Football must heed the lessons learned by the deaths of four of Sir Alf Ramsey’s World Cup winners to brain disease and take action within the lifetime of the four surviving members of the team, campaigner Dawn Astle insisted on Saturday night.
After Nobby Stiles followed Martin Peters, Jack Charlton and Ray Wilson as players to have died since 2018 after living with dementia, Astle said that Britain still does too little to limit children’s exposure to unnecessary heading.
‘It is too late to help Nobby but we can take this issue seriously in the lifetimes of the players who are still with us,’ said Astle, daughter of West Bromwich Albion forward Jeff Astle, whose neuro-degeneration was found in 2002 to have been caused by blows sustained to his head in football.