The family of a former Blackburn Rovers footballer is appealing for people and businesses to come up with fundraising ideas to help support their son who has a rare form of cancer.

Rio Spurr, the son of ex-defender Tommy Spurr, was diagnosed in April last year and has since had an operation to remove a tumour and his right kidney.

Rio has nine weeks of chemotherapy left, which will take the total to 42 weeks at the end of treatment, and in that time will have had six different cytotoxic drugs and 10 consecutive days of radiotherapy under general anaesthetic.

Lancashire Telegraph: Rio Spurr was diagnosed with cancer last AprilRio Spurr was diagnosed with cancer last April (Image: Chloe Spurr)

As he nears the end of the treatment cycle, the family are appealing for people to continue to support them as they look to add to the £150,000 they have raised since last June as part of the ‘All for Rio’ campaign, and reach a total of £250,000 by April this year.

Rio’s mother, Chloe, said in a Facebook post that they want to raise as much money as possible by April in case the treatment does not work or if Rio relapses.

She added: “We are aiming for at least £250,000 by April. We won’t stop at that and we will continue with the fundraising.

“April is when we’re looking to have raised it by because Rio will have had his end of treatment scans at that point, which we obviously hope and pray are clear and show that there is no cancer remaining after all the treatment he had had.

“He may not be cured, he may relapse very quickly, which is common. And if we find ourselves in a position where we need to access a clinical trial abroad we want to be ready for that.”

There have been lots of fundraising events already, including Tommy doing a 120-mile bike ride to all of his old football clubs, a group called Rio’s Ramblers walking 27 miles from Blackpool Tower to The Bonny Inn in Blackburn, and Chloe and Tommy climbing Snowden in North Wales along with 20 friends and family.

Lancashire Telegraph: Tommy Spurr (left) and Chloe with their sons Rio (right) and Rudy (left)Tommy Spurr (left) and Chloe with their sons Rio (right) and Rudy (left) (Image: Chloe Spurr)

They stressed that no idea is too big or too small and they will be grateful for any donations and fundraising ideas that people come up with.

Chloe continued: “No matter what it is, the answer will always be yes – please go for it.

“If anyone has any ideas for fundraising events or challenges, Tom and I are both more than happy to help come up with ideas or work with people.

"There’s only a certain amount of time we can dedicate as a family to planning events. We’ve done an awful lot since Rio was diagnosed.

“We’re more than happy to help anybody if they contact us. A lot of people have contacted us over the last couple of days since I posted that appeal and I think there’s at least ten new exciting fundraisers that are now going on because of that appeal.

“Quite a few of them are strangers as well, people that we don’t know that have contacted us which is just unbelievable.”

To donate to the All for Rio campaign, click here for the GoFundMe page.