‘It makes you think about things’: Football’s uncomfortable truth with brain trauma

Tom Bromley-Lynch doesn’t know how long he will keep playing the game that flows through his blood.

At 23, the North Ballarat Roosters vice-captain is doing a cost-benefit analysis after watching the health of his father Alan “Dizzy” Lynch decline in the past 10 years. Lynch was a brilliant VFA and country footballer who played seven games with Footscray and Richmond in the mid-70s.

Alan Lynch and his son Tom Bromley-Lynch on Friday.Credit: Penny Stephens

“You want to be competitive, but then you think [about your] health and your life span post-career and then what has happened to dad ... before he was diagnosed. It was probably three years leading up to that where we started to notice a fair decline in everyday life,” Bromley-Lynch said.

Lynch, married with four children, has Parkinson’s disease. Research has indicated that brain trauma can increase the risk of a person developing Parkinson’s disease later in life, along with genetic and environmental factors.

The 69-year-old’s family has no doubt the condition is due to the trauma his brain suffered during his long career in football. “It’s probably a combination of things, but I think the major thing is head knocks,” Tom Bromley-Lynch said.

“We’re very diligent about it and trying to spread the message about brain trauma and our club has been really good about it.”

Bromley-Lynch does not want to suffer the same fate, but his connection to football through his dad, his late nana Lorna Bromley, who is a Hall of Fame member at North Ballarat, and his mum, Jenny Bromley-Lynch, who is Tony Lockett’s cousin and was once chairwoman of the club, is so strong that making a clean break is difficult.

Jenny, in between working, being a grandmother and spending time with her husband, has become an advocate, raising awareness and hoping more can be done to help former players and their families who are dealing with the effects of brain trauma.

She would love to see a concussion awareness round in the AFL and, although her relationship with the game has changed, she only wants to make it safer, not stop it.

“It is a big part of our culture [and] people’s lives,” Jenny says.

It remains a big part of Alan’s life, with much of his conversation revolving around football, which he can somehow recall when most other aspects of his life have dimmed.

“It probably hit me the most at the start of last year when we were touring aged-care facilities to put dad in, which was a bit of a challenge when you notice he is 25 years younger than everyone else in there ... it makes you think about things,” Tom Bromley-Lynch said.

Jenny spoke passionately about the effect Alan’s decline has had on her family’s lives when she addressed the Community Concussion Research Foundation – she sits on the board – in November.

Acknowledgment that the issue is real and the family’s struggles are not in vain is important to Jenny.

“As a family we are really passionate about making sure something positive comes out of ‘Dizzy’s’ situation,” she said.

The Senate inquiry

Despite their anguish, the Bromley-Lynch family are in better spirits than many families of ex-footballers who are dealing with the devastating effects of brain trauma. They are tight, support each other and have found a home for a much-loved member of their family.

Many other former players are suffering in silence, unable to access enough support to navigate a health system and a support structure for past players that is overwhelmed by crisis.

Excessive drinking, gambling, violence, suicide attempts, and an inability to interact with former friends are happening right now, away from football’s bright lights.

Only last week one former player who The Age has chosen not to name was admitted to hospital after threatening to harm himself. His partner was left to navigate a broken health system with limited support and no clear path forward.

Sadly, it is an event that is becoming all too common among former players, many who have had multiple scans that reveal the extent of their brain trauma.

“It is not about looking for sympathy. It’s helping others understand their behaviour happened for a reason,” said the partner of one former player.

Not everyone who has been concussed or suffered ongoing effects of head knocks faces major issues, but there are too many to discount the issue.

Federal parliament will hear the reality, with a senate committee into concussions and repeated head trauma in contact sports holding their first public hearing in Sydney last Monday as sports revealed their inability to self-regulate.

The first hearing revealed how far behind the rest of the world many Australian sports have been in acknowledging the link between CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and concussion.

The gap between the testimony of neurologists and families who spoke on the first day of the hearing, compared to people representing the sports-related bodies, was stark.

One set was calling for urgent action while the sports bodies continued to reserve judgment on whether the evidence was strong enough to link head knocks to CTE.

Acknowledgment time

Australian sports have fallen behind the US, where both the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health (the main US federal agency conducting and supporting medical research) officially recognise the causal link between repeated head knocks and CTE.

Such is the despair in Australia of those on the front line and those struggling with head knocks they want to speak out about what their reality has become but fear what it would mean for them and their future.

Many are also too embarrassed to ask for help or have given up under the weight of bureaucracy or legalistic loopholes they need to jump through for support.

About 30 players have retired from the game due to concussion in the past decade. One says he remains isolated and unable to work full-time. But he is reluctant to speak publicly.

“It is quite difficult to be the face of [brain trauma] … if you are the face of it there goes all your privacy, perhaps opportunities for future employment, you just don’t know,” he said.

“Trying to do that and maintain a sliver of your dignity while also advocating for something like this is really hard and a difficult space.”

He understands there is fatigue with hearing stories about the effects of concussion on individuals but as the numbers of players affected with concussion pile up and those dealing daily with its effects on past players are overburdened, people are crying for urgent action to be taken.

An industry source with knowledge of the extent of the problem, who preferred to remain anonymous, says most of the investment is directed solely to psychological care which, while important, overshadows the need for a broader approach for those who are suffering from brain injury, such as assisted living, navigating the National Disability Insurance Scheme, broader research and education, and aid for players’ partners and their families.

That means, the source said, an attempt to address the behavioural issues occurs without acknowledging that much of the behaviour stems from acute neurological issues.

Clinical care should be one part of a much broader suite of options for those suffering brain trauma.

The AFL focused on failings in clinical care in the independent investigation it commissioned into its concussion advisor associate professor Paul McCrory, and the league’s management of concussion (the McCrory report) which was released in October. AFL legal counsel Andrew Dillon said: “The panel has recommended that the AFL take steps to improve the clinical care aspects for past players and we will act on that recommendation as soon as possible.”

However, the time it has taken for a no-fault financial assistance scheme (or concussion fund) to be introduced has increased the frustration and scepticism among several past players. The AFL understands that impatience and is trying to finalise arrangements within months, but the structure for the concussion fund forms part of the league’s negotiations with its players for a new collective bargaining agreement, which has delayed it.

Searching for solutions

Carlton premiership player and Australian Football Hall of Fame member Ken Hunter knows the number of players struggling post-football continues to grow, with concussion among many ailments making life particularly difficult for past players.

He has been trying to set up a program based on the NFL’s Player Care Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation established to improve the quality of life for the alumni on a range of issues including the effect of concussion.

He is careful not to criticise the AFL or the players’ association endeavours, but he says the issues have got too big for those bodies to handle on their own.

“There are a lot of people out there falling through the cracks. As the game has moved quickly, so have the issues, and we have not come to terms with that. We need a more holistic view. The issues are all out there,” Hunter said.

“The conversation needs to be had. To ignore it is ridiculous. We have to do more than we are as an industry and with AFLW evolving, the issues will evolve too.”

Carlton champions Ken Hunter (middle) and Ken Sheldon (front) are keen on a not-for-profit program modelling NFL care that addresses some gaps in support for past playersCredit: Justin McManus

The McCrory report led to an apology to past players, with the report saying the Past Players Project, a concussion research venture which began in 2014 amid much fanfare, “suffered from a lack of stewardship and co-ordination. There was accordingly no clear plan for how the project would be rolled-out and implemented, and how it may simultaneously accommodate clinical and research objectives.”

The level of mistrust that project caused among players seeking support for brain trauma will be difficult for the AFL to overcome, with many doubting the league will deliver on its promises despite some positive developments and internal recognition that the issue must be confronted from all angles in 2023.

The AFL Commission has committed in-principle to the no-fault scheme and a significant amount of legal and preparatory work has been done to lay the foundation for a concussion fund’s introduction. In exceptional cases financial support has been made available to those in crisis while the league works through the final details of how the fund will operate.

Not just about money

Other issues with the way sports treat head knocks and brain trauma exist beyond the legal minds addressing compensation with the community concussion research foundation clear on what they think needs to happen.

Their ongoing concerns relate to the treatment of concussion, the research, the testing of players, the effect of contact on young brains, return-to-play protocols and the danger sub-concussive knocks pose to brain health.

There is frustration among many medical practitioners and researchers that the link between CTE and head knocks remains unclear in official documents in Australia when, as an advisor to Sports Medicine Australia, Dr Reider Lystad, told the senate on Monday, the link is “undeniable”.

There are many other frustrations too, chief among them that a regime of testing that understands the structural integrity of the brain at the starting point of players’ careers, with ongoing testing throughout, has not been introduced.

Much of those concerns will be captured in submissions tendered to the senate inquiry by February 17.

There is also concern among past players and their families and what it all might mean – not only for Australian football at community level and the AFL at the elite level but for all football codes where contact is high.

For Tom Bromley-Lynch, there is sadness. And hope that understanding and attitudes will change, and the game the whole family loves will care for those hurt by it, rather than attempting to explain away the effect of what happened in the past.

“People my age and the ones coming through understand it a lot more than your bit-older demographic. In the next 10 or 15 years the tide will change with the perception,” Tom said. “Just because it’s not visible, it doesn’t mean there is not a lot going on.”

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