A former England rugby star says he 'can't remember' winning the 2003 World Cup. He's now joined a group of ex-players suing authorities after being diagnosed with dementia.
- Former England rugby star Steve Thompson is one of a group of eight ex-players suing the sport's authorities after being diagnosed with the early onset dementia.
- The BBC reports that the group are to send a letter of claim amounting to millions of pounds in damages to the governing bodies for English, Welsh, and World rugby union next week.
- Thompson, a World Cup winner in 2003, told The Guardian: "You see us lifting the World Cup and I can see me there jumping around. But I can't remember it."
Former England rugby star Steve Thompson is one of a group of eight ex-players suing the sport's authorities after being diagnosed with early onset dementia.
Thompson played in every match for England during the team's 2003 World Cup-winning run, however the now 42-year-old says he "can't remember" any of the games and says repeated blows to the head are to blame.
"Honestly, I don't know scores from any of the games," Thompson told The Guardian, adding: "You see us lifting the World Cup and I can see me there jumping around. But I can't remember it."
The BBC reports that Thompson and the rest of the group are to send a letter of claim amounting to millions of pounds in damages to the governing bodies for English, Welsh, and world rugby union next week.
Richard Boardman, who is representing a group, says he is working with a group of 110 ex-players overall, who will submit a larger litigation order after the claims of smaller group are heard.
"It's worth emphasizing that this is just the opening salvo of the action, he said. "There's a very long way to go, nothing has been resolved, we've not even engaged in opening conversations yet with the other side."
As part of the action, the players involved are supporting a list of 15 changes for the sport to adopt to make it safer. These include:
- Limiting physical contact in training sessions;
- Introducing more comprehensive concussion testing;
- Creating a central database chronicling players' injury history;
- Better post-career care for players.
"Since 1995 when the game went professional, the size of the guys has increased, the power, the strength, the pace of the game and therefore the collisions have increased," Boardman added.
"I certainly think potentially there are things within a game that could change."
Thompson says rugby's "brutal" culture is part of the problem
"In the old days it was a bit of a laugh. If someone got whacked in the head, it was: 'Oh, look at him, he's had a belt. He'll be up in a minute,'" he told The Guardian.
"The amount of head bangs I had in training. I was known for it. 'Oh, he's having a little sleep, he'll get up in a minute.'"
On what he called "grueling" training sessions on scrum machines, Thompson said: "There's so much pressure. They aren't moving, they've got pegs in it, they've got people stood on it, and you drive into it, all that weight coming through.
"And suddenly, as the pressure comes off, you start getting the light, the little white dots, and you don't know where you are for a few seconds."
The 42-year-old, who says he now sometimes forgets his wife's name, added that he is angry at being treated "like a piece of meat."
"You think how many specialists were out there watching that and not saying anything," he says. "They knew what was happening. And nothing was done about it.
"People were getting knocked on the head and it was not being recorded. I'm knocked out in training and it was always: 'It's just a knock on the head, he'll be fine.'
"I don't want to kill the game. I want it regulated."
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