The Breakdown | Unselfish yeomanry who carried England home deserved better from rugby
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Footage from documentary on World Cup heroes shows why they have launched campaign to aid retired players. Rugby can be a tough game to play and, occasionally, a desperately tough subject to write about. Particularly when painful truths are being starkly outlined by the most honest, respected and outwardly resilient of men. And by individuals who, having lifted the 2003 Rugby Rugby World Cup, have enjoyed the ultimate professional high the sport has to offer.
![[Robert Kitson]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/09/Robert-Kitson,-L.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
There was precious little to celebrate, sadly, when Phil Vickery popped around for a sitdown chat with his old England front-row pal Steve Thompson as part of a new documentary, Unbreakable: England 2003, released on TNT Sport this week. In a perfect world it would have been an excuse for warm reminiscences and fond memories, a reunion as sweet as the old chariot itself.
Instead it yielded one of the most sobering pieces of footage imaginable. Thompson, 46, can no longer remember anything about winning the World Cup having been diagnosed with early-onset dementia in 2020. He told his teammate about his suicidal feelings and of thinking it would be less hassle for everyone else if he was no longer around. Vickery placed a reassuring hand on his friend’s knee before softly sharing his own issues. “Someone said the other day ‘You know what you signed up to.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know what I signed up to but I didn’t sign up to being brain damaged.’”.
Vickery, 48, is also among the retired players with neurological concerns who have joined the legal case against the sport’s governing bodies. As he puts it “a bit of my brain is dead that shouldn’t be dead” and the future is uncertain. “I’m not angry, I don’t blame anybody, we did what we did,” he says, making the unimaginable sound almost matter of fact. “I do worry about the future but I live life a little bit now. Try and do things which make little memories now rather than waiting further down the road.”.
