Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan has revealed he is recovering from prostate cancer.

Jordan has been absent from his regular spot on talkSPORT recently and, speaking on the radio station, he detailed his experience of the disease and urged other men to get tested.

The 55-year-old, who was chairman of Palace from 2000 to 2010, said: “I’m recovering from cancer. I’ve had some quite significant surgery. I had the surgery two weeks ago. It’s been quite debilitating. I’m going to be recovering from it for a period of time.

“I think it’s a very important subject. If someone hadn’t have spoken to me about being tested – I had no symptoms of prostate cancer and no reason to believe I had any particular challenges, but someone very close to me did have challenges, so I went off and had a very simple blood test, which men of a certain age, from 30 upward, need to be looking at.

“If I hadn’t have had the surgery, I wouldn’t be here. There’s a real issue out there with awareness of this. If you’re going to have a cancer, this is the one to have.

“But, if you don’t address it in the way you need to, you will find yourself in a situation where one in eight white men will get prostate cancer, and one in four black men will get prostate cancer. If men don’t take it seriously, people are losing their lives over it and it’s really, really avoidable.”