WHY THIS MAN HAS TO GO
Something worth remembering — gordon taylor had a choice. my dad mike is a brilliant man. he is my hero. he is 74, a year older than gordon taylor. he has been in a care home for a year now, under lock and key for his own safety. my mum cannot look after him any more. my dad was a professional footballer from 1962 to 1972 at norwich, Chester and Carlisle. he suffers from dementia. it’s likely he suffers from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (Cte), which is a degenerative disease of the brain caused by repetitive brain trauma. in 2018, the PFA and the FA resumed a study — after an Alan Shearer TV documentary — to try to find a link between heading a football and Cte. the PFA and the FA began that test in 2001. thirteen years later, The Mail on Sunday revealed the study had been abandoned. it had failed. gordon taylor can’t be blamed for the failure of the test. But as head of his trade union, he had to know it had failed. he had a choice. had the testing not been abandoned, maybe a link would have been found. maybe a link would not have been found. We will never know. But gordon taylor did not tell anyone. that was wrong. in failing to tell anyone, he
failed my dad Mike and hundreds of former and current footballers. He failed his union members and their families. He failed hundreds and thousands of footballers around the world because he didn’t tell anyone the testing had stopped. Gordon Taylor had the chance to make a difference to former players and their families. My mum lives on her own now. My children go to see their grandad playing Lego and see their grandad unable to string two words together. It’s not the way it should be. Dementia is a horrible illness. Gordon Taylor can sit in his ivory tower with his henchmen, his high-powered legal team ready to pounce, but this is the real world and he could have made a difference. He was obliged to try. I will go to see my dad tomorrow. I will sit and hold his hand and tell him I love him. I think of the past, of happy times, as he’s not really there any more. I will talk to him but it won’t register. He is being eaten alive by dementia. A strong man back in the day, I know what he would think of his union boss if he could articulate it. He, like the family of Jeff Astle, the family of Nobby Stiles and hundreds of other union members’ families, have been let down. It’s time for change and for Ben Purkiss to be given the opportunity to challenge Gordon Taylor. It seems like Gordon has a choice again. Let’s hope he makes the right one this time.