Wife of former Middlesbrough player who died from CTE hoping to prevent further deaths
Bill Gates died two years ago
The widow of a former Middlesbrough footballer who died from a brain condition caused by headers is hoping to prevent further deaths.
Bill Gates died from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) three years ago.
His widow, Dr. Judith Gates, has been campaigning and raising awareness ever since.
It comes as earlier this week a coroner looking into the death of former Middlesbrough coach Gordon McQueen concluded that a football "likely" contributed to the brain injury.
Judith, who is chair and co-founder of Head Safe Football, said: "Having lived with my husband for 14 years on this Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy journey, having promised him I would do everything I could do stop it happening in the future, I wouldn't wish the pain, the trauma, the sadness and the grief on any other player or any other family.
"We are promoting our slogan: 'Think Head Safe: Reduce Heading In Training'. We would like that to become a national slogan. We already have 'If In Doubt, Sit Them Out' which refers to symptomatic concussions and is very appropriate there, but we need something for repetitive head impacts.
"We would like the slogan to be adopted by the Government, we would like it to be in every changing room and on every playing field, but we would like that to go alongside our education programme which provides people with the scientific basis for the concerns about repetitive heading, provides them with alternative ways of playing the game.
"I'm looking for a national slogan, I'm looking for increased awareness, and I'm looking for education to go alongside so that people buy into the process because they fully understand why and they fully understand it's in their interests and based on their needs.
"Take this message on board. Look at your kids because we have worked out that nowadays children of today by the time they're 16 will have headed the ball 15,000 times. Even although it's banned in training and in matches for the under 12s, you've got school teams, you're in the park, you're in the back garden, all of those sorts of things. So I would say to parents monitor your kids but do it on the basis of letting them know that it's from love and not restriction and it's for caring for their future."