Glenn Roeder RIP who died this week was reportedly suffering from Migraine and ultimately a brain tumour which was allegedly caused by heading the ball repeatedly.

Jack Charlton Bobby Charlton Jimmy Greaves and  other  notable footballers have all succumbed to dementia which they attribute to repeated heading of footballs.

Of course old leather footballs which were leaden when sodden with rain are not comparable to modern lightweight plastic coated footballs but still pack a punch when attacked by a soft cranium at speed

It is obvious that research into the phenomena of injury to the head by footballs should be instigated and perhaps in training and junior games protective headgear should be worn to minimise the number of times that a head sustains contact over a footballers career.

OFB

Funnily enough, I hardly ever recall Bobby Charlton heading the ball (apart from the goal in the European cup Final). 

Malcolm, in a post near the end of the Swansea-game thread, left a Twitter link to an short interview Hayley McQueen gave to the BBC about the recent diagnosis of vasular dementia made in the case of her father, Gordon McQueen.  Jarkko also referred to Gordon.  Hopefully this response will not be too long, but here goes...

Firstly I do live near Gordon and see him from time to time (obviously seeing ANYONE over the last 12 months has been curtailed as a result of the COVID-19 situation following the Lockdown which first came into effect almost exactly 12 months ago).  He will not recognise the "moniker" Forever Dormo, though.

I use that name here and on Twitter because, until a matter of weeks ago, I was engaged in child protection work which, by its very nature, brought me into contact with a whole range of people - professionals, the Courts, parents and children - SOME of whom, if aggrieved by the outcomes of cases in which they have been involved, it might not be sensible to allow a means of sending inappropriate messages via electronic/social media.  The vast majority of those people involved in the work are fine and there would be no issue with them, but there are some with drugs/alcohol/mental health/behavioural and violence issues who would not fall into that description.  As a result, I have used the moniker as a means of ensuring some anonymity and protection.  However I hope that nothing I have ever put onto sites like this, or on Twitter, would be considered anything other than perfectly proper expressions of opinion.  I try to be reasonable. I don't seek to offend but reaslise people will not always agree with me.  I hope all that I have "put out there" could equally have been published in a newspaper or heard on the radio.  The name is not used so that I can be scurrilous or say scandalous things.

For that reason, I have kept separately my personal identity and the persona of Forever Dormo.  Maybe only 4 or 5 people outside my family know the two are the same, and a few more might suspect.  Many people know the job I have been doing but also know that I don't talk, except in the most general terms, about it, so that children and others cannot be identified, and so confidentiality can be maintained.

Nobody who goes to my pub KNOWS who Forever Dormo is.  They know who I am.  That's the reason, when I have talked about pubs in the past (probably not for a long time as I am beginning to forget what they were!), I have mentioned the fictional "Slaughtered Sheep",  "Tortured Toad" or "Hammered Hippo".  I have also not quoted what friends have told me.

It is correct I live near to Gordon McQueen.  I will try to be sensitive in what I say.  He has a right to privacy.

I do go to the pub and used often to see him there, to watch football matches and have a drink and a chat.  (I look forward to that resuming if the pub ever re-opens).  He has a circle of like-minded friends. It is general knowledge that Gordon has had treatment for and recovered from throat cancer and like many former footballers has had issues with mobility.  The latter is no doubt a legacy of playing football with injuries, having painkilling injections to enable him to play through the pain and, like many other old footballers that will be likely to lead to arthritis and joint problems. The recent diagnosis, Hayley makes clear in the interview, was no surprise to him or the family but I hadn't seen him in the pub for ages.  I had seen him very occasionally in the street as he walked to or from the shop, but not to stop and have any lengthy chat with in recent months.  He'd nod and say "Hi" or ask if I'm alright, and I'd answer similarly.  His mobility was similar to previously (ie not very good).

The thing to say is that he is good company.  He is especially good with children - a trademark trick of finding a coin in the child's ear always delights them.  And the thing is also that, dementia being what it is (as Hayley says), there will be good days and less than good days.  He may be better now than he will be in a year or two.  Who knows? 

Dementia in its various forms is something that a larger and larger proportion of the population will be coming into contact with, as people live longer.  I suppose at the start of the 20th Century if the average life expectancy of a working class Briton was in the region of 40 years, the majority are likely to have died of TB, cholera, heart disease, accident or something like that well before reaching the age when dementia may presently be starting to make an appearance in the population.  That may even have been the case for professional footballers who started their careers at or before World War 2.  But it is becoming obvious, now, that quite a lot of high profile players are being diagnosed with some dementia at a younger age than might be common in the general population.  Obviously many, maybe most, old professional players do NOT fall pray to dementia and it maybe just the high profile of those old players that brings the diagnosis to public attention, but, as Hayley has said, there have been a number of such diagnoses recently and it deserves research.

The next question is what can be done to reduce the risk to footballers.  Ban heading for children?  Ban it in training but allow it in "real" games? Require players to wear a headguard in "real" games?  That is the conversation Hayley McQueen is inviting the game's administrators to address. 

I seem to remember some time ago hearing that in a survey of young American athletes, a VERY high percentage of them said they'd be prepared to take steroids or other drugs if it guaranteed an Olympic Gold medal even if it meant there was a good chance they'd die at 40 years old.  I suppose if you are 16 years old, 40 seems an eternity away.  And I guess that if you asked Alan Shearer whether he'd have given up the adulation, the rewards and the goals if he knew there was a risk of dementia at some indeterminate time in decades to come, he might say "No", but that would be to speculate.  The same MIGHT have applied to Nat Lofthouse or John Hickton, but when they played noboby questioned any link between heading the ball and dementia.

But it is something which can, and should, be looked at.  Obviously some jobs are riskier than others.  I haven't been a scaffolder or a steeplejack and therefore haven't had the risk or falling from a great height; I haven't been a soldier with the risk of being shot or blown up.  But it is reasonable for people to know the risks they are being asked to take, and for efforts to be made to reduce those risks to a reasonable level and THEN the players can make a choice.  The players of the future might think it's a risk worth taking, or some of them might not.

I think Hayley was being very reasonable in saying that, in the past maybe nobody was to blame because there was no knolwledge of the risk, but if to continue without action if we know there IS that risk...

(Incidentally, a friend well known to me, to Gordon and those at the Slaughtered Sheep, has just died after a fight of several weeks against COVID-19.  A fairly fit chap, regular golfer, did some weights and exercise.  Loved a drink - social beers and wine but within respectable limits - and his sport, and with a real breadth of knowledge.  A really good bloke.  Be careful out there.  The risks haven't disappeared just because most of us have had our first "jab".  I might be wrong - as obviously with Lockdown I hadn't been seeing him unless for a chance meeting in the street or the shop- but I suspect he became ill just before he was due for his vaccination.  Maybe couple of months from now, and hopefully we'll then be through this grim period).

Lovely to hear from you on here FD. Keep safe and (please) keep contributing. Oh, and enjoy your retirement. 

Forever Dormo,

Thoughtful, thought provoking and food for thought too. Good to hear from you again, post again and stay safe.

All the best,

UTB,

John

@forever-dormo

Nice to have you back. I don't think I have ever given too certain clues about you, mate. Nice to hear you are ok and hope to see you soon at the Riverside. Up the Boro! 

All is fine, Jarkko. Mind you it is dark grey outside, raining now, and with the prospect of high winds (I see 84mph in North Wales tomorrow, lower than that in North Yorkshire but it's no doubt coming our way).

@forever-dormo

Extremely good and thought provoking post ForeverDormo. Happy retirement and thank you for having been one of the people working to keep our young people safe. Difficult and I am sure emotionally draining work at times.

I agree with the principle you talk about, that once you know there is a risk the relevant bodies have a duty of care to address the risk, to mitigate it as best possible without necessarily impinging on an individual's right to choose in full knowledge of the implications.

That is for the adults though. Children do need to be protected and so it would be proper to ban any heading of the ball for children, perhaps even  until 15 of 16 years of age. If you can successfully make a violent game such as rugby no  contact for young players, you can ban heading in football for the young ones too. As adults they can go on to make their own decisions about it.

Great to see FD on here again and as usual an excellent post. Reading Martin's opening article about Ben Mee the thing that struck me was that Ben intends to have a brain scan when he finishes playing. Surely Clubs and the Football governing bodies should be introducing routine brain scans as part of the general wellbeing of players. Finding something at say 25 years old that can be mitigated or even cured is far better than damage being done and then finding it too late?

It may prematurely end some careers but that has to be a better outcome than the alternative. Like FD and a few more of us on here I try and keep my RR persona separate from my work and private life. Following Boro can interfere with my Work/Boro balance in terms of shuffling and reorganising things but not to the detriment of my work but I can see how some may perceive it as such should they have a want and there are some things I want to remain private.

I volunteer to be part of a general medical health screening project where they poke and prod me every so often and have unrestricted access to my medical files and history and up to the point where I finally get a season ticket to the Holgate in the sky. The hope is that they can collate participant info, detect diseases, illnesses etc. better by knowing peoples lifestyles (regular questionnaires), routines even diets and draw comparisons or see if there are things that are common amongst certain ailments and groups of sufferers. 

Part of this guinea pig membership is that they also send me for full medical head to toe examinations, Brain Scans, Heart monitoring, Bloods, X Rays etc. During one such check up they discovered I have a Brain Tumour which put the fear of that all seeing ever present genius in the sky up me I can say. A few weeks of harsh reality set in along with hastily a arranged Will as I was bumped up the NHS queue. I have to say it was a very rude awakening. 

Upon seeing the Consultant and after more detailed and specific scans he informed that that it is a meningioma. Now I hadn't a clue what one of those was let alone pronounce it but the good news is that he figured it has been there for some time but couldn't be accurate on how long. At the moment it is sat nestled in my brain and his prognosis is that if it isn't broke don't fix it as the after effects could be worse than the problem itself or even terminal. 

Bringing this back to the relevance of our topic, you can guess that I have asked many questions and done lot's of research. Apparently tumours of my type can be with us from birth and we live reasonably normal lives (I did ask if supporting Boro is a possible side effect of having a cranial defect) without ever knowing they exist and are only found during autopsies, usually when the cause of death is something entirely unrelated and often at a healthy old age.

Surprisingly not much is known about them other than the gory bit of drilling and cutting skulls to remove them. I understand that a study was done in the Netherlands around twenty years ago or more where they randomly scanned individuals who had no previous known ailments and found that 10% of the population had these little nuggets nestled in their head. In other words 10% are living perfectly normal lives and unless they suffer a head trauma of some sort requiring a scan they never know.

Putting that into a Footballing perspective is frightening if true (and I am nowhere remotely qualified to say if the 10% is a reasonable figure but no reason to doubt it's integrity). I have always suffered from dizziness as a child when on fairground rides and now wonder if it is related and of course now anything which causes any moments of confusion (Swansea Refereeing) or light headedness makes me ultra cautious (paranoid is perhaps a better term). In my particular case there were white bits on the scan which I was told meant that it was calcified in the middle which in turn meant that it had ben there for some time, possibly from my teens, twenties, thirties but couldn't be accurate or indeed since birth. 

In a squad of 25 players that means that two or three of them could have brain tumours and know nothing about it unless they are scanned. I have assumed that it is more likely to be 10% of the general population across all ages and walks of life rather than directly attributable to a group of fit and healthy twenty and thirty somethings but regardless I'm surprised that brain scans are not routinely carried out during football medicals which must be the case if Ben Mee is saying he is only thinking of having one when he retires.

I played football at school and college and headed those sodden leather caseys, whether that is related I have no idea and I doubt there is any let alone enough medical evidence to say either way but surely it's better to have preventative checks on these young men (and women). 

Thanks for the kind words, RR.

Sorry to hear about the brain tumour but clearly it must be benign if it's been there for so long, and maybe since infancy.  No less worrying to be told about it, though!

I wonder whether, for example, some people might have various unsuspected and "innocent" non-symptomatic conditions relating to their brain, which might never be discovered unless at some future date and by chance in a minority of people it is "kick-started" into action as a result of trauma - a head injury or repeated "insults" to the brain such as repeated thumping headers?  Hopefully research will reveal.

Posted by: @forever-dormo

Sorry to hear about the brain tumour but clearly it must be benign if it's been there for so long, and maybe since infancy.  No less worrying to be told about it, though!

 

It is indeed benign but as you say scared the pants off me at the time.