'Most important game of football since 1863' comes to Cambridge
Some of the world's leading brain injury specialists are due to play
Ex-pro footballers and some of the world's leading brain injury scientists are heading for Cambridge today for what's billed as 'the most important game of football since 1863'.
‘The Generations Game: Cambridge vs The Rest of the World’ aims to bring together brain injury neuroscientists and clinicians, football coaches, ex-professional players, and recreational players.
It will take place on Parker's Piece, where Cambridge University students first posted a set of football rules in 1848 before parts of this were later adopted by the Football Association 15 years later.
The match looks to showcases the evolution of football rules through the generations from 1963, to the modern day, and how they affect players’ brain health.
Professor Peter Hutchinson is a professor of neurosurgery at Cambridge University:
"Sports are really important, people need to keep playing it, it's important for the health and fitness of individuals and the nation," he said.
"Equally, we do have concerns about some of these concussions that are occurring in football and other sports so if we can do anything to avoid them, that would be good.
"We're really excited (for the match); it's going to be a lot of fun and hopefully out of this will come some science and a little more about the understanding of concussive brain injury and how we can help people who've got it."
How will the match work?
The match is being hosted by the UK charity Head Safe Football, alongside the International Neurotrauma Society and TBI-REPORTER, a platform that makes research on traumatic brain injury accessible to scientists.
It is part of the build-up to the 2024 Meeting of the International Neurotrauma Society, focusing on sports head injury and concussion, at Cambridge Corn Exchange on September 4.
The match will be played in teams according to the 1863 football rules, before adopting the current rules.
It will also adhere to the new FA Under 9 rules being introduced for the 2024-25 grassroots football season, which removes deliberate heading of the ball.
Between 3.45pm and 5pm, there will be an opportunity to play and learn from the global Headsafe curriculum team who support the likes of coaches, scientists and players to learn about heading and protecting the brain.
Playing for Bill
The main match will follow from 5.15pm to 6.45pm in memory of the late former Middlesbrough defender Bill Gates, who died last year after a progressive brain disease.
Gates, who played 333 times for Boro between 1961 and 1974, helped inspire a campaign to highlight the links between football and dementia.
"We've got a collaboration with Bill Gates' family, who did a lot of heading of the football and there are concerns on the impact that had on him, so we thought this was an opportunity to highlight that," Professor Hutchinson added.