The Beautiful Game and the Ugly Truth

Football's Tragic Link with Dementia

Kieran Gill

• Publisher: Pitch Publishing
• eBook ISBN:
  9781801502788
• Year: 2022

The Beautiful Game and The Ugly Truth: Football's Tragic Link to Dementia is an emotive examination of the world's most popular sport and its ties to a devastating disease. In 2002, a coroner ruled Jeff Astle's death at the age of 59 was the result of heading footballs. His daughter, Dawn, says football does not believe it can be a killer - but that her father's death certificate proves it can be. Evidence of its impact continues to pile up, 20 years after Jeff's passing. In 2019, Dr Willie Stewart's groundbreaking FIELD study found former footballers are three-and-a-half times more likely than the general population to die of a neurodegenerative disease. In 2020, Sir Bobby Charlton became the fifth member of England's 1966 World Cup-winning side to be diagnosed with dementia. Countless families have seen loved ones slip away from them. Modern professional players are fearing for their futures, too, as experts explain why it is wrong to lay the blame on those old heavy leather footballs.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Chris Sutton
• ‘A Football Disease’
• 1. A History of ‘Punch-Drunk’ Players
• 2. ‘Good Handwriting for a Doctor’
• 3. Long Live the King
• 4. ‘Please, See That My Brain Is Given To The NFL’s Brain Bank’
• 5. Now We Know – There is a Link
• 6. Football Without Heading
• 7. The Spennymoor Test Run
• 8. The Old Leather Ball Myth
• 9. ‘The Invisible Patients’
• 10. A Macho Mess
• 11. ‘Ref, Is This the World Cup Final?’
• 12. The Boys of ‘66
• 13. You Forget, Then You’re Forgotten
• Bibliography
• Photos