Sportblog | The Guardian — Dementia RSS



Alastair Hignell knows more than most that memories are precious

Former England full-back is backing the Sporting Memories Foundation that helps those with dementia by talking about sport with themThe Six Nations approaches and, with it, the annual rip tide of memories. Can it really be 50 years ago this weekend, for example, since Wales beat Scotland at Murrayfield courtesy of “the greatest conversion since St Paul” by a bushy haired, bearded John Taylor? Or 45 years since JPR Williams’s old-school shoulder charge on the French wing Jean-François Gourdon that helped yield another Welsh grand slam? Unforgettable moments.They are also the foundation stones upon which today’s tournament rests. It can sometimes be easier to remember Taylor’s finest hour – the highlights of that 1971 game are as evocative as the...

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Reporting on rugby's dementia crisis struck all too close to home | Michael Aylwin

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 wifeIt 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...

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