ONE by one, his team-mates from the Middlesbrough class of '86 have been to visit Gary Parkinson at the Priory Highbank Centre in Bury. He is no longer able to speak, he communicates with his eyelids and occasionally shows signs of attempting to raise a smile.

Parkinson has been effectively paralysed by locked-in syndrome since September last year, confining the fit former footballer to his bed or, if he feels up to it after recent improvements, a wheelchair.

Yet to all those who have been to try to lift his spirits, the 42-year-old has been able to express his personality. Whether it has been Tony Mowbray, Bernie Slaven or Mark Proctor, they have all reported that he still has the same sense of humour and the same infectious character.

After being rocked by the horrendous illness, which has shattered him and those closest to him, the football family have united around him.

Cards, flowers and presents have arrived from across the country to express sympathy and support for the likeable former Boro right-back, who also had spells at Southend, Bolton, Burnley, Preston and Blackpool before finishing his career in non-league.

Locked-in syndrome means he is aware and awake but cannot move, speak or swallow due to paralysis of the muscles. As well as raising his eyelids, he also communicates by fixing his eyes on different letters and words held in front of him.

His wife, Debbie, and their three children, Sophie, Luke and Chloe, have had to try to come to terms with a completely different life at home. Instead of waiting for husband and dad to return home, they have been visiting him and looking for any sign of hope.

"It's been hard but we have all been determined to stay positive," said Debbie, who indicated her husband would not be travelling to Teesside for tomorrow's benefit game at the Riverside Stadium.

"There has been a massive improvement in the last eight months. I am full of hope and staying positive."

Parkinson has been trapped in his own body since suffering a stroke in September. He was moved from the Royal Bolton Hospital, near to where he lives, to the Priory in Bury in October and gradual progress has been made.

There were no warning signs leading up the stroke. Debbie has previously recalled how Blackpool's head of youth had been to work as normal and came home in good spirits before heading to bed.

She said: "Gary woke up with a severe headache and he hasn't really spoken to us since that day in September. He woke up the next morning and said he had a really heavy headache; a strange headache and he felt like the whole house was spinning round."

After being taken to hospital, her husband was in a coma within 24 hours, on a ventilator and fighting for his life. He had had a brain stem stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome.

The condition is incurable. Many patients do not recover, but there are a number of people who have successfully fought the disease and eventually returned to normal lives.

Given the progress Parkinson has made in the last nine months, doctors have been encouraged enough to suggest to his family that he will probably make sounds and speak again.

But the work goes on to help him. Tomorrow will see a representative Middlesbrough team, made up of his former team-mates and ex-players, take on a Mowbray-managed Ramsdens celebrity XI in front of an expected crowd of more than 5,000 at the Riverside as a benefit match.

There were also around 1,000 people who attended a charity dinner at the Tall Trees Hotel, near Yarm, on Thursday, organised through former Middlesbrough striker Bernie Slaven.

Parkinson was brought up in Thornaby and would regularly watch from the terraces at Ayresome Park, where his first hero was Northern Ireland winger Terry Cochrane, who will be playing tomorrow.

"Terry was my idol along with the likes of Mark Proctor, Craig Johnston, Dave Hodgson and Dave Armstrong," reflected Parkinson in the Class of '86 book that was published five years ago.

"They were mainly lads who came up through the youth set up, which would be the same for us in 1986. I was always in the Holgate End, sometimes trying to get a squeeze in but most of the time going with my dad."

Parkinson thought his chance of playing for Middlesbrough had gone at the age of 14, when the centre of excellence told him he would never be good enough, so he instead signed apprenticeship forms at Everton.

Six months into his Goodison Park youth team career, however, he was homesick. Middlesbrough's former chief scout, Barry Geldart, persuaded him to sign a YTS deal at Boro, just as he was about to sign for Cyril Knowles' Darlington.

When Bruce Rioch replaced Willie Maddren as manager during times when Middlesbrough were on the verge of financial collapse, Parkinson found himself thrust into the spotlight.

His home debut, ironically, was at Hartlepool's Victoria Ground when the Ayresome Park gates were infamously closed in times of liquidation. After an inexperienced team made up of home-grown talents secured a 2-2 draw, Middlesbrough went on to win successive promotions and he was an integral part of it.

"I played right side centre-half, so I was right alongside him for a few years," said Mowbray, who was the team's captain. "He is younger than me by a few years, but he was a lad who wanted to learn.

"He listened and he was very respectful of the players around him. He was a good young footballer. He could hit short passes, long passes and he could strike a fantastic ball. He was an important cog who was growing up in a team in an era when the team picked itself."

After that first season, Parkinson went on to make 265 appearances for Middlesbrough, scoring eight goals, including a notable one past Everton goalkeeper Neville Southall, before he left for Bolton in 1993 after a short spell at Southend United the previous season.

It was after the back-to-back promotions he got to link up down the right side with one of his childhood favourites, Proctor, who has stayed a close friend of the family and has been regularly to visit him in hospital.

As well as being a vital part of Rioch's team on the pitch, Parkinson's humour and approach to life also meant he had a key role to play in the dressing room.

"Parky once had a knee problem and he had part of his cartilage taken away. It was miniscule," remembered Proctor. "Me and Bernie got an old-fashioned medicine bottle and we got some thick spongy felt that we used to put around our ankles. We cut this felt into a horse shoe and we put it in the brown bottle and filled it with water.

"The day after the operation, we said ‘have you seen the size of the cartilage you have had taken away, Parky?' He was convinced it was his cartilage! It was massive and, honestly, a horse could not have carried this cartilage."

After Lennie Lawrence let him go, Parkinson went on to win promotion through the play-offs with Burnley - scoring the winner at Wembley - and Blackpool. He also won the Football League Trophy with the latter in 2002.

His time in the North-West has also left fans of the other clubs he has played for rallying round to help after his heartbreaking tale, but Proctor says there are plenty of reasons for him to be optimistic.

"I have been five or six times to see him," said Middlesbrough's first-team coach. "As soon as you walk in you see there are shirts and cards from all over. He is a very well-loved man. It was a bit like a shrine because he is a really great guy.

"When I went to see him the first time, he was in bed and didn't look great. We are doing all the talking. But it's improved. ‘Now thunder thighs, how you doing?' I will say, I get a little movement out the side of his mouth.

"As the visits have gone on I have seen a marked improvement. He has been home, he now frequents the outside space of his hospital, he gets out. He is getting more receptive. He gets more expressions in his face. You can see a smile and he can show a little disappointment as well. We are all hoping that he will make a full recovery."

Mowbray, who lost his wife in 1995 after a four-year battle with cancer, has also been to visit on a couple of occasions and has been emotional.

"He was and is still very much loved by everyone," said Mowbray.

"He is still improving, likes a laugh and enjoys the company of the players from our era. Let's hope God can find it right to pull him out of the situation he is in.

"It's great that Bernie has put a dinner on and for the people who come to the game on Sunday.

"The bottom line is, as the Boro fans have always sang about players from around here, that Gary Parkinson is one of our own."