The news the Fabrice Muamba has today had a “brief chat” with his Manager Owen Coyle is a great fillip to everyone who cares about football, or who was watching the game on Saturday either at White Hart Lane, or as I was, on TV.
What we have seen in the last few days really shows that football, for all its faults can still be a tremendous force for good. It can bring people together in a way that other sports, and indeed pretty much anything else, cannot.
We have seen football fans put aside their petty – and sometimes nasty – rivalries in order to support a player with which, perhaps, we can all identify, we have seen opposing players, often as we all know guilty of appalling acts of cynicism on the field genuinely care for Muamba, and we can only hope that the players himself when he is well enough, and his family and friends now can derive great comfort from the emotion.
And while making his recovery, if Fabrice is looking to draw strength from recent events he could do worse than have a look at the tale of one time Irish international Clive Clarke.
Clive Clarke was a full back or midfielder, primarily at Stoke City, for whom he made 262 appearances in between 1998 and 2005. In 2007 he was at Leicester on loan from Sunderland when he collapsed at half time in a Carling Cup Match between The Foxes and Nottingham Forest.
Just like Muamba, he was a young, fit footballer, slightly older than the Bolton man, he was 27 and too he had suffered a cardiac arrest however, like we all hope that Muamba will, was recover and carry on a normal life.
Clarke spoke to the BBC the other day and told how the dreadful events at Tottenham had echoes of what had happened to him four and a half years before. “"I came down the tunnel at half-time feeling a little bit dizzy, light-headed," he said. “"I went into the changing room, sat down and the next thing I knew I woke up in the back of an ambulance.
"I think the players and management staff probably feared the worst. They thought that I had probably died in the changing room.
"I was lucky I had good people around me who acted very quickly and saved my life."
And the story is much the same for the Bolton man – largely due to his position as a Premier League player thankfully, he was able to receive the best medical care available and perhaps more immediately than most would have done in the same situation.
Clarke said that it was only a couple of days after the event that he began to reflect on what had occurred that day. Doctors did tests, but no one knows why a fit young athlete should be struck down with a Cardiac Arrest in the first place.
And, that perhaps is the biggest mystery of them all and one of the reasons why there has been so much emotion towards Muamba. It just shouldn’t happen to one so young, and so fit. On the flip side of that, though, that natural fitness and youth is probably what saved both Muamba and Clarke before him.
The Irishman was unable to resume his football career at top level. He was advised not to by Medical Staff, but remains in the game as a part time agent, and just last month was calling for routine heart scans to be brought into the game as a matter of course.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, given what he has been through Clarke is heavily involved in a charity called Cry (Cardiac Risk In The Young), something he admits he wasn’t aware of before it happened to him.
It’s fair to say that, perhaps the story of what happened to Clarke perhaps isn’t as well known as that of Fabrice Muamba, but it is easy to forget that, even in 2007 the world was a very different place. The place most of us followed the news of Muamba on Saturday night was on Twitter, which was relatively unknown even five years ago.
If the fact that so many millions of people around the world are now aware of the risk of health problems amongst young people because of the terrible things that happened both to Muamba and to Clarke then we can all be thankful that something with a long term positive effect has happened.
Everyone at Football Business, Soccer Business and Football Franchise would like to send our best wishes to Fabrice Muamba and his family and friends at this difficult time.
What we have seen in the last few days really shows that football, for all its faults can still be a tremendous force for good. It can bring people together in a way that other sports, and indeed pretty much anything else, cannot.
We have seen football fans put aside their petty – and sometimes nasty – rivalries in order to support a player with which, perhaps, we can all identify, we have seen opposing players, often as we all know guilty of appalling acts of cynicism on the field genuinely care for Muamba, and we can only hope that the players himself when he is well enough, and his family and friends now can derive great comfort from the emotion.
And while making his recovery, if Fabrice is looking to draw strength from recent events he could do worse than have a look at the tale of one time Irish international Clive Clarke.
Clive Clarke was a full back or midfielder, primarily at Stoke City, for whom he made 262 appearances in between 1998 and 2005. In 2007 he was at Leicester on loan from Sunderland when he collapsed at half time in a Carling Cup Match between The Foxes and Nottingham Forest.
Just like Muamba, he was a young, fit footballer, slightly older than the Bolton man, he was 27 and too he had suffered a cardiac arrest however, like we all hope that Muamba will, was recover and carry on a normal life.
Clarke spoke to the BBC the other day and told how the dreadful events at Tottenham had echoes of what had happened to him four and a half years before. “"I came down the tunnel at half-time feeling a little bit dizzy, light-headed," he said. “"I went into the changing room, sat down and the next thing I knew I woke up in the back of an ambulance.
"I think the players and management staff probably feared the worst. They thought that I had probably died in the changing room.
"I was lucky I had good people around me who acted very quickly and saved my life."
And the story is much the same for the Bolton man – largely due to his position as a Premier League player thankfully, he was able to receive the best medical care available and perhaps more immediately than most would have done in the same situation.
Clarke said that it was only a couple of days after the event that he began to reflect on what had occurred that day. Doctors did tests, but no one knows why a fit young athlete should be struck down with a Cardiac Arrest in the first place.
And, that perhaps is the biggest mystery of them all and one of the reasons why there has been so much emotion towards Muamba. It just shouldn’t happen to one so young, and so fit. On the flip side of that, though, that natural fitness and youth is probably what saved both Muamba and Clarke before him.
The Irishman was unable to resume his football career at top level. He was advised not to by Medical Staff, but remains in the game as a part time agent, and just last month was calling for routine heart scans to be brought into the game as a matter of course.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, given what he has been through Clarke is heavily involved in a charity called Cry (Cardiac Risk In The Young), something he admits he wasn’t aware of before it happened to him.
It’s fair to say that, perhaps the story of what happened to Clarke perhaps isn’t as well known as that of Fabrice Muamba, but it is easy to forget that, even in 2007 the world was a very different place. The place most of us followed the news of Muamba on Saturday night was on Twitter, which was relatively unknown even five years ago.
If the fact that so many millions of people around the world are now aware of the risk of health problems amongst young people because of the terrible things that happened both to Muamba and to Clarke then we can all be thankful that something with a long term positive effect has happened.
Everyone at Football Business, Soccer Business and Football Franchise would like to send our best wishes to Fabrice Muamba and his family and friends at this difficult time.
No comments:
Post a Comment