Full name: Christopher James Turner
Date of birth: 3 April 1951
Date of diagnosis: 2006 (aged 55)
Diagnosis: Frontal Lobe Dementia
Date of death: 27 April 2015 (aged 64)
Occupation: Professional Footballer
Position: Defender

Chris Turner was a defender for Peterborough United from 1966-1977, and later played for Luton, Cambridge United, Swindon and Southend before retiring in 1984.

I remember only too well the horrible day we were told that my man had frontal lobe dementia from heading footballs. He knew there was something wrong with him, he had told his friend that something was happening to him but he didn't know what it was. People used to tell me I was imaging it - that he was alright, just a bit forgetful.

Chris used to be a funny, caring, very loving and kind person. Suddenly, he didn't know what he was doing and he rarely spoke. The hardest thing was the disease was making Chris very aggressive, even towards me, his wife. It was all so sad. Before he was always telling me I looked nice, never going out of the house without kissing me goodbye. I miss that, I always will. 

To put my man into a care home was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I was told I couldn't have him at home anymore. He didn't know what he was doing. Every day I go to see my man, I hold his hand, I cuddle him and I talk to him. I don't think he takes any notice of what I am saying but I sit beside him and rabbit on. Does he know me? For the last 7 years I have sat and watched my man slowly die. 

Chris is deteriorating rapidly. He can't walk. He has lost the ability to swallow so now all his food is puréed. But when he opens his lovely brown eyes he's still my world. Thank goodness the care home he is in is great. I know that he is always clean and looked after, they love him too. It is still difficult to believe that someone so fit and strong would end up like this as a result of playing the game he loved.

Lynne Turner

Full name: John Henry Ritchie       
Date of birth: 12 July 1941
Date of diagnosis: 2000 (aged 59)
Diagnosis: Alzheimers
Date of death: 23 February 2007 (aged 65) 
Occupation: Professional Footballer
Position:  Striker/ Centre Forward

The Boothen End called him “Big John”, I called him “Dad”. My Father played in 434 games, scoring 209 goals for Stoke City and Sheffield Wednesday. He remains the all-time leading goal scorer for The Potters, his business continues, ran by his children and his name, in gold, remains as a reminder of the many golfing achievements of 40 years as a member of his golf club.
At 6 feet 2” my Father was a giant of a man, lean but muscular, jet black hair, handsome features and piercing blue eyes. Like an electrical charge, you always knew when my Father had entered a room. Known for his heading prowess, he scored a large amount of his goals through bravery and sheer will. This bravery, although he did not know it at the time, would cost my father first, his ability to function verbally, reasonably and eventually physically until his death in 2007.

The first symptoms were easy to miss, he stumbled over words, put the wrong petrol into his car and became agitated at simple tasks. The first time we became concerned, as a family, after he returned from a golfing holiday with friends. Several times, he had become confused, scared and on more than one occasion, he had succumbed to tears. Then began months, years of tests, of misdiagnosis, over this time he quickly lost the ability to speak, the ability to function without help and inevitably his confusion and upset gave way to nothing. He became a shell, just a skeletal body, those blue eyes had dulled, like a torch whose batteries are dying, barely a flicker remained and then on the 23rd of February 2007, he left us. 

My Father died from complications linked to Alzheimers, through MRI, the specialist diagnosed, my Father had a build up of plaque to the front of his brain, this had been caused by the trauma of the constant impact to his forehead from a football, in the early part of his career a football that was leather, heavy and unforgiving. I wonder, if he was aware of the damage being done, if he would have continued. For 60 years of his life, he had been a football legend, a brilliant golfer, a successful business man and the head of a family that provided homes for his Mother and Father, his wife and children and would he have changed that? Sadly, that question will remained unanswered.

David Ritchie

Full name: Frank Kopel
Date of birth: 28 March 1949
Date of diagnosis: 2009 (aged 59)
Diagnosis: Vascular Dementia
Date of death: 16 April 2014  (aged 65)
Occupation: Professional Footballer
Position: Defender/Full Back

Frankie started of his career as a young 15 year old apprentice with Manchester Utd in 1964 he came through the ranks of A and B teams followed on by the reserves and he was to eventually play 12 first team games alongside famous names such as Best, Law and Charlton.

He was transferred to Blackburn Rovers in 1969 the year we were married, and he stayed at the club for three years.

On 1st January 1972 he became new manager Jim McLeans first signing for Dundee Utd. He was to go onto play over 417 games for Utd, winning two Scottish League Cup medals with them and scoring one of the best europoean goals for Utd when they played the Belgian champions Anderlecht and he scored the equalizer to knock Anderlcht out of the European Cup. He was nicknamed then the arrow in Anderlecht by the Utd fans. In 1979 Jock Stein the Scotland football manager chose Frankie's Anderlecht goal as "goal of the season" Frankie was so very humbled by it all and would always say if anyone asked him how he scored it, he would tell them that the ball came to his feet, he closed his eyes and hit it, and the next thing he knew it was in the back of the net... Frankie also has a fan club named after him, the Frank Kopel travelling shindig club.

He was a quiet humble man, a hard worker, and a man who, as someone said to me, if you were a friend of Frank Kopel you were honoured to be his friend. He was a very loyal friend. He also had a wicked sense of humour but only with family and close friends.  Frankie loved his family, we were his world and he was ours.

He was sent to a cardiologist in 2008 as he had a few niggly chest pains one day, which we put down to indigestion. And for the next 14 months he was put on heart medication and statins to lower his cholesterol, which as we discovered, he never had a heart conditoin or high cholesterol. He was advised to stop taking the medication and discharged from that clinic, never saw that cardiologist again.

Our lives and dreams were totally shattered when in 2009 after manys scans and tests, we heard those words "I’m sorry you have Vascular Dementia" at first we thought that couldn’t be right, they must have got him mixed up with someone else, but sadly they hadn’t.

Here was a very fit ex professional footballer, who, had never even taken a pain killer for a headache, no major health problems, no heart disease, strokes, tias, never smoked, exercised every day... Vascular Dementia? He did not fit the criteria of anyone being diagnosed with that.

He began to forget little things, which we put down to "senior moments" stumbled and lost his footing, put petrol in his diesel car. But as the disease progressed rapidly, my beautiful soul mate was being robbed of his mind and body. He started to forget his life.

He lost the sight in his left eye, he lost control of his bladder and bowel, he lost his mobility, how to eat, how to speak, he lost his dignity... and eventually his life.

And for 6 years I knew that Frankie did not have "Vascular" Dementia, that he had been misdiagnosed and that his dementia was casued byheading of the hard leather footballs... but  no one would listen, until last year.

In 2009 a neurologist friend of ours in the USA first suggested to me that the medical profession had been too quick to label Frankie as having "Vascular" Dementia when in fact he said it was dementia caused by CTE. I tried so many times to suggest this to the professionals who were dealing with Frankie but as i said no one would listen... until last year.

To watch what this dreadful disease did to Frankie was heartbreaking and humiliating for us as a family. To watch him being robbed of his life in such a cruel way was soul destroying.

Being a footballer was the only thing that Frankie ever wanted to do since he was a young boy, and that same dream of being a footballer ended his life. Who would have ever thought that doing the job you loved would have ended so tragically? 

Frankie celebrated his 65th birthday on the 28th March last year and on the 30th March he took a chest infection.

Frankie died in my arms on the 16th april last year with Scott our son beside us.

I have lost Frankie, he is never coming back.

There will be no more hugs, no more holding hands, no more trying to assure him that everything would be alright, no more caring for him like he was my child, no more us hoping and praying that someone somewhere would find a cure, no more dreaming about the plans we had for our retirement, no more watching his grandchildren grow up to fulfil their dreams... no more hearing those words “Amanda I love you”.

There is no more.

And I want to thank the Astle family and Dr Stewart for the wonderful support they have given me and my famly this last year. The Jeff Astle Foundation will benefit so many others, ex professionals and ther families, who are going through the same as we went through and have lost their loved ones. God bless them all.

Amanda Kopel