CHEMOTHERAPY “hastened” the death of a football-mad 22-year-old, an inquest found.

Chipping Norton FC player Shaun Weller died on May 2, two days after beginning chemotherapy for a rare form of liver cancer.

The window cleaner, a dad-of-one, died at The Horton Hospital in Banbury after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Oxfordshire coroner Darren Salter recorded a verdict that Mr Weller’s death was an accident after hearing from medical staff.

His family afterwards praised the NHS and paid tribute to a“considerate” son.

Mr Salter said: “It does seem to me that the treatment of chemotherapy hastened the death”.

He added: “That is not to say there is any negligence in the treatment. Medical treatment does sometimes result in death or hasten death.

“That may be because of some adverse reaction or complication that can’t be anticipated.”

In a statement, GP Dr Stephen Quelch said he referred Mr Weller for scans after he complained of chest pains.

He was diagnosed with the terminal disease on February 2 and oncologist Dr Kinnari Patel saw him on March 22.

Because the cancer was so rare, further help was sought from specialists at London’s Royal Free Hospital on treatment, she said.

Dr Patel said: “Shaun expressed the wish to have anything that might be beneficial, no matter how toxic it was.” She said: “I wonder if some very rare event has happened with chemotherapy that I don’t think we could have foreseen.”

But she said the cancer could have “overwhelmed” his body.

Consultant pathologist Ben Phillips said: “If he hadn’t started on chemotherapy he wasn’t likely to have died at that time.”

His dad Anthony, mother Charmaine, sister Kim and partner Sally Keen attended yesterday’s inquest in Oxford.

The Oxford United fan, from Cotswold Crescent, Chipping Norton, played for the first team of Chipping Norton FC and was dad to Tiana, now three.

His mother told the Oxford Mail: “We never felt that anyone was to blame. It never entered our heads.”

“He was a considerate young lad. He would always worry about everyone else.

“When he was going through his treatment he would always worry about everybody else.”

The family “never wanted to hear anything negative” about his prognosis, she said, adding: “Where there is life there is hope. That is what you have got to believe in.”

An August charity football match at his former club featuring former United stars raised £2,000 to support his daughter and Oxford University cancer research.

A further cake and coffee event will raise cash for research at Chipping Norton Town Hall on November 7 from 9am to midday.