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Former Manchester City star Denis Law has been diagnosed with dementia, it was announced today. The 81-year-old former striker has revealed he is suffering from Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia.
“This will not be an easy journey especially for the people who love you the most,” said the former Scottish international. “I know the road ahead will be hard, demanding, painful and ever changing and so ask for understanding and patience. I recognise how my brain is deteriorating and how my memory evades me when I don’t want it to and how this causes me distress in situations that are beyond my control.
“I do understand what is happening and that is why I want to address my situation now whilst I am able, because I know there will be days when I don’t understand and I hate the thought of that right now.”
He is the latest player to be diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease, after his former team-mate Bobby Charlton revealed his diagnosis last year, while former England man Nobby Stiles sadly passed last year from the disease. Martin Peters and Ray Wilson, who have both passed on, were also diagnosed with the same condition.
The disease has been heavily linked with heading footballs, which has lead to a change in rules that have limited professional footballers to 10 ‘higher force headers’ per week in training, after a study in 2019 found footballers were more likely to suffer from neurodegenerative brain disease.
Law had two spells with City in the 60’s and 70’s and spent the majority of his career across the road at Old Trafford, where he made over 400 appearances for the reds in a trophy-laden career spanning 18 years.
He returned to City for the 1973/74 season and is best remembered for scoring a backheeled goal against United that looked to have sent his former club crashing into the second division. Law, along with the rest of the football world, later discovered United’s fate had already been sealed elsewhere.
We wish Denis luck in his battle against the dreadful disease, and regardless of him playing for the enemy, he will always have a place in the hearts and minds of City fans.