Sweet memories are made of this

With an ageing population, perhaps one of the most emotive projects embarked on by the Links Park Community Trust is its Football Memories reminiscence sessions held in the home dressing room.

Trained staff and volunteers spend time with people who have dementia but retain an interest in football. Participants walk down the touchline, up the players’ tunnel and enter a dressing room decorated with old football strips, programmes and other football memorabilia.

The smell of Bovril also supports the attempts to ignite memories of players, teams and matches gone by.

Peter says the benefits the national scheme were best summed up by the wife of one participant. “She described how she drives a sad old man with dementia to her local Football Memories session and then drives home with her husband,” he said.

Project officer Andrew Westcott added: “For football-minded men living with dementia, who perhaps can’t remember what they had for lunch let alone their journey to the stadium, the results can be “spectacular”.

“Show them a picture of an old team from the 1950s or 60s and the names – and memories – just come flooding back.”