This football club has the morals of the current Tory cabinet.
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BBC News - Keith Pontin: Cardiff City comments after player death 'insulting'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61396531
This football club has the morals of the current Tory cabinet.
That'll be the club trying to pre-empt any possible compensation claim.
I saw a good film on the subject of CTE a few weeks ago. It's called Concussion and stars Will Smith as the forensic pathologist who first identified the disease in retired American football players, and highlights the opposition he faced from the authorities. Decent watch.
The reaction from the club is both embarrassing and cringeworthy.
Can’t see how any club in the land would be liable to pay compensation though, at this moment in time.
Not sure what the future holds for this worrying and growing situation. Football must be one of the only sports that involves using your head.
Oh come on. The club did what it had to do.
A legal representative for Cardiff City attended the inquest and questioned Dr Stewart over his findings, claiming there was not enough evidence to prove Mr Pontin's career in football had caused CTE.
It’s latest statement is clear.
The "head" is quite often the target in 'boxing'.
What is interesting or indeed depressing is that CCFC have no paperwork documents related to Keith's time at Cardiff, and his wife had to use scrap book cut outs from the echo to evidence his time there.
I would have thought there would be paperwork somewhere?
The club appear to have had a lax attitude towards its own records and memorabilia over the years resulting in the farcical situation of spending £40k+ to buy a lot of it back at auction prior to lockdown. That purchase, apparently, is going to form the basis of the proposed museum
Headers will be gone from the game in out lifetime imho it'll start with the kids at grassroots and then filter up, pretty sure I read heading is banned in the USA till ages 10
We ( my girls team ) play teams and occasionally the other coach will ask before the game " are we doing headers " as some won't, which then give the other team a advantage, Before christmas we had a game where the other team wouldn't, we would put corners in the air ( I must admit, the girls worked this out themselves ) and we scored 2 goals from headers corners ( which we had practiced corners In training over a set training period ) which ( from a coaches point to view ) was great to see see things worked on the training field actually being put to use,
Keith Pontin was born in the same year as me (1956) and so he would have experienced those awful really heavy leather balls which would leave a Frankenstein type scar on your forehead if you headed it on the laces. More serious though were the times on wet days when the ball got really heavy when you’d head it and suffer the after effects for minutes afterwards if you didn’t get your contact with the ball exactly right.
If I remember Keith Pontin the player now, virtually all of my memories I have of him are connected with him heading the ball. It was what his game was all about - he’d go for the first challenge and someone like Albert Larmour or Dave Roberts would be “sweeping” behind him dealing with what are now called second balls. One of City’s centre halves while Pontin was there, Paul Went spent most of one season playing up front and revealed that he had an all round game which saw the ball played into his feet at times. Keith Pontin wasn’t clueless when the ball was on the ground, but I don’t think he could have done what Went did - he was a specialist centre half and my guess is that he played in that position all of his life, hence he probably was regularly heading that awful heavy leather ball as a kid.
The repetition of heading balls on a regular basis for thirty years or more must have an impact, especially in the professional game where defenders are encouraged to “attack” the ball and get distance on their headers - it’s a shock that there aren’t many more like Keith Pontin or maybe it’s more accurate to say that there are, but something else claims them before the damage done to them while they were a young man becomes clear.
I daresay it’s true at many clubs these days, but there’s probably only one member of the current City Board who knew of the existence of Keith Pontin before his diagnosis.
Whichever way you look at this it’s a sad day when a long serving footballer dies prematurely and that death is almost certainly related to heading the ball.
I agree with Matt and think it likely heading will eventually be banned from the game in years to come. The Keith Pontin case is surely the tip of the iceberg.
Do you think that, especially these days with the insurance companies that specialise in football, a lot of what people consider to be the Clubs response is actually driven and controlled by the relevant Insurance company
I'm not saying its right or wrong but the City admitting any liability at this point would open the floodgates as far as any potential claims all over the land.I can see the day when all players may have to sign a wavier when there 18.