IT is sad to hear of that yet another of our former sporting heroes is suffering from dementia (“Football world voices support for McNeill after dementia is revealed”, The Herald, February 27). Even those with little or no medical knowledge cannot fail to draw parallels with similar conditions in other sports where blows to the head are commonplace.

Will Smith stars in the excellent movie Concussion, which portrays the struggle between forensic pathologist Dr Bennet Omalu and the United Sates football establishment over the recognition of a link between chronic traumatic encephalopathy found in some former players and the repeated blows to the head common in the offensive and defensive lines in American football. One can only wonder if a similar train of events happened in the past to those footballers who routinely headed the ball as those of us who played football in the 1950s and 60s can testify that heading a wet leather football was at times akin to heading a brick wall. Who knows, low-grade trauma may still be taking place in the current generation?

It also should set alarm bells ringing in rugby circles as with today’s breed of bigger heavier players and the predominance of face-to-face upper-body tackles as it would appear to the casual observer as if head trauma is on the increase.

David J Crawford,

Flat 3/3 131 Shuna Street, Glasgow.