How brain injury fears have made me an unpopular team-mate

We all know about the brain injury risks of boxing. In many ways it is hardly surprising that a sport which makes an art of violence should carry such a high risk of personal injury. What is more surprising, however, is the fact that, aside from boxing, football is the most dangerous sport in the UK.

It was only recently, while taking my dog for an early Saturday morning walk, that I came to the common and, as usual, stopped to watch a match between two teams of early-teenagers. Just like Bozo, my dog, I am like a magnet to any kind of ball. I even have to restrain myself from running onto the pitch and having a crack at goal myself.

However, now, just as when I was growing up, I have an almost pathological resistance to heading the ball. Even though I love the game beyond any level that can be reasonably rationalised, I have never been able to bring myself to out-jump my marker and power the ball off my forehead into the open net.

I've always excused my cowardice on the grounds that it goes against some form of inner self-protection mechanism. Time and again, when asked by team-mates why I've scuppered that last chance to win a match, I've simply replied, "I can't head the ball. It makes me feel strange." As you might imagine, this has, at times, made me a deeply unpopular team player.

This is why I could not help but feel an enormous amount of sympathy for one of the boys who was playing for his team at the common last Saturday morning. It was a wet day and the muddy pitch meant that the ball spent a lot of time being hoofed into midair, so this particular lad, desperate to hide his fear, kept going in the general direction of the ball, only to hide behind his marker at the last minute. His coach grew increasingly incandescent and kept screaming threatening things like, "Just head the flipping ball or you'll never be playing a game for this club again."

Although I don't think it is likely that, in the event of this boy suffering brain injury, his coach will be liable for any form of personal injury claim, I do think that children shouldn't be subjected to undue pressure to head the ball.

This a principle founded on personal principles, not scientific ones. Apparently there is little risk involved. Dr Donal Kirkendall, a professor of orthopaedics with the University of North Carolina, comments, "Based on the literature, we'd say that purposeful heading of a ball is not something parents should be concerned about.

"In fact, parents of children under age 12 have little reason to be concerned because heading in children's games tends to be a novelty, usually off a bounced or thrown ball and kids just can't kick the ball that hard."

Fortunately, the days of heavy leather balls, that used to become even heavier in wet conditions, are long gone. They truly were a brain injury risk of the kind that would be of interest to a no win, no fee lawyer. For example, Jeff Astle, the former England and West Bromwich Albion striker, died from an untimely "industrial disease" at 56 after years of heading a ball "like a bag of bricks" took their toll.

Can I claim?