The Jeff Astle Foundation will be launched before West Brom play Leicester and they will wear an iconic kit to commemorate their former striker
The campaign by Jeff Astle’s family to get some recognition that the brain injury he suffered was caused by playing football is gathering some real pace now.
The great West Brom striker died in 2002 aged just 59 and he was subsequently diagnosed with CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) the same condition that many NFL players contract. While the NFL players received their brain damage via the constant banging of their heads against other players, the Astle family contend that the damage Jeff suffered was due to heading the ball.
They want the FA to take the matter seriously, research the effects long term on footballers’ brains from heading footballs and to support any family like theirs who had to help former players deal with the illness.
The campaign moves up a further notch next month when the Jeff Astle Foundation is launched, a body which will help former footballers and their families effected by CTE to cope. It is part funded by the PFA.
To commemorate the launch, on the day that West Brom play Leicester City, April 11, West Brom will wear their iconic 1968 FA Cup Final kit, the one Astle wore when he scored the winner in that game against Everton.
It is a classy shirt, and a classy move, by the club and they have produced a heart breaking video too, where Astle’s family and former team-mates talk about the damage the disease did to a man they loved.
