Dean Windass wishes he had not learned of dementia diagnosis

Former Bradford and Hull striker Dean Windass admits he wishes he had not learned of his dementia diagnosis and initially did not want to speak publicly about it to protect his two footballer sons.

The 56-year-old was diagnosed with stage two dementia last January having undergone a scan following a request from John Stiles, son of the late England World Cup winner Nobby who died from the disease in 2020.

But Windass said he would have preferred not to have received his diagnosis.

“There’s a lot of footballers that won’t do it (the scan) because they don’t want to know the outcome,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

“I wish I wouldn’t have gone in now, but it’s happened. It would be better not to know.

“They said this is the diagnosis, it’s very mild. You have nothing to worry about at this stage. It could be five to 10 years that it could develop to bigger stages, so it wasn’t the news that I wanted. I was scared, of course I was.

“The reason obviously that I didn’t come out and speak about it a year and a half ago was that my eldest son is a professional footballer (Josh plays for Sheffield Wednesday) and my youngest son (Jordan) was a professional footballer but plays amateur football now.

“It’s not just football matches, it’s training every day, the repetition of heading balls everyday – I did it for 20 years. I don’t know if Josh does head it every day.

“He’s not a massive header of the ball anyway really but I said to him ‘Try not to head the ball’ but you have to in a game, of course you have.

“He scored a goal at Wembley by heading the ball. You’ve got to head it, but can you minimise it in training?”

The Alzheimer’s Society said early and accurate diagnosis allows people to live independently for longer, access treatment and plan for the future.

“We understand that getting a dementia diagnosis, as Dean Windass has courageously shared, can be daunting, and everyone’s experience is unique,” said chief executive Kate Lee.

“But we believe it’s better to know. Our research shows that 97 per cent of people affected by dementia saw a benefit in getting a diagnosis.”