Middlesbrough legend Bill Gates died three years ago today

When Middlesbrough legend Bill Gates was diagnosed with brain disease he made a dying wish to his family.

“It’s too late for me,” he told them. “But please do everything you can to ensure that today’s players and future players are protected.”

It’s three years to the day since Bill died, after first being diagnosed with dementia in 2014. It sparked a national campaign from his family which centred around the connection between heading footballs and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), which can only be diagnosed post mortem.

Bill, it was confirmed, had suffered extreme damage to his brain, which was an impact of heading footballs as often as he did.

Bill made 333 appearances for Middlesbrough and was part of Jack Charlton’s promotion-winning side of 1974.

In fact, that year was his final year as a footballer. He retired aged just 29 due to crippling migraines caused by what he estimated to be a 100 headers a day in training.

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In his post-footballing life, Bill became a really successful businessman - a nod to the intelligence of the man away from the battling centre-back he was on the pitch. But, after his diagnosis in 2014, his family speak of the ‘brutal’ decline that made the final five years of his life heartbreakingly difficult.

In the three years since his death, his widow Judith and son Nick have set up the charity Head Safe Football, which campaigns tirelessly for better protection of players in the game, as well as offering education to both professional football clubs but also amateur coaches.

Their way of honouring the legacy of the much-loved and greatly-missed Bill, the mission from the outset has been clear though. “This is not about banning heading from football,” Judith insists.

“It is about asking whether we need to expose players to repetitive heading in training when we have an opportunity to reduce that exposure.

“The scientific evidence is increasingly difficult to ignore. Research has identified CTE in the brains of professional and amateur footballers, and has found CTE pathology in young people.

“The evidence highlighted by Head Safe Football also indicates increased risks of neurological disease among footballers.

“We need to listen to the science, educate our coaches, parents and players, and put protection at the heart of the game - from grassroots to professional football.”

At the heart of everything they do is the fact that Bill loved football. Judith recalls with warmth a story about Bill while in a care home in the final year of his life. Sitting in his chair, a ball was rolled into his feet and his face immediately lit up with joy. His passion for the sport was lifelong.

Judith, Nick and Head Safe Football are not about banning heading in football for that reason. Instead, they aim to improve the safety of the sport to better protect the players, thus protecting the long-term future of the sport too.

They’ve already achieved so much to honour Bill’s legacy and that dying wish in the three years since his death. But sitting with them early this week in their home in County Durham, it’s clear that their work has only just begun, and their determination to honour Bill’s legacy is as strong as ever.

“There’s a sense of pride in how much we’ve achieved in three years in dad’s honour,” Nick says. “But there’s still so much more to do.

“I can’t stress enough how brutal it was for us as a family watching dad’s decline in his final few years.

“It’s one of the big things we’re trying to stress to everyone with a connection to football - whether you’re a professional player, an amateur player, a coach or a parent of a child playing grassroots, this can affect absolutely everyone, and we all have a role to play in improving player safety.”

The myths they hope to debunk

There are a number of myths that the family are so keen to educate people on. That the protection of the next generation starts immediately is one.

So often they hear that dementia and brain diseases affect old people. Why, then, should a parent or a youth coach worry about it?

Bill didn’t header a single ball after the age of 29 when he retired, and the level of his brain injury was still extreme.

It’s why the family are targeting grassroots football and parents as much as professional clubs. For them, it’s about raising awareness that while the impact may not become visible until later in life, the damage can be done much earlier.

The second big myth is one Nick hears so often. He says: “Whenever we post something on social media or do something big in the media, you can guarantee that there’s always at least one comment that says it was because of the old leather balls.

“Actually the science proves that today’s players, using the modern balls, are just as likely to suffer from CTE as a result of heading the ball than the last generation of players using the old balls.”

The science Nick refers to was a study from Loughborough University, published in April. It found that modern balls still transferred a distinctive pressure wave to the brain which can cause neurodegenerative diseases. The study, it is hoped, can help shape new ball designs that minimise the pressure wave.

Until then, however, Head Safe Football are battling to have the Government, the FA, professional clubs and grassroots coaches and players become more aware of the way in which they can all limit the number of headers a player will do each week.

The mission continues

Head Safe Football’s hard work continues. They continue to lobby the FA and the Government for change.

So far, Head Safe Football has provided HeadSAFE education to 44 professional football clubs, including Middlesbrough, and have worked in nine countries and impacted 400,000 young players. They’re encouraged by how receptive everyone they’ve worked with is.

There’s still so much more, they feel, that can be done. Nick is a lifelong Boro fan, a former executive director at the club, and also coached when in America earlier in his life, having played at a high level as a youngster, attracting interest from professional academies.

“I find it fascinating watching the modern game,” he said. “People will tell me there aren’t as many headers in the game now, but actually, I see it starting to increase again.

“One thing we’ve also noted is that, of all the statistics that get recorded in the modern game, you rarely see one for how many headers a player did in a game.

“With the increase in teams trying to play football on the ground, that increased the amount of high pressing, which is increasing the amount of long balls again, and thus headers. Even Boro this season, who I think play some brilliant football, have gone longer a lot more than they once did.

“Our aim is, and always has been, to try and make people think more about being head safe and protecting their brains.”

He continued: “The thing I find most interesting is that it seems second nature to protect other parts of the body. If you strain a muscle in your leg, you rest it, you see players with ice packs on etc.

“What we want is for people to think, we’ve strained our brain by heading the ball so much in a match, so let’s not do that in training. Let’s rest our brains in training. There’s really no need to be doing headers in training.”

As part of their ongoing work, Head Safe Football have recently launched a national petition in which they are asking the Government to: debate the petition in Parliament; Promote ‘Think Head Safe: reduce heading in training’ as a national slogan; Recognise that CTE from repetitive head impacts is a public-health issue; Work with sporting governing bodies to systematically reduce heading in training through policy and accredited coach education; and work with the Department for Education to embed brain-health education and HeadSAFE within teacher training and PE.

Five families connected to former Middlesbrough players and coaches who suffered from sports-related brain disease were the first to sign the petition: Bill Gates, Willie Maddren, Hugh McIlmoyle, Gordon McQueen and Nobby Stiles.

Tina White, the widow of Goff White, who was identified as the first non-league player to die with CTE, has signed on behalf of grassroots players and their families.

Gary Pallister has also signed the petition. The Boro and Manchester United legend has been a big supporter of Head Safe Football, and spoke candidly to Teesside Live at the book launch for Bill Gates’ biography about his own migraines, and concerns for the damage his own career had done.

“The footballing community owes it to every player who has suffered to learn from their experience,” Judith concluded. “We honour our past heroes best by fulfilling our responsibility to those who are still wearing the shirt, stepping onto the pitch and learning to play the game. Tomorrow’s players need today’s voices.”

To support Head Safe Football and learn more about the vital work they’re doing in Bill’s honour, you can visit their website www.headsafefootball.org.uk or follow them across all of their social media pages.

They urge everyone to also sign the petition, which can be found online here.