Wales football stars have joined the bone marrow register for Marley Nicholls, who may require another blood transfusion

Marley Nicholls, from Bettws, Newport, suffers from the rare blood condition aplastic anaemia, and his family are searching for a bone marrow match.

He had a blood transfusion just five weeks ago, however the number of units of platelets in his blood, which are responsible for helping to clot blood, have dropped again to the level where a transfusion is needed.

Marley's mum, Shaney Truman, said: “Marley’s okay at the minute, but he’s having more quiet days at the moment.

“His platelets are at 11, and you need a transfusion at 10, so it looks like we will be in for transfusion next week.

“If you see Marley, I bet most of you wouldn’t know anything is wrong, apart from the bruising.

“I find it so cruel and so hard to get my head around. When I look at him, he looks relatively well but on the inside his blood is saying otherwise.”

On Tuesday, the Welsh football team were swabbed and joined the bone marrow register, and ahead of the game with Denmark this evening a swabbing event has been held at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Marley Nicholls met with the Wales squad, who were swabbed and joined the bone marrow donor register. Picture: FA Wales

Ms Truman said earlier this week: “There will be 33,000 people attending the game on Friday, so we are hoping to get 1,000 people to sign up.”

There are also upcoming swabbing events at Abercarn Fire Station on Sunday and Coleg Gwent Nash Coleg in the near future.

So far, more than 30,000 people have signed up as bone marrow donors in south Wales alone.

Worldwide, the number could be as high as double that, after the impact of a number of celebrities publicly supporting Marley’s campaign, including Hollywood star Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson, supermodel Heidi Klum, comedian John Bishop, and Lord Alan Sugar.

Ms Truman said: “There was a large boom of people signing up. We had quite a few people get in touch from America trying to find out how they could get involved.”

Tomorrow night, Marley will again link up with the Welsh Football Team, as he helps out national team manager Ryan Giggs switch on Newport's Christmas lights.

Wales manager and former Manchester United player Giggs was announced as the star turn for Newport Now’s Countdown to Christmas event last week, but it was confirmed earlier this week that he will be joined by Marley.

Newport mayor Councillor Malcolm Linton will join them ahead of switching on the Christmas lights at 5.15pm.

Despite a number of swabbing events, and the thousands that have registered to become bone marrow donors, no match has been found.

Ms Truman said that Marley’s condition means that without a transplant, doctors said he could die in the next two or three years.

Find out more about the Marrow for Marley campaign at facebook.com/marrowformarley.