With several footballers of his era suffering from or dying from dementia, Sir Alex Ferguson has expressed his fears in an interview with the BBC.
The English media sometimes call it “the curse of the 1966 World Cup champions”. Because of the eleven players who started the World Cup final won by the Three Lions against West Germany, a number of them have died of dementia in recent years: Nobby Stiles, Jack Charlton, Martin Peters, Ray Wilson and most recently, in October 2023, Bobby Charlton, Jack’s brother.
“It worries me 100%”
Another Manchester United legend, Denis Law, the Scottish team’s all-time top scorer, is battling Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 84. While degenerative brain diseases are unfortunately common in Football, the situation is of great concern to Sir Alex Ferguson, who expressed his fears on the subject during a long interview given to the BBC on Friday.
“I’m 82, so of course I’m worried. At the moment, my memory is pretty good, so let’s pray to the Lord and touch wood that it stays that way,” said the iconic Red Devils manager. “I don’t know if it will last. I’m 100% worried. To say otherwise would be a lie. I still read a lot, I also do quizzes, and I think all that helps me. There are quizzes on YouTube where you have to answer 100 questions. If I don’t answer 70% of the questions correctly, I’m disappointed,” said the Scot, who retired from the benches in 2013.
For Ferguson, as for many experts, the root of the dementia problem is the proliferation of heading, with balls that used to be very heavy. “These leather balls… When the water got in, it was like heading a cannonball,” he told the Daily Mail in 2021. “It was really heavy. I’ve headed a lot myself, but thank God it hasn’t affected me yet. We have to see what we can do to help. Football has a duty to look at this. People like me owe it to the game to do something.”
