Calls are being
made for the authorities in football to provide care for former players who are
living with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease as a result of their career.
Former Liverpool striker Ian St John
is the latest to raise the issue of dementia as a possible result of heading
heavy footballs in the 1950s and 1960s.
The 78-year-old told BBC Radio 5:
“People of our era, the balls we played with were big, heavy things,
“To lift them up to take a throw-in
you’d have to do special training, and the conditions we played in - snow, rain
and mud - and we trained with these things as well, every day, heading practice
as well.
“Whether this problem of dementia
hastens the end of your life or not I don’t know, I’m not a medical person -
but what I am saying is these were my pals, these were the guys I played with
and they have got these problems.
“If someone needs special care as a
result of their career and their career was football, then football should pay
for that.”
The call comes after two former
Canaries players - Duncan Forbes and Martin Peters - both became victims of
Alzheimer’s disease.
Last year the Football Association
announced it was planning to explore whether heading footballs can create a
greater risk of developing brain illness in later life.
Mr Forbes made more than 300
appearances for the Canaries, and first showed signs of Alzheimer’s around
2005.
His wife, Janette Forbes said: “As
Duncan was a centre back he used to head the ball all the time. In training he
even used to head a medicine ball – the theory was he would be able to head a
football further. There is no doubt in my mind that this has caused his
problems nowadays.”
The connection was brought to
the public eye in 2002, when
former England striker Jeff Astle
died of a degenerative brain disease at 59.
A coroner concluded that Mr Astle’s
death was an “industrial disease” due to heading the ball.
SOURCE: Eastern Daily Press, Dominic Gilbert
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