What this beautiful portrayal of friendship should mean to us all
IT WASN’T straightforward, of course. There were the straps around his old friend to unfasten and then the process of gently easing him out of the chair in a dignified way. The glasses which shielded his eyes almost came off. His waterproof pouch got in the way.
But they managed it, crossing the finishing line of the Leeds Marathon together on Sunday in a scene which transcended the self-interests and squabbles of sport and was testament to the enduring power of friendship.
Rob Burrow raised his head a little as they stood there under a grey sky. Kevin Sinfield seemed to grip him a little tighter. It was a scene to make the heart soar.
That friendship has been unassailable during the terrible diminution of Burrow, the man who seemed unbreakable as a slight, quick, tough, talented rugby league player when they were in the Leeds Rhinos team together. Burrow has lost so much since his motor neurone disease diagnosis in 2019, though this friendship has prevailed, surpassing even what they had as team-mates. With Sinfield and others most dear to him, Burrow is not alone.
It was the sense of solitariness which most struck me when I met Fernando Ricksen, the former Rangers footballer who was also living with this condition in 2019. It was a Saturday night at the Tradeston Ex-Servicemen’s Club near Ibrox and when Ricksen wheeled himself in through a side door, the room was on its feet to greet him, alive with love and noise.
He was among friends and family, including wife Veronika, and grown men could not help but kneel where he sat to embrace him. Yet what an incalculable sadness — Ricksen being able to hear and see all that unfolding in a room where supporters queued to be photographed with him, yet unable to raise so much as a hand to offer a gesture of affection back.
Sinfield has kept his friend’s torch burning. You only had to see Burrow on that finishing line, lifting his head to survey the scene as Sinfield held him, to know that. But this is a friendship of equals. Sinfield, who had pushed Burrow around the entire Leeds marathon circuit, has found a purpose which transcends sport.
‘The last couple of years have shown me what I need to do with my life,’ he tells my colleague David Coverdale in an interview to be published later this week.
It was Burrow, in one of their daily text exchanges, who encouraged Sinfield to embark on a new autobiography, The Extra Mile —a beautiful portrayal of friendship and a powerful treatise on the need to afford those who play sport a greater duty of care.
Sinfield’s granular description in the book of his first concerns and the months leading up to Burrow’s diagnosis is unforgettable. Research in 2019 showed the risks of developing MND are more than eight times higher among those who sustain repeated blows to the head and spine in top-level sport.
Sinfield describes in the book how he would run through villages at 3am, during a 101-mile, 24-hour fundraising run in 2019, to find people emerging from houses in their pyjamas to offer donations.
The £1million he raised from that challenge is testament to what an inspiration he and Burrow have become for so many. The run ended at Headingley, where Burrow was waiting for him. ‘You don’t realise the impact you’ve had on me,’ Sinfield told him that day.
It was a giant step on the road to the £6.8million needed to build a care centre in Burrow’s name for those living with MND. Sinfield’s work is also helping to fund new drug trials and holding the Government to its commitment to invest £50 million.
Sinfield reflected last week on whether the Government is doing enough, or indeed whether society is, in a world where time and thought for others seem in increasingly short supply.
Time may be the greatest gift we can give, he suggested. ‘When you look at politicians and the way government is set up,’ Sinfield said, ‘they are supposed to make it better for people. We have probably lost sight of that. We have become quite selfish as a society.’
He didn’t want to be too political with such pronouncements, he said. He didn’t want to condescend to assume that people would always be willing to give. There would probably always be compassion fatigue, he reflected.
And then last Sunday happened. The two of them, doing a marathon together, before that moment on the finishing line — an indelible testament to fraternity, friendship and teamwork.
THE LUNATIC Leeds pitch invader who confronted Newcastle boss Eddie Howe at Elland Road only commanded headlines for a day or so. Arrest made. Lifetime ban. Apology issued. Little sense of how shocking that scene was. Perhaps we’re becoming immune to it. This time last year, a Nottingham Forest fan attacked Sheffield United’s Billy Sharp.
It’s time for clubs to pay out for security reflecting the threat at these high-pressure games. And for those in the company of such lunatics to rein them in.