Law and McDermott both diagnosed with mental degenerative illnesses
More sad news has hit British football, in the shape of two more former greats of the game being diagnosed with dementia. Denis Law, 81, one of the greatest players to wear the shirts of Manchester United, Manchester City or Scotland, and the 1964 winner of the Ballon D’Or, announced he was suffering from Alzheimer’s & vascular dementia. This was less than a year after the equally sad news that his old club mate, Bobby Charlton, had also been diagnosed with dementia.
Law said in his statement, “The road ahead will be hard, demanding, painful and ever changing and so {I} ask for understanding and patience. I recognise how my brain is deteriorating and how my memory evades me when I don’t want it to and how this causes me distress in situations that are beyond my control.”
In a later interview, Law stated that he lays the blame for his illness squarely on heading the ball so frequently throughout his career. “What else would it be? That was what caused damage to the brain. You were heading the ball, which was quite heavy in those days, but you didn’t think about it. We just thought it was normal.”
In fact, contrary to urban myth, the ball back in the 1950s-1970’s, when Law played, was no heavier than the modern ball. But it did have a harder, less flexible surface, which would still have made impacts on player’s heads less forgiving.
Just days later, Terry McDermott, three-time European Champion and five-times League Champion with Liverpool, and capped 25 times by England, announced that he was in the early stages of Lewy Body dementia. McDermott, 69, said of the struggle ahead for him and his loved ones, “Battling is second nature. The worst thing was, until my condition was diagnosed you don’t know what’s going on. The number of ex-players being diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s is frightening.”
As McDermott implies, the rate at which ex-footballers are being diagnosed with these conditions is extremely worrying; it is more than treble the rate across the rest of society. At a time when football is under growing pressure to assess the impact heading the ball has on players, these very saddening announcements are sure to add impetus to what is becoming a very urgent campaign.
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