No Brainer: A Footballer’s Story of Life, Love and Brain Injury

This is the story of the ’real’ Bill Gates. A famous footballer, a successful millionaire and a global philanthropist. This is the story of an incredible man and his remarkable wife, who in his final years made a commitment to use his brain to save the next generation of football players.

Bill was Britain’s first 50 a week teenage superstar who played 333 games for Middlesbrough, where he was the PFA representative. He was the first entrepreneur/businessman to make sports shops the centre of high-street fashion. He was a philanthropist who travelled the world using football to change the lives of millions of children in over 100 countries.

But in 2017 his life changed when he was diagnosed with football’s best-kept secret, probable Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, caused by repetitive head impacts including headers, a brain disease with no cure.

Author Mike Amos perfectly captures the incredible life of Bill and Judith, from a coal mining village in Ferryhill in the 1950s, a brilliant 13-year professional career in the 60s and 70s, a chain of sports shops in the 80s, to a millionaire’s lifestyle on 7 mile beach on Grand Cayman in the 90s, to their most difficult journey together to ensure the future of the beautiful game. He shares Judith’s work, designing the Billion Pound Game of Football that captured the attention of media around the globe and highlighted the need for changes in sport.

Their ground-breaking Head Safe Football charity has led to research and education, and supported families of players with CTE. Designed to protect the future of the game, Head Safe Football educates players, coaches, sports scientists, and parents to recognise that CTE begins in young footballers and can be prevented with common sense Head Safe Football policies and training.

No-Brainer explains how one man and his family have galvanised the football world around facts and science to impact player care and child safeguarding policies for both males and females.

If you have ever headed a football, if your child or grandchild are heading footballs, then this is the one book that you need to read.