have further tests and visited a cardiologist. 

“Within five minutes of looking at me,” Scott remembers, "he said he thought I had HCM, so he did more tests and found out that I did.”

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy is a genetic condition which can prevent the flow of blood around the body due to a tightening of the heart muscle.  Another name for it is ‘sudden death syndrome’. 

In 2003 the footballing world was shocked by the collapse and death on the field of Cameroon International Marc-Vivien Foe during a match with Columbia in the Confederations Cup in France.  A post-mortem diagnosed Foe with HCM. 

Scott had just discovered the same could have happened to him.  All his life he had played with the condition and not known it.  Although doctors told him he could never play again, his immediate reaction was one of relief. 

He said: “It’s a case of relief that you haven’t keeled over and died. Later, it begins to hit you that you’re never going to play again and then your thoughts turn to your family.  This problem is hereditary so you start to think the kids could have it.  The thought that you’re not going to play again isn’t foremost.  It creeps up on you.” 

Scott will soon play in an Orient shirt for the final time as the club play two benefit matches to raise money for his family and also for the charity CRY, which aims to raise awareness of cardiac problems in the young.

Orient visit Scott’s first club, Sutton United, on Saturday, and then play Brentford – where he spent four years – on Wednesday.  The games will be an emotional farewell for Scott, but he is also eager to use them to get a message across about the importance of testing for heart conditions. 

“I think it will be a bit of a celebration of my career and the fact that I’m still here, but it will also raise awareness of the condition and that people who seem fit and healthy can still have life-threatening conditions,” he said.  “From my point of view, I also need to have closure on my career, and put the fact that I’m not playing behind me so that I can get on with my new life.” 

Scott has just taken over as youth team coach at Orient, just one of the many ways the club have backed him since his enforced retirement. 

“I can do quite a bit of exercise without a problem, it hasn’t stopped me doing my job, and being involved in the game it makes it easier to stop playing.” 

Scott is also spending time campaigning for CRY and wants more done to test players for conditions like his own.  With tests costing as little as £34, and doctors able to make a definitive diagnosis on a player once they are 24, Scott sees no reason why all players cannot be tested. 

For now, Scott is looking forward to the games which will end a career that spanned 350 League matches for Sheffield United, Chesterfield, Bury, Brentford, Oxford and Orient. 

“People have been generous enough to have given their time for me and it will be nice to see a lot of people that I haven’t seen for a long time,” he added. 

Find out more about Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM)