Former footballers,their families and politicians came together in Manchester last week to call on the football authorities and the Government to take decisive action on football and dementia
Led by the Metro Mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram,their campaign aims to raise awareness of CTE and dementia in football causing by the heading of the ball
John Stiles, son of England World Cup winner Nobby in an emotional speech talked of the anger behind the campaign,describing how his dad began losing his memory in his 50’s
His brain was donated for snap after his death, “heading killed by Dad” and the analysis proved that he died of CTE not of Alzheimer’s as was previously thought
Stiles reminded the audience that five of the World Cup winning team died of dementia
He started campaigning four years ago asking for a promptly implemented care programme
Families he says have exhausted funds in caring costs and his father was lucky that he had medals to sell to fund his end of life care
The FA are ignoring the issue, and in harsh words described the PFA, the footballer’s union as being morally bankrupt in refusing to acknowledge the issue
He described instances of being thrown out of stadiums and training grounds for trying to raise the issue
“Football is so wealthy-They could sort this out tomorrow” adding that it was scandalous that the NHS and the taxpayer should have to help when football should be paying for it
Former England International Peter Reid reminded the audience how much money is paid out in transfer fees
He remembered being at Bolton as a youngster starting out with players training heading the old fashioned Casey football
“We have to get together and galvanise this”
Former Liverpool player Jim Beglin read a letter from wife of Chris Nichol who passed away last year describing the awful circumstances of his last few months in a care home
His past few months could have been so much better “so thanks for nothing” she said of the football authorities
“Football was his life,football took his life, I lost my husband to football”
Speaking to the conference Dr William Stewart a consultant Neuropathologist at the University of Glasgow described it as an industrial disease
The meeting was told how $1.4 billion is paid in US by the NFL and how it puts the whole issue in the U.K.into perspective
How do we do right but have we got it right going forward?
While the balls are lighter today they travel probably as a much quicker speed and should we be looking at introducing future measures without fundamentally changing the game?
Paul Cooper, Consultant Neurologist at Manchester Centre for clinical science at Salford Royal told us that there were major issues going forward with this for player playing the game at the moment
“Historically it has been thought that this was a problem due to the old type ball but research says that this problem has not gone away and this is still going to be a problem”
The modern ball he added moving much faster creates the same forces on the head
The issue now he continues is whether this might require fundamental changes in the laws of the game particularly around the goal area
He cites Geoff Hurst’s recent autobiography who places a change in strategy around the near post header
He also reminded us that the issue is not necessary about the headers in the game, it is the amount that you do on the training field
Modern players he adds are probably not aware of the issues around heading the ball
“They need to be made aware of the risks of repetitive heading”
