Category: Football

Sir Bobby Charlton is one of the most well-known football players of all time. Charlton, a Commander of the British Empire, has won the World Cup, the Ballon D’or of that same year, scored 199 goals in 606 appearances over 17 years for Manchester United and scored 49 goals in 106 appearances for England.

Yesterday, some awful news of the generational midfielder broke, “England World Cup winner and Manchester United legend Sir Bobby Charlton has been diagnosed with dementia.”

“The news follows the deaths of his older brother Jack in July and fellow World Cup-winner Nobby Stiles on Friday, both of whom had also been diagnosed with dementia.”(BBC Sport –https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54770216)

Charlton is now the fifth member of the 1966 World Cup winning squad to be diagnosed with dementia, one of whom was Nobby Stiles, a team-mate for club and country and who, as above, passed away on Friday.

A man who one day aims to beat Sir Bobby’s goal scoring record in top flight football and for his country, took to Twitter to show is respect to the Charlton family.

Sending my very best wishes to @SirBobby Charlton and his family 🙏 https://t.co/yxw5wNW21P

— Harry Kane (@HKane) November 1, 2020

It has been known now for many years that albeit we do not know for sure if there is a large link between playing football and being diagnosed with dementia, but that there certainly is an alarming amount of ex-players who are being diagnosed.

The University of Glasgow has put a lot of time into researching this matter and have said that,  “Post-mortem studies have identified a specific dementia pathology linked to exposure to brain injury, known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), in a high proportion of brains of former contact sports athletes, including former footballers in parallel studies led by Dr Stewart.”

In response, FA Chairman Greg Clarke has said, “The whole game must recognise that this is only the start of our understanding and there are many questions that still need to be answered. It is important that the global football family now unites to find the answers and provide a greater understanding of this complex issue. The FA is committed to doing all it can to make that happen.” https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2019/october/headline_681082_en.html#:~:text=Post%2Dmortem%20studies%20have%20identified,studies%20led%20by%20Dr%20Stewart

“The study revealed that former professional football players had an approximately three and a half times higher rate of death due to neurodegenerative disease than expected. However, this study did not tell us why that might be the case.”(Alzheimers Society – https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/football-heading-dementia-risk)

The name Jacqui Oatley is now a household name in many a home in the UK for the broadcasting career that she has. Not as well known is the story that took her on a very different path to the one that she set out to achieve.

Born in Wolverhampton, Oatley was an avid Wolverhampton Wanderers fan and grew up aspiring to be like the players she went and watched every week. Unfortunately, a tendon and ligament injury in her knee slashed her chances of playing professionally and had to look for another route through life.

Very early on after this, Oatley knew there was no way her passion for sport could keep her out of this world and decided to pursue a career in journalism. It all started out with the small shows, first broadcasting off of hospital radio to do the sport roundup. 

Oatley spoke recently alongside a panel of well known broadcasting names such as Isa Guha, Matt Murray, Mark Cole and Barbara Slater to discuss breaking into the industry and what it is like to do so. During this, speaking of experiences such as “Sleeping on my friends’ floor” and emphasising, “It can be very tough at times, but I am so privileged to work in this industry.”. 

After this, Oatley speaks sharply on the need to talk to the right people to get into the right places to become a journalist. Following up with saying how important it is to speak to the right people because if you do so, good opportunities will follow.

Oatley is widely known as the first female commentator on ‘BBC’ show ‘Match of the Day’ and has taken on many more roles and broadcasted on many different platforms ever since further decorating an already inspiring career to many. The story of how Oatley got to where she is, is not as plain sailing as most would imagine showing how you can get to where you want to by not going down one route.