Dementia link in players must be fully investigated Tragic plight of the heroic Billy McNeill shines light on football’s silent shame

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WHEN you hear the name Billy McNeill, it is a safe bet that there is one image that springs to mind. He is standing, arms aloft, hoisting the European Cup above his head, the first captain of a British team to do so.

I wasn’t alive when it happened, and to someone of my generation the achievement seems almost inconceivable, somehow unreal. In the photo, McNeill appears almost superhuman, standing out in his green and brilliant white hoops amid the drab suits and ties that seem ubiquitous in the chaos all around him.

Once, when he went back to that precarious-looking ledge at the Estadio Nacional to relive the iconic moment, he said he felt at the time as if he could have lifted the entire stadium, and you would have backed him to do it too.

The mark of the man is that his only regret from that day is that he wishes his teammates had been up there with him to share in the reward for their incredible triumph, just as they had shared in the herculean exertions it had taken to earn it.

Almost half a century on from inspiring a whole generation of Scots, McNeill and his family are doing so again, showing admirable courage, strength and selflessness by publicly discussing the former Celtic captain’s battle with dementia in the hope that it will bring wider recognition of the damage that repeatedly heading a football can do . LEGEND: Billy McNeill hoists the European Cup above his head in 1967. For Billy, lamentably, any research done to further establish the link that footballers seem to be more susceptible to the disease and, subsequently, any safeguards that can be put in place to limit the risks, will come too late. For someone who doesn’t know the man beyond those grainy images of him with his arms aloft in jubilation and tales from parents and olde r football fans, the thought of such a colossal figure being reduced in such a cruel way is heartbreaking enough. For his wife of 53 years, Liz, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

And yet she has spoken with great dignity and with clarity on an issue that many in football seem to want to pretend doesn’t exist. It was revealed just last week that former Newcastle and England striker Alan Shearer will front a BBC documentary to be shown in the summer entitled ‘Dementia – football’s silent shame?’, and it is to be welcomed that this scandalous dereliction of duty shown by football’s governing bodies towards its players is seemingly not to be tolerated any more.

IT IS over 15 years since the death of former West Brom striker Jeff Astle, and his family are to this day still fighting to get answers on the prevalence of dementia among former footballers.

Dr Willie Stewart, a neuropathologist at the Southern General Hospital, was asked to re-examine Astle’s brain after a post-mortem concluded that his death had been related to playing football. He said that the condition of Astle’s brain was more like an 89-year-old’s, rather than that of a 59-yearold, as he had been at the time of his death.

Dr Stewart has called upon the PFA in England to help establish the number of former footballers who are now suffering from dementia so that it can be determined if incidences are higher than in the general public, and it would be fitting if something similar can be achieved in Scotland while Billy McNeill is still with us, so that his family’s courage is rewarded with something tangible that may help others in the future.

Astle’s daughter, Dawn, said that when her father died, he didn’t know that he had ever been a footballer. With Billy McNeill now unable to talk, no one is really sure whether he can now recall his own glory days, and that walk up the stairs to collect the European Cup. What a comforting thought, though, that he has been able to go and see the magnificent statue of himself, frozen forever in time at the bottom of the Celtic Way.

Too often, we only erect our marble tributes, write articles like this or pause and reflect upon what a legend of our game has meant to us after they are gone. By bringing Billy’s condition into the public domain, his family have allowed us to conjure up the image of the all-conquering Cesar again, and let them know just how much his contribution has been truly appreciated.

“When people think of Jimmy Johnstone, they remember what he did on the pitch, not necessarily the fact that he had motor neurone disease,” said Liz McNeill, Billy’s wife. And she is right.

Billy McNeill may not now remember what he gave to us all, but rest assured, it will never be forgotten.