One man dies from prostate cancer every 45 minutes in the UK. That statistic, from Prostate Cancer UK, is the cold arithmetic behind a family tragedy that has now put a Lioness on the charity’s ambassador roster. Ella Toone lost her father Nick in 2024.
He was 59 years old. Three days short of his 60th birthday, prostate cancer killed him.
The diagnosis came the day after he watched his daughter score in the Euro 2022 final at Wembley, the match England won 2-1 against Germany. Two years later, he was gone. Toone is now an ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK.
She won the European championships with England in 2022 and again in 2025. She plays for Manchester United.
None of that mattered when her father was dying. She has said he was her “absolute hero” and the reason she is a Lioness. That is the personal weight behind the public role.
Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer in the UK. One in every eight men will get it. The numbers are not abstract.
They are men in their fifties and sixties, fathers, brothers, husbands. The charity funds more prostate cancer research than any other public body in the country.
Its goal is to make screening routine and to give men treatment options that do not wreck their lives with side effects. Toone’s father was diagnosed after she scored in that final. He had watched her play.
Then he got the news. Then he died.
That timeline—from Wembley triumph to funeral—is the shape of what this disease does. It does not wait. It does not care about trophies.
The charity says the next decade will see thousands of men living with prostate cancer or its aftermath. Toone’s role is meant to push that reality into public view. She is not a doctor or a researcher.
She is a footballer who lost her dad. That is the point.
The message is that this happens to families, not just to statistics. Nick Toone died three days before his 60th birthday. That specific detail—three days short—is the kind of thing that sticks.
It is the difference between a milestone reached and a milestone missed. Prostate cancer took that from him and from his daughter.
Toone has now attached her name to the fight for earlier detection and better treatments. The charity has a track record. It has driven breakthroughs in how the disease is diagnosed and treated.
But the clock keeps ticking. Every 45 minutes, another man dies. There is hope in the research pipeline.
The charity is working on making prostate cancer screening as routine as other cancer checks. That would catch cases earlier, when treatment works better.
But hope is not a guarantee. It is a goal that requires pressure, money, and public attention. Toone’s father was the reason she became a Lioness.
Now his death is the reason she is standing with Prostate Cancer UK. That is the story.
A daughter, a father, a disease that kills a man every 45 minutes. The stakes are that simple and that brutal.
