Versus Cancer

Versus Cancer was an annual concert, reportedly then the largest annual charity concert in the United Kingdom. It raised money predominantly for Cancer Hospital Christie Hospital in Manchester to assist research for effective alternative treatments but acted more as a blanket charity aiming to help fund hospitals or organisations that may require assistance.^[1]

In 2005 Manchester Versus Cancer was founded by Andy Rourke (bass player from The Smiths), Nova Rehman his ex-manager, Tom Smetham a former ITV Granada Television producer and Stephen Chapman a former ITV News journalist. It is now known as Versus Cancer. It was set up as a response by Andy and Nova to Nova's Sister Nina and his Father Sheik Abdur both being diagnosed with bowel cancer and the first two concerts were initially funded by Nova. Sadly they both succumbed to the disease.

In 2007 shortly after the concert, Tom and Stephen left Versus Cancer to pursue other projects. Nova, in a departure from his long-time work in the music industry is currently working with green investment funds and creating bespoke products for the energy industry, two fintech payment processing companies, a technology incubator and a funding entity.

With most of the original staff having moved on to other projects it is not expected that Versus Cancer will regain its original momentum.

It has been reported that the Charity will some years off from live work whilst working on a new formula for fundraising and execution of new joint venture projects aimed at prevention of cancer through various media.

In 2009 Andy Rourke quit his band project with Mani and Peter Hook called Freebass and moved to New York. Tom Smetham now lives in Los Angeles as a producer and Stephen Chapman developed new regional projects working with large NW based companies.