YouSaid · the spoken record

Hana Walker-Brown

lines on the record: 48
first: 2022-04-20
most recent: 2022-04-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, I mean, I feel like the evidence presented is pretty serious. It has been serious for like the last 20 years. So again, like we said, I don't know what it takes. I don't know what it takes for them to really implement that slowly, but with every kind of heel they drag every day another player is being announced with dementia.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thrashing against each other. I'm sure there's more interesting or exhilarating ways that we could enjoy sport. But yeah, I think that needs to be worked out. And I don't think it's sort of an overnight situation. Like with anything worth having”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know, and I think it shouldn't be a case of they either change or they go. I think, you know, also kids are like creative. They've got imagination. You gave them a ball and you said, right, you can't do this, you can't do this, find a way. I'm sure they'd invent a new sport in like 10 minutes. And I think actually things do evolve as we learn different things as, you know, we become older or better, we shift and we change. And the world we lived in 20 years ago is not the world we lived in five years ago is not the world we live in today. And I think actually what, again, it probably would take time, but I think that needs interrogating rather than just kind of seeing it as it either, yeah, stays as it is or we get rid of it completely. There has to be another way or other sports might come through that offer a little bit more, you know. And I think it is sad to kind of hold on to this thing where actually when you unpick it, you're like, oh, it's literally just, you know, all these men.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That kind of brings the science and brings the history and brings society together, but it definitely is more than a book. I think it's a conversation. that was my hope and I think we're starting to see those conversations happen but it's a conversation that everybody I think needs to get involved in”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's really interesting. I actually read a good article about this in science focus that kind of inherent survival mode that we have. If we fight the best with the most intelligent, you know, we've overcome, we've got more skills than we survive in the world when we're faced with kind of conflict. And for some people watching those sports is an extension of that. So you get all of the thrill, but with none of the danger. So that's why it's kind of intoxicating because it taps into that thing we have, like that adrenaline, but we're not facing the problem. And I think, again, like I said, it's tricky with brain injury to put it in the same thing because do we see brain injury as violent? I'm not sure that we do because we don't have that immediate feedback that something is wrong. So yeah, I don't know. It's so complex, I think, as a subject. I hope, I think the book is kind of leveled it out to a kind of human level that everyone could understand.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Marcus Rushford is a sterling example of everything he does for kind of child poverty and hunger like if we had plays kind of, you know, stepping forward and acknowledging this and saying we're not going to do that, but they need the backing of the clubs and they need the backing of those that make the rules. But I say that's a huge problem. You know, we think the bigger the hit, the more heroic. And again, like this is a really, really sad thing, but a lot of these players who were so heroic like, you know, they're in nappies now. And that is no life, that is no hero.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's quite a lot of that. And I think whether that comes from the players themselves or from the fans, I think, especially you see it in football, you know, fans think they own the game. It's our game and that's where I think a lot of this comes in. And rugby, actually, like, oh, it's gone soft, it's gone soft. And again, like I said before, this is entrenched from centuries. You know, we could take it back right to gladiators, which I do in the book. And I think that's starting to change. I mean, even down to this idea like, what is there kind of one gay footballer who has, I mean, I hate the expression come out, but well, zero in it in English. Yeah, but I mean, which we know isn't true. But I think there needs to be a shift in this culture that equates sitting down to recover from an injury is a weakness. And I do think that is a big thing to contend with. And I guess, again, that comes down to education. You need spokespeople, you need people to take a stance.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Big thing is seeing who makes the rules, but then also who they're affiliated with and who pays them. I think now the FA and the PFA have promised things. Like Dawn Astor was even working with them last year and they've sort of promised a dementia fund, although that's sort of yet to materialize. But yeah, I mean, there's a litigation against rugby. Things are sort of alluded to and promised, then things are trialled. But right now, I don't think there's any kind of real concrete protocol enforced across the board that acknowledges the extent of the problem, makes it safer players to go, I need to go off now, or, you know, makes them go off now because they've got suspected brain injury. And I think that's what does need to happen. And that needs to happen from a government level to sporting bodies. And again, like we said with homework, for so long.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I found they were mostly ignoring the issue or placing researchers affiliated with them as leading researchers in this field and there's been a huge controversy in Australia recently in particular the AFL and a guy called Paul McCrory who was the head of the concussion in sport group and they basically decide the protocol for concussion across all sports and you know he's called CTE a myth he said second impact syndromed exist despite kind of plethora of evidence on the contrary and he has been recent well he recently resigned due to accusations of plagiarism so someone actually tweeted it today I retweeted it where he'd basically copied this research like verbatim but he'd changed the part where they had said like research into this area helps he'd changed it to research in this area has little impact so I think that was a big”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I would say, you know, even when you're running, the brain is shaking, but you're not going to run for 14 days in a row, that would be wild. You're going to go home and rest and, you know, the brain is fine. But it is those kind of, again, concussive, but that repetition of the subconcussive and constantly being in play that is the danger. So no, absolutely not all sports will be neurodegenerative disease will be prevalent in. But again, it's just being mindful and being safe. And that's not to scare everyone to being like, oh, I must never do sport again. That's absolutely not the case because there's also health benefits of sport, you know.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, anything has the potential to, if there are those repetitive hits to the head, but I imagine, you know, running, for example, you're probably fine. Athletic.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yeah, and actually it was Benjamin Robinson's mum who said the way that the boys are playing that day, you take the ball out of it. If you saw that in the street, you'd call the police. You'd be like, these kids are, you know, they've gone mad. They're beating each other up. And it looks insane. And yet you throw a ball in and we're like, oh, don't worry about it as sport. But it's not like the brain suddenly goes, oh, I know I'm playing rugby, therefore I'm safe or it's different now. And it's, again, it's really hard to contend with because we love sport. Right. It does so much for us. Nothing brings this country together like when the England team are doing well. Like people are happy in London. I live in London. People are not happy a lot of the time. But when England are winning, like people smile at you on the tube. When the Olympics was here, it was such a buzz for everyone. So you've also got to kind of navigate the elements of it might not be that good. And that's really difficult to come to terms with, I think, for everyone.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's the Yeah, but it's like, you know, well, it depends what you prefer more, like the thrill of watching someone get hurt, you know, like that's what it comes down to, but you're punching someone in the head. It's not good. Like punching someone anyway, like if you actually break it down and you're like, why do we still do this? Like it is mad that we put this on as a spectacle. But yeah, you know, if you're going to keep punching someone in the head, like that's a brain injury, you know, that's it. There's no way of getting around it.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally, and what an athlete, like what an incredible athlete. But at the same time, you know, if you're on the side of you study brain injury, you're going, oh no, like as he was, he was just beside himself. And again, so this conversation isn't just scientific, it's also kind of cultural, societal, like historical. There's so much that goes into it. And it is a minefield. I don't know. It's essential.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember Professor John Hardy at UCL said to me that when he saw women's boxing was being put in the Olympics, he just despaired because he was high. This shouldn't be happening. But again, you kind of have this culture of sport. You've also got this, you know, anything you can do, we can do too, you know, because for so long it's been...”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, they don't know. Could because of our skeletal system, our necks, it could be hormonal. I don't think there is a definitive at the moment, but I mean, it needs to be done. And, you know, that is a case of more brains being donated essentially so that they can look into it.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they're really kind of driving for more women to donate their brains, also offering resources, information, education, advocacy. But there just isn't enough that is being done within women. So we just don't know the extent of those differences. But if you're a woman athlete and the consensus on concussion from the men you know is, oh, you know, only took me three weeks to recover or whatever. And, you know, you think, okay, fine. I should be the same. Actually, you might need double that time, triple that time, but there just isn't that information out there yet. Like people are working on it. There are some exceptional researchers within this field, but unfortunately, I mean, like with most medicine, everything has kind of been geared towards men.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we know that women take longer to recover from concussion on the whole, but most of the protocol is built for men. There are kind of three most at-risk groups of CTE, and that is athletes, military personnel, but also survivors of domestic violence who are kind of left out of mainstream conversation a lot of the time. There are two papers on women with CTE. One was an autistic girl who would hit herself in the head repeatedly, and the other is a woman called the Punch Junk Wife, who was a victim ultimately of domestic violence. And when they looked at her brain, she had exactly the same brain as a boxer who had...”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and also there's like a really interesting debate that still kind of rages on about helmets. Like, helmets don't provide protection from a brain injury. Like they can stop the skull embedded in the brain. But what they do provide is that feedback that says that hurt. Dr. Willie Stewart gave me that great analogy. Because if you bang your head against a bookcase, like it really hurts. If you bang it on with a helmet on, you stop thinking, oh, that really hurts, but you probably wouldn't then continue to bang your head against a bookcase. So it doesn't, you know, and people say, you know, but wearing headgear, that protects it. It's like, it doesn't protect the brain. It will protect the skull from going in the brain, but it ultimately isn't protecting the brain. And, you know, with that does come a false sense of security because putting armor on, you feel safer. And I think you're more inclined to make those bigger hits because you feel that level of protection.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yeah, totally. Someone of that size coming towards you. It doesn't matter what size you are, you know, and just that evolution, it's almost like the evolution of man, but it's in such a short period of time. Because like you said, they've gone from like super skinny to these gargantuan, almost like gladiatorial beings. And again, there's a lot of debate in rugby about tackle height. But, you know, whiplash can also cause brain injury. You know, if you hit someone low down, but the neck whips back and shoots forward, that's still going to shake it up. it does again i think everyone's trying to find this like quick fix sort it out now so we can kind of protect the game but i think it's going to take more time than that”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going on, and I think people were more inclined to shout about making the sports soft or ruining the sport. But now people are starting to understand it more. As more players are coming out. And also you're seeing people that maybe played at amateur level that are starting to experience some of those things, not necessarily getting a diagnosis, but are like, oh, wait, actually, I've had headaches or I got this from sport or I've had to stop. So I think people are sort of coming round to the idea that it isn't that black and white like I said before and there are those levels of nuance that need to be addressed. So yeah, I'd ask what it was ruining.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, yeah, and it's really interesting because no family that I spoke to within this book, even Peter and Karen, Benjamin's parents who lost their son, like no one wants sport banned. No one wants sport to go away. A lot of people still play sport. They still watch sport. They still enjoy sport. And I think this idea of it being ruined, you're essentially arguing for players not to be better protected. And I think, you know, you can still have the game everyone loves, but that has to include a well-being for the players because they are essentially what make the game. And again, like no one has the definitive answer, but there are things being done and that can be done to ensure that, yes, we get to enjoy a game, but also people don't get a brain injury. And I think that's where we're kind of at now. And actually, in the last year, I've seen that shift so much. So when I made the documentary in 2019, there wasn't that much.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, you know, there's these players who have got a diagnosis now, but I wonder if it would take someone actually dying on the pitch for it to be kind of accelerated versus this kind of, you know, plodding along slowly, which is really sad to think of it like that”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it's really sad, but I think that's what it would take because players are dying off the pitch, and I don't know what needs to happen. Like, do they need to be dead at 38? Or, you know, diagnosis, a diagnosis isn't enough right now. So, you know, it's devastating. So what do you mean?”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. And that's it. Yeah, and also you're contending with why would you want to sit on the bench? You want to play, right? You don't want to be watching it happen. So you're kind of contending with that, this kind of culture of sport as well, but also like safety has to come first. And again, you have to sort of remember who's watching, you know, those kids that are watching you. And this is also like commentators, for example, or the way that language is used. So often we hear the term knocks, which I think diminishes what's actually happening. You know, it's a blow or it's a brain injury. It's not just a little knock. Because, I mean, I've used this example quite a lot of an egg. So imagine like an egg and the shell is your skull and the yolk is the brain in the middle. And every time you take a hit, that shape. And if that is repeatedly shaken, I mean, what's happening to that yoke inside? It just absolutely, you know, it forms to whatever the shape is inside the skull. And that's ultimately what's happening.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They say, you know, everyone is individual, but six weeks. And if you think that some players are being played six days after, you know, it's just not okay. And also, again, this comes down to contracts. Can a player be out for six weeks? Again, in their mind, does that mean they're then not going to be put forward for other things? You know, it's very, very complex. Like it's not just black and white, ban this, don't ban this. There's so many layers within this. That's not, that should not be a result of playing a sport.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To be discussed openly, not just from a sport perspective, but bringing those families in and engaging in a dialogue between the two. But it shouldn't just be left to the players and it shouldn't just be left to those families. Like it's up to sport to really kind of take note, listen and implement those rules.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and you know what, actually, just on that point, I think this is what makes it so difficult. We can't see the brain. Like, we can't see a brain injury. When we see a broken bone or blood, we're like, oh, they're hurt, you know? Whereas the brain, I always give the example of mindfulness and like meditation. You know, if you go to the gym for three weeks, you can physically see a difference. Whereas mindfulness, you're like, am I doing it right? Like, what's happening? I don't really know. Like, there isn't kind of that immediate feedback and it's not tangible. So I think that's really difficult when we're talking about something like this. So if we can't see it, we don't know what it feels like. We don't have that kind of visceral reaction. It's not like the crunch of a bone or splurt of blood. That makes it harder to understand. I don't think it should just be left up to the players because also, again, they've signed contracts with people. They can't just walk off the pitch. They also need to be able to do that within the wider system of the business that sport is. And it needs...”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Around us, even like you're decorating a house, there is a payoff in overcoming a challenge that feels good. And we know that often compromise involves sacrifice or anything good we have to kind of sacrifice one thing for another. And there's that phrase, isn't there, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And I think that's something, again, perpetuated. We hear it all the time. Yeah, I think a great example of that actually Steve Thompson, MBE, who I spoke about earlier, who interviewed for the book, like he was diagnosed with dementia and probable CTE. And the way he talks about it, he's kind of accepted it. Like, it's just another hit and he's ready to walk it off. So I think he took those hits in the game and now he's taking it now. So I think it's just part of us and part of that kind of character and personality.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a huge barrier. I don't think it's like an exclusive thing to sport either. I think it's a real kind of inherent human instinct, like when we get knocked down, we get back up again. I think particularly in men and this kind of culture of masculinity. And I think, well, in the book, I trace it back to this ideology of muscular Christianity, which came into effect after the Industrial Revolution when it was believed men had become too effeminate, women were kind of rising up and they were like, no, men must take their rightful place, you know, not just above women, but as leaders on the world stage, but also in warfare and essentially through the church, men were kind of funneled into sports like boxing to be more manly. So I think that runs so much deeper than just play on. I don't know whether it's a trauma response or if it's just become so embedded in who we are. And that's not to say that women don't have it as well because I think it is inbuilt and everything.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think so, and I wouldn't say, again, it comes back to this thing of it shouldn't be up to the parents. And essentially, I guess it shouldn't really be up to the school. It needs to come from the government and those things need to be enforced. Because, you know, if a parent says to a kid, don't do that, they're probably still going to do it when they're on the pitch and they're with all their mates and, you know, the thrill of playing a match with all your friends at school like you can't beat it but I think these things need to come into force in terms of education and awareness but also protocol and that has to be from a higher power than you know just a parent saying to their kid I don't want you to do that anymore”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, concussion is a brain injury. I think that's important to remember. They're not separate. So, you know, I guess the visible signs, and again, this is where it's tricky because you have subconcussion hits as well. But, you know, stumbling around not knowing basic information, like what the match is, what day it is, their name, who they're playing, those sorts of things, vomiting, there's, you know, there's hundreds of these things and they can be found online. You can look and you can find concussion guidelines anywhere. And I think that was one of the issues, particularly in Benjamin's case, the ref or the coach, despite the fact there are no protocols for children specifically, but they weren't even aware of the ones for adults, which would basically list the symptoms he had and tell them categorically remove him from play. So, you know, these things are available, but you just have to look for them. And I think therein lies the majority of the problem.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Out, sit them out, which a lot of players now wear, and that's all come from him, and the work he's doing is incredible, but when you think that it's a direct result of losing his son, I mean, it doesn't even bear thinking about, but they're incredible and what they've done for kind of safety and or what they're trying to do to advocate for safety is unbelievable. Unbelievable. I just don't feel like the sport is even meeting them halfway.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mother and father for the book and you know essentially there was nothing that day to keep him safe there was no protocol enforced and actually it was his mum who was the only one that was really making any sense on the pitch wanted him off they didn't take him off she was sort of accused of being dramatic and he died playing rugby and I think that was sort of described as he was 14 and they uh there were inquests which are kind of detailed in the book because they wanted to know why he wasn't taken off if correct protocol had been followed he was displaying signs of concussion he was visibly stumbling around he didn't know what was going on and yeah they played him on and you know his dad peter does incredible work across the country scotland england on social media if you've ever seen him if in”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, me neither, but she likes you ask her, and Atoll protected, yeah. So I think what you need to kind of keep in mind is they're going to do it regardless. So they need to set an example in that respect, not just for the kind of the safety of those players, but for grassroots and kids who don't have the best medics in the world on the side of the pitch, who can't take six weeks off work to recover because, you know, it's not their main source of income a lot of the time. But yeah, so back to your question, Benjamin Robinson was a 14-year-old schoolboy from Northern Ireland who died after sustaining multiple concussions while playing schoolboy rugby. He wasn't removed from play and ultimately died of second impact syndrome, which is when he has, well, he had one bigger hit, which was followed very quickly by another, and it was that accumulation in that short amount of time that essentially left him brain dead. And I interviewed his”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, sure. And I think actually just before I do that, I think that's a really important point because what is happening in the professional leagues, and I think we sort of forget this when people are saying, you know, professional players are paid so much, so they know what they've signed up for, but I think we forget that looking at professionals are grassroots and looking at grassroots our kids. And kids will, you know, you can tell a kid to do whatever you want, but if it sees its favorite player heading a football, it's going to head a football. And I said someone the other day, you know, I have a goddaughter. And if you ask her where she's going on holiday, she'll say Tenerife at all protected because she's seen on TV when the insurance claim comes at the end. It says atoll protected. So she doesn't know what it means. So I'm like, you know, kids are going to see.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think they trialed it. I think it is the right thing to do and to keep doing. I think it needs to be enforced. And I think within that recovery time is absolutely essential. I was talking to someone the other day and they were like, maybe the teams need to be twice as big. So you do have options or I think he said maybe we need like 60 person teams. And I think the whole thing with this is no one has a definitive answer. But what we need to do is keep tackling the question and it's difficult. And I guess it's, you know, it's hard for us to be like we don't know yet on either side. I don't think either side has the answer. But I think things have to be trialed and tested. But whatever is working needs to be enforced rather than, you know, it's up to whoever's there on the day.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dr. Stewart, again, like, he's exceptional. If anyone wants to really delve into this outside of the book, all the work coming out of Glasgow is absolutely brilliant. Heading but drills, so not necessarily within the matches because, you know, it's not a game played with your head. You might get maybe three headers in a match, but it's the kind of relentless drills where you're constantly heading that ball. And subconcussive hits can include like an elbow to the head. You know, you see clashes sometimes where neither player comes off completely dazed or stumbling around, but there is a collision of sorts. And, you know, there needs to be adequate recovery time rather than just kind of, you know, pushing on, playing through. So, yeah. It is prevalent then, and it's prevalent now.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Payouts and ultimately kind of tarnishing your name, which again isn't good for business. And sport is a business. And I think that's something that we do need to remember.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think we're still waiting for change. I mean, studies have been done. So, like Dr. Willie Stewart, who I mentioned before of the Glasgow Brain Research Injury Group, did a huge study, the field study, which essentially found that professional football is a 3.5 times more likely to have a neurodegenerative disease than the general population. So, you know, that's pretty high for nothing to have kind of happened immediately. I think things are being done. Like they've addressed limiting heading in training, but, you know, it's sort of everyone gives the example of cigarettes. You don't know how many cigarettes you need to smoke to get cancer. You might never get cancer. It could be 10, it could be 10,000. So actually, it's not about the quantity. And I think, you know, there's reasons why sport has maybe dragged its feet and not kind of put its hands up because, again, if you hold yourself accountable, you are open to things like litigations and”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thing that happened with the NFL, perhaps I think the narrative certainly shifts when there is money involved, when there is a lawsuit involved. And I think it has been a long time coming. So, you know, this isn't a new phenomenon in terms of the kind of the health issue, but I think it is now an issue for sport in a bigger way than it has been before because people are sort of galvanized and have come together. Yeah, so let's talk, we talk about this briefly at the start, but Jeff Rastall. So he died in 2002, who's in England, West Bromwich Albion, Centreford, who's 59 years old. And the inquest found out it was an industrial disease which put the issue into the spotlight. So can you tell us a bit more about Jeff and what his family went through? Yeah, I mean, it's been sort of two decades of fight by his family. So industrial disease essentially means that his job killed him and his job was football. And at the time, he had a diagnosis of dementia and it was only later.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go on. Could you spend a bit more about that? What exactly is that? Yeah, essentially, I mean, what sort of happened with the NFL and the CTE and concussion litigation? So, you know, you have these players and some as young as kind of 38 who have been diagnosed with dementia, which is, you know, it's absolutely no age to be diagnosed with that disease. And there has been an argument for a long time that the older players would have perhaps got dementia naturally because they are in that age bracket. But I think there's absolutely no reason why someone at 38 or 40 should be diagnosed with this disease. So they are taking legal action against the sport and that's led by Welsh professional Alex Popham and Steve Thompson MBE and I interviewed Steve for the book and he doesn't remember winning the World Cup like he doesn't remember meeting Nelson Mandela and I think you know that it's very hard to get your head around something like that. So, you know, would we see this?”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Families that were once sort of on their own can now reach out to each other. Research can be shared, information can be shared, they can find each other. And I think that's where we've reached a pinnacle now with the kind of 150 player strong litigation against rugby. I'd say 50 years ago, how would they have found each other?”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not a huge topic, I wouldn't say in sport, it's not being spoken about in every match, but it's certainly there, concussion substitutes in the Premier League here in the NFL and rugby. But presumably 50 years ago, nobody was talking about this. When exactly did brain injury become an issue in sport? That issue is interesting because I think there's two ways to look at it because it has been a health issue since the 20th century since 1928 when it was first kind of spoken about in boxes under the name Dementia Pugilistica or punch drunk syndrome, but also within that discourse like rugby and football were included in scientific papers. So this is way back in 1928. I think the issue with sport is more kind of prevalent now and certainly has been building over the last few years. And I think largely that is due to, well, first of all, social media because it allows that kind of democratization of communication.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And CTE can be caused by an accumulation of those hits. So that's where things like heading the football come in. You know, you can head a football and not be knocked out, but it is a sub-concussive hit to the brain essentially. And so now this is...”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know what's going on. If you don't, you're like, oh, do you know what? I don't understand that. I'm not going to look. So I was like, if you can bring it down to a level that everyone gets it, people might be compelled to care like I did, I suppose. Yeah. Just going back to that, so chronic, traumatically quickly. And then what is it? What does it mean? So it's a neurodegenerative disease that is caused by concussive or subconcussive hits to the head. And I think it's important to essentially let everyone know what those things are. So concussion, we've all heard of, it's when we see kind of immediate symptoms. So things like knockout, things like someone stumbling around, dizziness, whereas the subconcussive hits don't cause immediate symptoms. So, you know, you might just carry on playing and there'll be nothing to indicate to either a kind of a medic or someone watching or even to you a lot of the time.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How can we help them, but also how can we protect players in the future? So I wanted to take it from that documentary and look across all sport, but also bring in other family stories and put them into one place because I felt that would have a real impact. So it's interesting because my background isn't science or sports and I don't have a personal connection to this but from doing the work and from meeting these people, I just felt very close to it. And I don't think you always get to choose what you care about. And now I'm in, it's very hard to kind of step away. And, you know, yes, it does mean getting to grips with some very complicated science and, you know, which I have done even the language CTE like chronic traumatic encephalopathy is very hard to say. And I've been saying it for six years. But again, that was another reason science is exclusive. If you have the vacation,”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Welcome. Great to speak to you. So, this book, Why Did You Write It, and Why Do You Think This is an important issue? Well, you sort of touched on it there and made the documentary first that came out in 2019 that sort of focused on the Jeff Astel story that Astel family in particular, but also gave a bit of a background to CTE more generally. And it was doing that and meeting people like Jeff's door to Dawn that really made me think there was something more here. And I think once you kind of become embedded in the human side of this, because I think a lot of people have seen on the news, on Twitter, this kind of, I guess, essentially an argument between science and sport, should this be banned? You're ruining the game. We need more research. And I think within that kind of back and forth, which is important, the families and the kind of the human impact was getting lost a little bit. And for me, I think that's the most important thing in all of this is who is suffering.”
2022-04-20 · Intelligence Squared · A Delicate Game: Confronting Brain Injury in Sport, with Hana Walker-Brown · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT