Genuinely sorry to hear about your Dad. That is a difficult cross to bear for your family. I have seen dementia first hand and know the consequences.
But I am unsure if the football figures correlate with dementia in the rest of society. I cannot think of football withoud the skill of heading.
Alisson says no. And Phillips career would end overnight.
We used to play 5 a side indoors where the ball wasn’t allowed to go above shoulder height.
Wouldn’t surprise me if we went the way of banning heading to be honest. I don’t think there’s much more that can be done with the ball before it becomes a balloon. The lighter the ball the more difficult it is to get it to fly true and actually have any pace to it. And of course it’s still an impact when the speed of the ball gets up.
I’m honestly not sure where this goes. The lid has been lifted and rightly so.
Well you cant tackle anymore or score legit goals without having them chalked off by VAR.
Might as well ban heading as well.
In all seriousness I think the balls years ago probably did cause dementia as they got so heavy when wet but not balls nowadays. They are literally like heading air.
I remember as a kid heading a ball ( we’re talking mid to late 90s and early noughties) so like the mitre balls and occasionally they would give you a head ache and you’d see stars.
There are loads of sports where trauma to the head is surely as much of a problem as heading a football? Boxing, rugby, martial arts, horse racing…all of which have potential for injury as much as football.
I imagine the old leather laced balls were hard to head, but the skill of meeting the ball correctly would mitigate against potential pain. Its the same today, and seeing a headed goal is a bit special, or a defender clearing danger with a well timed leap is an integral part of the game.
I sympathise with anyone who knows a dementia sufferer, its a condition that steals time and memories for people and traumatises families.
But to be honest I think more evidence and correlation needs to be examined before a conclusion of football being a cause of the condition is finalised.
Shoulder height on Lorenzo Insigne is very different to shoulder height on Peter Crouch.
Yes, I agree.
When the header was incorrectly executed. Its a skill, the same as any other and a poor execution can cause pain.
I coached teams and engaged people who could head a ball correctly to demonstrate the skill.
If heading the ball is eventually banned from the game, will that mean other sports will be looked at? Boxing and Taekwondo for example, the core of both sports involves receiving blows to the head. Should these also be banned? The question I’m asking is, where will all this stop? There are many sporting activities which are far more dangerous than heading a football. You can be killed taking part in motorcycle racing, ban it! You can drown swimming, ban it! This might sound ridiculous, but then I believe banning heading is also. The footballs used today, weigh very little compared to the old leather ones.
Ye there a truth to what you say.
Hopefully the ball being lighter will make a
Différence
Yeah but we were all scrawny 13 year olds. Raging with hormones but living in one of the wettest places in the UK we were never going to reach 6’ tall. We spent too long in the tumble drier after regular soakings walking to and from school.
In truth we had to play that way to save the windows on the gym.
We played with a sponge ball too. Perhaps that’s an idea?
it’s already blown up big time in rugby with some legal cases being brought against the respective rugby unions by retired top level players. The rules in the game are changing, to try and reduce head trauma but it still happens. But at least they’ve ruled out the head being a target now as it was previously.
I think it’s also a massive issue now in American Football. (I still cant figure out how that game is football)
I bet Ice Hockey is another one and I seem to remember some stuff brewing away on that one. Thinking about it that sport has some real player welfare issues from memory.
In truth I don’t know where this all goes for the very reasons you point out.
Ban combat sports definitely. How much evidence do we need? Is our entertainment really worth the trail of misery that combat sports leaves? Think of the thousands of debilitated athletes living lives of misery, thousands for every Mohamed Ali, Jerry Quarry et. al. whose lives were diminished even though they were mad rich (though others made far more money off them) by the sport.
I do t really understand how / why the rugby players are taking the rugby Union to court.
Nobody forced them to play rugby and surely as somebody getting involved in the sport you realise that you are going to be taking some
Big knocks.
It’s not as if the rugby Union were there saying - going on lads you’ll be fine holding a gun to their heads is it.
What if people want to participate in those sports regardless the risk? What right have any of us to say they can’t and “ban” said sports?
It’s a compelling argument. The issue is where do you draw the line? We don’t allow gladiatorial combat anymore, even though it might sell big in Pay Per View. Young people have proven over and over they will do a lot of dumb shit if offered enough inducements. I can respect differing opinions. For me, with boxing, the issue is clear. It just damages the people doing the fighting, and most of them money goes to others.
Not sure what money has to do with it. If I want to fight and get hit in the head, you shouldn’t have the right to stop me.
It’s not considered a strong case. From what I understand the path to winning anything would be to demonstrate either that:
Interestingly I’ve just finished “when footballers were skint”, good read and features Gordon Milne, I’d skip the last chapter of them moaning about modern football mind.
The shape and weight of the ball hasn’t changed according to that, the weight all came from the pitch and conditions, one player mentions the stitching slicing their head open.
Fact is we would know some of impact if this work had been done in the 1990s but a lot of it was head in the sand. I think limited heading in training is probably the right thing, in a match your not continuously heading it like you would in a drill.
It’s bound to have some impact to be honest and the stuff around Kevin Doyle raises some issues
Thought I’d stick this in here. Ok it’s rugby, but it appears that rugby is taking the lead on possible brain injuries / damage through contact sports. Sorry I cant comment on American football and what they are doing in the US, other than what is stated in the article. That said I do believe there is a lot going on there too.
One take away I get from this is that we’re a long way off from fully understanding what is going on but it also appears that our heads are a lot more sensitive to impacts than perhaps we first thought.
Ah, I remember it well. I was playing local football in the late 50´s and was always prepared to go for a header. I find it hard to understand how these " balloons" they play with now can be so dangerous. Maybe skulls are thinner these days 