Leon’s heart still in game he loves
PERCHED on the back of a sofa in his attic, Leon Barnett gazes at the shirts he collected during a career cut short when his defective heart started beating 300 times a minute. Adebayor 10.
A. Cole 3.
Barnett 25. His own Wigan shirt from the 2013 Community Shield against Manchester United.
“Whenever I come up here, it is nice to look around and realise what I have done in my career – this is where I vanish at times,” he says.
An excited shriek drifts up through the house from either Jaxon, eight next month, or Marley, just turned seven, shattering the stillness. Right now, Barnett is a man still with plenty to mull over.
The children are eating dinner before heading out to football, both already on the radar at Luton Town.
It is four months since Barnett was diagnosed with myocarditis at the age of 32 and there is one final test result for which the family are waiting anxiously in the coming days,
“It is scary that they might have it, too,” says Barnett, nodding towards the stairs. “I’ve had blood tests done. I should have my results soon.
“My condition could have been caused by a virus – something as simple as a cold that spread to my heart. But it could be genetic.
“The kids have asked a little bit but I don’t think they realise the full implications and all being well I will probably tell them over the years. But it would be nice to get an all clear on the genetic tests.”
Barnett complained of feeling unwell while playing for Northampton in a Carabao Cup game against Wycombe in August. Club medics arranged to have a heart monitor inserted in his chest.
They were shocked by what they discovered.
When symptoms returned in Barnett’s last ever game against Bury on October 2 they found his heart had been racing at speed that would have floored anyone but the fittest professional athlete.
“They diagnosed myocarditis – scarring on the heart,” says Barnett. “The doctors said if it was on the top or the middle of the heart they could just burn it away with an operation.
“But mine is at the bottom – a sensitive part of the heart – so the next best thing is to have a defibrillator and pacemaker inserted.
“If ever my heart goes up towards 300 beats per minute again, the pacemaker will be given three chances to get it back to normal. If not, the defibrillator will instantly shock me.”
Watching him working with dozens of children at the academy he has established to return something to the game, none could question Barnett’s heart.
“When I retired I spoke to a lot of professionals who said the next best thing is coaching,” he says.
“Luton invited me to come down for a session with the kids and at the end of it I said, ‘Is coaching always like this? I loved it.’”
Barnett joins in a game of tag. One lively seven-year-old skips past his peers but there is no getting round a defender who has faced Didier Drogba, Robin van Persie and Luis Suarez in a career that included spells in the Premier League with West Brom and Norwich. Should he really still be doing that, though? “I