SURVIVOR WAS

SOCCER chief Gordon Taylor was told of horrific child abuse 20 years ago by a victim of football scout Eddie Heath – but wrote back telling him to “seek counselling”.

Russell Davy sent a hand-written letter in 1999 to the Professional Footballers’ Association – the players’ union meant to look after their interests.

In it Russell, who was pleading for help with debts and rent arrears, detailed how his life had spiralled out of control after suffering abuse as a youth academy player at Charlton Athletic.

But instead of triggering an investigation, Taylor, 74, sent a reply telling him to “seek counselling to help you sort out this trauma and its effects on your life”.

Russell, 53, told the Sunday Mirror: “I told the PFA what happened to me and they did nothing. I got an apology and was told to get help. That’s appalling.

“If action had been taken then, it may have helped others come forward.”

Russell had also told the Football Association 10 years earlier of his ordeal – and they too had failed to act.

Heath, who died in 1983, was named this week in a report into abuse in the 1970s at Chelsea FC as a “prolific sexual abuser” with victims as young as 10.

Russell’s letter told how Heath’s attacks on him not only ruined his career but sent his life into a spiral of drink, crime and drugs.

DEBTS

But he said Taylor, now paid £2.2m a year, simply expressed sorrow at the abuse and suggested he got psychiatric help. He approved two PFA payments totalling £2,200 to help Russell pay off debts and save h im from eviction.

In the letter to the PFA, which was not addressed directly to Taylor, Russell wrote: “This is the hardest letter I have ever written in my life.”

But he added it was “not so bad because we have never met… but I would like to clear this from my head and get on with my life.”

Explaining he had never told anyone his full story as there was nobody he could share it with, he went on: “I was a schoolboy wanting to become a pro and was abused by a member of staff at CAFC. This should not happen.

“I heard threw [sic] the grape vine this person died, thank god. After the abuse I went and got very drunk and got into a fight, which is still to this day a blur.

“One day I was training with CAFC, the next day I was in prison. It was hard to handle at 16 and a half. There was nobody there I could relate to.”

Eight days later, Taylor wrote in a 104-word typewritten reply: “We were very sorry to hear your sad recounting of your problems at CAFC leading to your imprisonment.

“Maybe you could seek counselling to help you sort out this trauma and its effects on your life. We enclose a cheque for £1,000 to help you pay off some of your debts.”

In 2016 Russell, who now lives in Lanzarote, bravely waived his right to anonymity to talk to the Sunday Mirror about his ordeal.

He told us he had not spoken to the club about it, but had contacted the FA, football’s ruling body, in 1986 to warn them Heath was a paedophile – but they failed to act. When we told Charlton of his claims, the club launched their own probe and contacted police.

Russell told us how he was repeatedly attacked in the showers after training, and when he was alone on a minibus. The grooming began at 14.

He walked out on the club in 1983 after two years of abuse – then spent six months in a Young Offender Institution for street fighting.

Over the next 30 years he struggled to cope with what had been done to him, at one point fighting a £600-a-week cocaine addiction. His correspondence with the PFA came in pleas for help to their benevolent fund. Taylor approved a

Heath used my love of football to abuse me. I will never get over that RUSSELL DAVY

ON HOW ABUSE LED TO HIS LIFETIME OF TURMOIL