A recent study from the Mail on Sunday found almost half of the players from the 1965-66 season in England who’ve died since did so because of a neurodegenerative disease like dementia or Alzheimer’s.
This year, the sheer scale of football’s dementia problem has slowly reared its head, with name after name of players from that era either passing away with dementia or revealing they’d been diagnosed with it.
In November, Bobby Charlton, one of the famous faces from that very World Cup-winning team, revealed he too had dementia. He lost his brother Jack in the summer, and teammate Nobby Stiles just weeks ago – both of which also had the disease.
Former Premier League winner Chris Sutton is now the face of Daily Mail campaign aiming to get the FA, and Players union the PFA, to put more effort into addressing the problem. His father Mike Sutton also has dementia and played in that same 1966 season as a midfielder for Norwich.
In this episode, we ask: What more can UK authorities do to tackle dementia in football?
Guest: Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) is a football pundit who appears on BT Sport and BBC Radio 5 Live – among many other places.
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Music:
The music for this episode was provided under the Creative Commons license by Blue Dot Sessions.
‘Wax Paper Jewel’ by Blue Dot Sessions
‘Felt Lining’ by Blue Dot Sessions
‘Waterbourne’ by Blue Dot Sessions
