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A career spent heading the ball as an aerial colossus for club and country has come with a heavy toll
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“Kevin said that you would put your head where others wouldn’t put their feet,” says Penny Watson, wincing at the memory of the injuries her husband sustained during a 20-year football career while lovingly patting him on the knee.
Dave Watson has been occasionally nodding off for the past 20 minutes but just the word “Kevin” suddenly prompts a sparkle in his now wide-open eyes.
“Kevin Keegan! Is he still around?” asks Watson of his fellow ex-England captain, before looking genuinely relieved to hear that, yes, his great friend and former room-mate is doing just fine.
Indeed, Keegan recently made an unpublicised visit to give a talk at the Notts County Memory Club which Watson attends on a monthly basis alongside other former players who are now living with dementia.
Centre-backs like Watson, who was an aerial colossus in a rather more direct era of English football, are five times more likely to suffer from a neurodegenerative disease than someone of the same age in a different profession.
Confirmation of what has been long staring football in the face arrived exactly five years ago following research by the University of Glasgow and yet progress over questions like whether dementia in football should be recognised as an industrial disease feels glacial.
All the while, men like Dave gradually fade and families like the Watsons stoically try to make the best of an awful situation with limited external help.
“It’s very up and down,” says Penny, describing how Dave now requires assistance for once routine tasks and constant supervision for his own safety.
Simple pleasures like reading, board games or indulging a talent for playing the guitar – he once shared a stage with Iron Maiden – are no longer possible. Worst of all, Penny feels like she is losing her best friend.
“It’s hard to cope with – it’s insidious,” she says. “People think it’s only memory but it’s also a change of personality. You are losing the person you know. The sunny personality has disappeared. Our relationship has changed immeasurably. You become their carer.
“He was always brilliant with names – very intelligent – he would work out complicated percentages in his head very quickly at business meetings. He was a different person off the pitch. Quiet, but revered. A good listener. It’s hard to find anyone who has a bad word to say about him.”
Watson first went to the doctors to share concerns about his memory in 2011 before being persuaded by the family to go for a full check in 2014 after they feared that he might have a brain tumour. He was diagnosed with dementia but scans subsequently revealed a severe case of cavum septum pellucidum, a condition in which a cavity forms inside the brain and is often seen in people who have suffered a traumatic accident like a major car crash.
The belief both of the family and their consultant is that Watson is now living with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease associated with repetitive head impacts and increasingly found in former footballers, including Jeff Astle, Nobby Stiles and Joe Kinnear. The family went public with Watson’s condition in 2020.
“It was a relief in a way – Dave would always sign autographs and, if he wasn’t able to, you wanted people to know,” says Penny. “It was also to encourage others that it wasn’t something to be ashamed of. None of us like to admit that something is wrong, particularly I think men. Many people are in denial but it is more open now. It’s not a dirty secret.”
And Watson does still enjoy socialising. He was invited to Wembley for the match against the Republic of Ireland, 50 years on from winning the first of 65 England caps.
Regular walks with a Sunderland-supporting neighbour and twice weekly sessions on an exercise bike have also helped maintain a physique which, even at 78, looks as fit and slender as when he was in his playing prime.
When I arrive at their home near Nottingham, Watson is standing at the front window of the house waiting and looking out over the driveway. A video recording featuring Trevor Brooking and Mick Channon is playing but he is keen to join a tour of the family home that contains numerous reminders of both a fabulous career and an eclectic range of friendships. Status Quo’s Rick Parfitt and tennis great John McEnroe are among those who feature on the walls. “From one athlete to another,” says the message from McEnroe.
A stunning portrait that was drawn by the writer and artist James Herbert, who was another family friend, hangs from their living room wall and is inscribed with the words: ‘Dave Watson, England’s finest centre-half’.
“You look a bit of a fearsome beast,” says the Telegraph’s photographer when he sees the portrait. With a sudden flash of humour, Watson smiles and simply replies: “I was.”
“You must be very proud,” I say. Watson nods: “I am.”
After beginning his career at Notts County and then moving to Rotherham United, Watson was a rock in the immortal second-division Sunderland team of Bob Stokoe that won the 1973 FA Cup final against Don Revie’s all-conquering Leeds United.
He then starred for the Manchester City side of the late-1970s which won the 1976 League Cup. The players each received a tankard for winning that competition and on the inside of Watson’s is still a dark mark. “That was his blood – he would never let me clean it,” says Penny, recalling how Watson played through a head injury that also left crimson stains all over his shirt and shorts.
With television cameras in the Wembley dressing-room, there is then extraordinary post-match footage of the ITV commentator Brian Moore conducting an interview with the no fuss Watson while two medics are stitching up his left eye-brow.
Penny then recounts a match against City in January 1980 after he had joined Channon and Alan Ball at Lawrie McMenemy’s title-challenging Southampton. “He was knocked out cold for a good few minutes,” she says. “Joe Corrigan, who was one of Dave’s best friends, went to punch it and he caught Dave as he scored. Dave collapsed. It was horrible. He finally came around with smelling salts. You can then see Alan Ball and others saying, ‘Congratulations’ and him mouthing back, ‘What? Did I score?’”
Watson was allowed to complete the game but, after remaining confused well into the evening, he was admitted to hospital. These are just two of 10 incidents between 1971 and 1983 that were judged to be industrial accidents by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Board back in 2021 and yet actually receiving any benefit from the Department of Work and Pensions – which could theoretically range from £36.58p to £182.90p a week – remains subject to an ongoing claim.
The Watson family are now funding this process after support from what was the charity of the Professional Footballers Association – now renamed the Players Foundation following an ongoing Charity Commission inquiry – became capped.
“We hope it will set a precedent for others,” she says. “It is about recognition of the situation and fighting for those who desperately need help financially.”
Gemma Jordan, who is the youngest of the Watsons’ three children and a professional filmmaker, has begun making a documentary about her father’s life. With contributions already from the likes of Keegan – “he was a warrior; hard, disciplined, professional” – and Sunderland team-mate Dennis Tueart – “Dave could head a ball further than I could kick it; he was the signing of the century” – it has the makings of something very special. Dave and Penny have just shared 55 years of marriage and the insight into the realities of their life now are particularly powerful.
Gemma describes her “big, strong” dad as someone with a great sense of humour who also loved music and animals and “would do anything for us or other people”. He had seemed “invincible”, she says.
Penny was 16 when they first met at a dance and the self-effacing Dave, who was one of eight siblings, initially preferred to tell her that he worked at a fruit and veg stall, which he did during the summer, rather than reveal that he had just signed for Notts County. “He pursued me – and we soon fell in love,” says Penny.
The life of a footballer’s wife back then was rather different and she recalls having to make all her own arrangements to see him represent England at the 1980 European Championship in Italy. “The wives weren’t allowed to do anything – it’s gone from one extreme to the other,” she says.
Penny remembers how Dave would stay behind after training to repeatedly perfect his heading and jumping. It is certainly striking that so many of the old photographs show Watson hanging in the air and, despite largely playing as a defender, he scored more than 80 goals in over 800 professional games.
As we talk, Dave does occasionally again perk up. He looks genuinely interested to hear that my first football-watching experiences were at the old Dell ground in Southampton and wonders if McMenemy is still involved with the club.
He is also emphatic when asked if he would change his career. “No I wouldn’t,” he says. The point that the family wants to make, however, is that it is possible for football to do much more to mitigate the risks and help those for whom it is already too late.
Penny mentions the scan which showed the damage that has been done to her husband’s brain. “Why can’t players have scans done at the beginning of each season, and after any bad head injury, to see if something is happening,” she says. “Dave wouldn’t have continued until he was 39 if it had shown up when he was 30. He was a father with three kids by then. If they have the knowledge, it’s up to them.” She also highlights the FA’s guidance on heading practice – no more than 10 per week in the amateur game or 10 of ‘high-force’ in a professional setting – and questions whether it is being enforced.
Penny has been greatly encouraged, though, by the formation of the PFA’s brain health department and fund.
The proposed title of the documentary is Forgotten: The Story of Big Dave Watson. Forgotten – is that how they feel?
“Absolutely,” says Penny, thinking about the ongoing campaign for change, help and recognition from governing bodies and government departments. Although she then adds a crucial caveat. “But not by the football fans … they don’t forget.”
To support the Dave Watson documentary click here
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