Bristol Rovers legend taking legal action against FA over brain condition says he has just years to live
In Bristol, Ian Alexander is a footballing legend.
Recognised in the shops – remembered as a stalwart for Rovers, winning the third-tier title and reaching a Wembley final for lower-league clubs in 1990.
Ian Alexander was part of the Bristol Rovers side that won promotion in 1990
He was never nationally famous, but like so many in the game, he was playing for the love of it rather than becoming a millionaire.
But the memories are fading and muddled for the 62-year-old. Not just forgetting those he played with or against. But, at times, unable to even remember to use a fork to eat.
Suspected chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is blamed – a brain condition linked to repeated blows to the head that can only be definitely diagnosed when the brain is analysed after death.
“We are football addicts, footballers,” Alexander told Sky News.
“I don’t know about the damage it does, and it’s the damage from collisions, headers and stuff you don’t know about when you play football.”
Now the hope is the High Court uncovers how much football should be blamed.
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Alexander is among more than 30 former players and their families taking legal action against the sport’s authorities, including the Football Association.
How much were they aware going back decades of the long-term damage caused by repeated blows to the head, concussions and repetitive heading, particularly in training?
Finding out the answer is dragging on. A year after the first hearing, they were back in court today in central London, to hear of more delays, more obstacles being put in their way by the sport’s governing body.
Martin Porter KC, representing the FA, claimed there was a lack of clear direction in the case to narrow down what is being sought from a “shed loads of documents” held by such a “venerable organisation”.
“We are in the middle of a football season, it is a very difficult time, a busy time,” Mr Porter said. “We would be putting a lot of demands on our clients to uncover information.”
That prompted an irritated response from Shaman Kapoor, the barrister representing the former players, pointing out the FA executives are not the ones playing.
We did hear the initial hint of a defence by the FA, among procedural legal arguments, highlighting health benefits of playing.
“Nobody can play sport without some risk of injury,” Mr Porter said. “Are we to discourage the playing of sport?”
But central to the case will be whether anything can be found in the FA archives going back to the 1950s showing, for example, if there was scientific evidence to show heading should have been reduced or removed from the game entirely.
The parties are due back in court in June. But Mr Kapoor became increasingly exacerbated and told the court: “The idea has been to ambush the progress of this litigation”.
For Alexander and wife Janet, the slow pace of the case is infuriating.
Alexander said ‘get to the bottom of it and let us get on with the rest of our life’
“Why don’t you just get the case going? Get to the bottom of it and let us get on with the rest of our life,” he said.
It is the feeling of justice, not fortunes, they seek, but enough compensation for treatment and to enjoy the life he has left.
“The professor said from your age and your symptoms and stuff, he reckons I’ve got between two and six years,” Alexander said.
“So I’ve got the back of my head. That’s what I’ve got left. And that was a year ago.” Anxiety attacks make even going to football now a struggle.
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Nothing extravagant is planned, just hoping for a caravan strip around his homeland in Scotland. And more trips to neurological experts to discover just what is wrong with his brain and whether football caused it.
A tattoo inked on his left arm reads: “The mind may not remember, but the heart will never forget.”
The hope is football does not forget, with former Leeds player John Stiles leading the lobbying of the government for the football’s looming independent regulator to have powers over the long-term impact of head injuries.
The concern is of a widespread brain disease epidemic in the game and not enough being done to help the victims.
“Would you go back and do it again? My answer would be yes,” Alexander said. “I wouldn’t have changed anything in my life.
“Football was my life. I had great times.”
He just wishes it could have been safer. But whether football authorities neglected his, and other players’ health, is a matter a judge could end up determining.
Singer and actress Marianne Faithfull has died at the age of 78.
A spokesperson said: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull.
“Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family.
“She will be dearly missed.”
Marianne Faithfull in 1995. Pic: Reuters
Faithfull was best known for her 60s hit As Tears Go By, written by The Rolling Stones’ Jagger and Keith Richards.
She also starred in films including The Girl on a Motorcycle and 2007’s Irina Palm, for which she was nominated for a European Film Award for Best Actress.
In recent years, she provided voice work for the 2021 remake of Dune and 2023’s Wild Summon.
Faithfull in The Girl on a Motorcycle. Pic: Mid-Atlantic/Ares/Claridge/Kobal/Shutterstock
Born in 1946, Faithfull started her singing career in 1964 after being discovered by the Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham.
Her self-titled debut album was released a year later, with As Tears Go By reaching number nine on the UK singles chart.
She went on to have a string of successful singles, including Come and Stay with Me, This Little Bird, and Summer Nights, and famously dated Sir Mick from 1966 to 1970.
Faithfull was prolific throughout the 60s, releasing six albums – some only in the UK and some for the US – as well as contributing backing vocals to the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and inspiring the Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil.
That decade also saw her star in films like 1967’s I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname – where she was one of the first people to say f*** in a mainstream studio film – 1968’s The Girl on a Motorcycle, and Tony Richardson’s 1969 adaptation of Hamlet.
Her relationship with Sir Mick was notorious, with the couple being arrested in 1968 for possession of cannabis.
She was also infamously found by police wearing only a bear skin rug when they arrived for a drugs raid at Richard’s home in 1967.
Faithfull and Mick Jagger dated from 1966 to 1970. Pic: Shutterstock
After breaking up with the Stones frontman, Faithfull spent two years homeless in Soho while suffering from anorexia and heroin addiction, before she started living in a squat.
She wrote in her 1994 autobiography: “For me, being a junkie was an admirable life. It was total anonymity, something I hadn’t known since I was 17.
“As a street addict in London, I finally found it. I had no telephone, no address.”
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In 1979, following success in Ireland with the country-themed Dreamin’ My Dreams, Faithfull released the Grammy-nominated Broken English – widely considered her best album.
She later achieved critical acclaim as a jazz and blues singer with 1987’s Strange Weather and went to rehab that same decade.
Faithfull performing in Montreux, Switzerland, in 2009. Pic: Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA/Shutterstock
Faithfull released a total of 21 solo albums throughout her career. Her most recent was the spoken word album She Walks in Beauty from 2021, which saw her work with frequent Nick Cave collaborator Warren Ellis.
She made a full recovery from breast cancer in 2006, and fell into a coma after catching COVID-19 early in 2020 before recovering.
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