THE EVERLASTING POWER OF FOOTBALL
FFT created this feature with help from Sporting Memories, who work to manage the onset of dementia and depression
One of football’s most enduring and universal qualities is its ability to connect people, which is the basis of the Sporting Memories Foundation.
Back in 2011, Tony Jameson-allen co-founded the organisation with his fellow director, Chris Wilkins. Their aim was to engage people in meaningful activities to help manage the onset of dementia, loneliness and social isolation.
“We’ve grown up with the idea that you retire, you stop working, you sit down and you just relax,” says Tony. “And that’s the worst thing we can do. We need to stay cognitively stimulated, socially active and physically active. So we developed the idea of Sporting Memories, to tap into the fantastic heritage of sport in this country.”
Using tablets, film projectors and audio clips, Sporting Memories hopes to stimulate passions for sport through 120 clubs holding free, weekly sessions across England and Scotland. They are attended by people over 50 years of age and include an increasing number of ex-professional footballers.
“We worked with the PFA to develop a guide for former players and their families who are living with a diagnosis of dementia,” continues Tony. “Within that guide there’s some really practical advice, but it also suggests going along to a local Sporting Memories club.”
The youngest ex-pro currently doing exactly that is 60-year-old Steve Elliott, who was first signed by Brian Clough for Nottingham Forest back in 1976, but also played more than 200 games for Preston North End.
“Last year, Steve received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease,” Tony tells FFT. “His wife, Mags, watched him effectively shutting down. He didn’t have any sort of routine, he’d lost his confidence and wasn’t really socialising or going out of the house any more.
“Mags describes being able to connect with the local Sporting Memories group as life-changing. She’s seen Steve get his confidence back. He plays golf three times a week, he plays walking football once a week, and he goes to the group and enjoys the interaction.”
Despite the help that Alan Shearer’s BBC documentary, Dementia, Football and Me provided in highlighting the real issues, Tony concedes that the game’s leading organisations – the FA, Premier League and PFA – could do much more to help former players.
“The Alan Shearer documentary really emphasised the need for research, but for us, the issue isn’t proving whether or not football could cause dementia – it’s about finding practical solutions for footballers who are living with these conditions. The game has a duty of care to find a solution.”
Current Sporting Memories patrons include former England internationals Luther Blissett and Terry Butcher (above), BBC commentator Guy Mowbray, and ex-fa communications chief Adrian Bevington. A number of players have also contributed their memories to an online archive of resources.
Football history isn’t short of resources with which to prompt recollections, but Tony has recently found a gold mine in the form of 90,000 rarely-seen sporting images that picture agency Reuters was about to put into deep storage. Instead, they decided to donate the collection to Sporting Memories.
“FOOTBALL IS A POWERFUL SPORT – ONE IMAGE CAN SPARK MANY CONVERSATIONS”
“One image can spark many different conversations and memories,” he says. “So in December 2017, 24 crates turned up at my office containing a remarkable collection of sporting photographs from the mid-80s to early-90s, which is the perfect era for what we’re doing.”
Tony is now appealing for help from volunteers to research and digitise the pictures, so they can be used in their work and for commercial products to fundraise with. Having scanned 15,000 images so far, there’s just 75,000 to go!
“In this country, football is the most powerful and popular sport,” he says. “It has so many different aspects of culture that people can connect with.”
The Sporting Memories Foundation is letting the images, actions and words speak for themselves. Jon Howe
If you or a family member would like to find out more about Sporting Memories, head to sportingmemoriesnetwork.com