All the time that I have been investigating former players in middle age facing up to life-changing diagnoses, I have been watching the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s on my wife

It has been a horrible week for rugby, a fitting end to a year more harrowing and transformational for the sport than quite possibly any – 1995 and 1895 can make way now for 2020. From the salary-cap debacle at the start, through the ravages of a global virus, the more familiar ravages of an audience endlessly critical of the product, to this, an association with dementia in former players barely at middle age – what chance our grand old game surviving?

From a personal point of view, it has been an unsettling few months, this story first appearing in my inbox in July, while sitting on a beach in Devon. The implications were obviously dire for the sport, the cultural milieu, within which I’ve lived most of my life.

Continue reading…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like

Boris Johnson’s outdone Henry VIII in having his third marriage blessed by the Catholic church | Christopher Lamb

It seems like double standards when the twice-divorced prime minister can marry…

Dreaming Whilst Black review – this Bafta-winning show is ripping up the rules of comedy

This hilarious, inventive sitcom about a Black film-maker struggling to make it…

Your Go-To Grilled Salmon Recipe: Spicy, Succulent, Foolproof, Fast

IMAGINE TASTING SALMON for the first time. “I’d never had it until…

Scientists create world’s first ‘synthetic embryos’

Researchers use stem cells from mice to form embryo-like structures with intestinal…