I have fond memories of bumping into former Dons and Ross County manager Jimmy Calderwood at an Aberdeen sports club bar.
It came to mind again as I read about his sad plight these days, battling against Alzheimer’s disease.
For some footballers, it’s a brutal legacy of their playing days, but it can strike from other directions too.
I met Jimmy by chance, before he became ill. It was my usual performance: tongue-tied in the presence of former sports stars, but, as I often find with such celebrities, he was patient and friendly.
A sparkling, ebullient character, he was best known for his managerial career in Scotland, of course. But, I was determined to drag him 40 years down memory lane to talk about his days as a young midfielder at Birmingham City, where I spent many hours on the terraces as a boy.
I stumbled across a wonderful old black and white picture online of Jimmy as a young player at the club. Baby-faced, with long flowing locks flicking around his shoulders as he ran (a very cool 1970s look) and full-length sideburns almost as long.
He didn’t appear to wear shin pads, which I thought odd, as they kicked lumps out of each other then.
As we age, we try to keep our minds young
I am grateful we shared my memory of him while he still remembered it.
He came through junior ranks at the club with my special hero, Trevor Francis, whose star shone even brighter later as Britain’s first million-pound footballer. His later career also brought him to Scotland.
By coincidence, I once buttonholed Trevor, too – at the back of a holiday jet, of all places. He and his wife were cornered as I babbled, but they proved to be charm personified.
So, it was great to meet former team mate Jimmy in his managerial prime, but sad to hear how he struggles with dementia now, after his family went public.
And it made me ponder my own future, as Jimmy is six months younger than me.
The other reason I remember the encounter so well was that it was the first and last occasion I played in a poker tournament, which was at the same club that night. Jimmy wasn’t playing, I hasten to add. He was simply in the vicinity doing something else.
Poker was my new fad at the time; like most of my crazes, it didn’t last long. But, as we get older, we come up with mental activities which might keep our minds from switching off.
Sudoku is a safer bet than poker
Thinking back to that night at the club made me wonder if the cut and thrust of poker was just the thing to keep my mind sharp.
I’m not suggesting that you all rush out and start playing Texas hold ’em – “be gamble aware” and all that. Just days ago, the Royal College of Psychiatrists warned that record numbers of over-65s were gambling online during the pandemic. It’s a safer bet to stick with Sudoku.
When I mentioned poker, some people recoiled in horror, as though I was going to lose my house on the throw of a card and end up begging in the street.
They had a point, of course. Gambling in any form can become a ruinous compulsion, but this contest only involved a modest stake to enter. And I simply enjoyed the process of learning a complex game to test if I could compete for real with other players.
This is why we must never forget people like Jimmy Calderwood: we are still searching for so many answers around Alzheimer’s
I actually came second in the knockout and went home with modest £60 prize winnings in my back pocket. I gave up after that; too time-consuming.
Alzheimer’s can creep up on anyone
They say keeping your mind active keeps cognitive decline at bay, but it’s not guaranteed. Jimmy the coaching tactician would have put his mind through mental gymnastics every day of the week, but Alzheimer’s crept up on him shockingly early in life.
So, there must be other common denominators or it’s just in some people’s genes. But this is why we must never forget people like Jimmy: we are still searching for so many answers around Alzheimer’s.
It was a ticking time bomb for elderly health care before Covid exploded, and it will still be there after the pandemic.
We are also reminded of another health crisis running alongside this one: countless non-Covid medical cases piling up. These forgotten patients only have mattresses stuffed with NHS waiting lists to lie on.
I’m grateful for small mercies. I went shopping and forgot my wife’s list. There were 25 items on it, but I remembered 19 of them. I was quite happy with my score.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
