The Tottenham defender, like many others, played through headaches and dizziness because his career depended on itIt was around the end of last year that people began to notice Jan Vertonghen was looking decidedly off the pace at Tottenham. He was slow off the mark, slow to the ball, slow to react. Occasionally entire passages of play seemed to pass him by. And so, naturally, as an underperforming player in a popular ball game, it felt only right that he should be subjected to the same pitch of ridicule and abuse as anyone else in his position.I went back through social media during some of his poorer games last season and pulled out a few of the more representative comments...
Peter Jess represents a group of 135 former VFL and AFL players diagnosed with long-term neurological problems – ‘the most catastrophic events are the behavioural and mood issues’The last time I spoke to Peter Jess, he broke down midway through the conversation. Sorry, he said, in that reflexive way people do when they’re trying to fight back their tears, but it had been a long, hard day. Jess is a sports agent in Australia and his head was still wrapped up in a phone call he’d just had with one of his clients, a retired player suffering from a long-term brain injury and struggling badly with depression. It had been a tough conversation, and taken a lot out of both...
The evidence is clear, the players’ stories are grim – we can only hope this is the wake-up call the game has neededSome pieces leap easily off the keyboard. Others cause your fingers to stiffen and any exuberance to drain away instantly. No rugby correspondent ever wants to write certain columns, and this is one.In many ways, too, the searing testimony of Steve Thompson, Alix Popham and Michael Lipman, so brilliantly told in these pages over the past two days by Andy Bull, has already laid bare the extent of the sport’s predicament. Related: Rugby urged to improve safety quickly to reduce risk of more lawsuits We are reaching a level where the players have got too big for their...
After a week of trauma from boxing ring to football pitch we must remember there is value in the extreme things people doIf you haven’t seen the new TV advert for Jacamo clothing I highly recommend doing so. It’s an exhilarating thing. First up we see the Jacamo models: stern, powerful men dressed in comfortable nylon leisurewear. These pictures are cut with a reel of stirring images. Rutting stags. A priapic wind tower. A spurting volcano. A craning lighthouse drenched in surf. Stallion power! Jackets! Massiveness! Rain, wind and fire!This kind of imagery should not be taken lightly. The Jacamo advert is so exciting that just catching a glimpse of it – perhaps during a break in the Sri Lankan...
Sunday’s incident involving Raúl Jiménez and David Luiz was a reminder that other sports have far more sophisticated protocols in placeFor too long football has played tiki-taka with the issue of concussion, rather than tackling it head on. It has been passed around from committee to committee, governing body to governing body, without the authorities facing up to its pernicious threat. Perhaps the recent deaths of Jack Charlton and Nobby Stiles will sharpen the focus. What happened at the Emirates on Sunday night certainly should. It was jolting enough to witness Wolves’ Raúl Jiménez receiving oxygen and leaving on a stretcher with a fractured skull following a clash of heads with David Luiz. It was almost as worrying when the...