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Author Topic: Peter McParland (85 today)  (Read 2402 times)

Offline Louzie0

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Re: Peter McParland (85 today)
« Reply #15 on: April 26, 2019, 06:15:44 PM »
Happy Birthday Peter!  8)

Online Legion

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Re: Peter McParland (85 today)
« Reply #16 on: April 26, 2019, 06:43:51 PM »
Met him once at Perry Barr greyhound stadium on an AVFC sponsored greyhound racing event. Lovely man. Lucky enough to sit beside him for dinner and barely said a word due to the fact that earlier I had crunched my car wheel into a central reservation plinth (the visible bollard had been vandalised so there was only the concrete base present) at about 30mph in torrential rain and destroyed my tyre so I was not in a very good mood.

Offline dave.woodhall

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Re: Peter McParland (85 today)
« Reply #17 on: April 26, 2019, 07:13:55 PM »
Those FPA greyhound nights were brilliant. There were queues for autographs at all the players tables but Peter had the longest queue of all. If that wasn't enough, queuing for his signature were Sid and Gary Shaw.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Peter McParland (85 today)
« Reply #18 on: April 26, 2019, 07:26:13 PM »
From the same era, Mike Tindall is suffering with dementia and alzheimers. He's in a care home and his son has posted a wonderful photo of his room which includes a goal and Villa flag.

And Mat Kendrick did this article on him a month or so ago.

Quote
Former Aston Villa midfielder Mike Tindall is in the grips of Alzheimer's and the illness has affected him so severely that he can no longer recognise his nearest and dearest loved ones.

Yet the mention of Villa-Blues continues to spark a glorious flicker of recognition in the 77-year-old's mind.

Tindall, a claret and blue hero of the 1960s, lives in a care home and by his own family's admission has next to no recollection of people and events.

That momentarily changes, however, when he the subject of Villa and their fierce rivals is raised.

After last season's 2-0 victory at Villa Park, his son Dean told BirminghamLive: “Me and my mom started to notice things changing with him around the mid-2000s. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2010.

“The last years have been unbelievably bad. It’s taken it’s toll on my mom. In January 2016 she had bad heart problems because of all the stress.

"I’ve had a few problems because it is such a lot to deal with. It’s a terrible disease.

“When I go to see him he doesn’t know me from anyone in the street, but as soon as I told him Villa beat Blues 2-0 his eyes lit up and he said: 'I remember scoring against that shower!'

"It made me laugh and brought a lump to my throat. He used to love the rivalry and used to joke that the Blues trophy cabinet was a shoebox. It was all good fun, the rivalry back then and I know he loved playing against Blues."

We spoke to Dean again ahead of this weekend's match at St Andrew's.

Once again a mention of the match has provided a poignant moment for him and his dad.

"Dad is obviously worse now than last year, though I did mention to him the Blues v Villa game this Sunday when I saw him earlier this week," he said.

"He smiled and you could see he was thinking what to say and said 'Come on Villa'. Bless him, he hardly says a word these days, only the odd sentence now and again."

Mike's derby goal came in a 3-3 draw at St Andrew's in the old First Division in March 1964 and was one of eight he scored for Villa in 120 appearances between 1959 and 1968.

The attacking midfielder also earned international honours at England youth level, including an appearance in the 1958 World Youth Cup final alongside Bobby Moore.

After he left Villa in 1968, Mike had a spell playing for Walsall, before running various businesses, including the Coach and Horses pub in Bromsgrove and then coaching junior football sessions for the local council.

He found faith around 2000 and became a Christian preacher.

His deterioration from a bright and athletic dad to a pale shadow of his former self has been hard for Dean and his mother Thora to take.

Three years ago the family tried to get support for Mike, but spells in two local care homes ended quickly when they couldn’t look after him.

Eventually the nearest suitable hospice was in South Wales. Because of Dean’s work commitments and the distance involved they could only visit once a week.

They were able to relocate him to a hospital just outside Kidderminster.

They have had some support from the PFA and Cyrille Regis who passed away last year, visited Mike and Thora in recent years, along with his former Villa team-mate Charlie Aitken.

"Dad doesn’t really understand what’s going on," says Dean. "When he was first diagnosed the doctor told us it doesn’t affect the person who has got it as much as the family.

"I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but I know now.

"He was an all round sportsman, he had to choose between football and cricket because he could have played for Warwickshire.

"It wasn't that long ago that he was still playing squash every week. We're talking as recently as 10 or 15 years ago."

Dean has spoken to Dawn Astle, daughter of late West Bromwich Albion legend Jeff, and Tindall's name has been included in the study of links between heading footballs and dementia the Astles have campaigned for.

He has also been in contract with the family of former Blues hero Frank Worthington, who has also been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

"There might be a link, but my old man was never one for heading the ball," said Dean.

"He used to joke I’d ruin my hair if I headed the ball!

"You've got someone like Peter McParland who always used to head the ball and he's still bright as a button.

"In fact Peter says my dad was one of the best players he has ever seen on the ball in terms of his control and passing."
Dean allows himself a smile at his dad's responses to the derby and says the family have always had claret and blue in their blood.

“I’m Villa through and through, dad was still playing for them when I was born but I was too young to see him play,” said Dean.

“He had to play for Villa, it couldn’t be anybody else because my grandmother was such a big Villa fan.

“She was watching them in the 1920s. “I remember when she was on her deathbed at Solihull Hospital and she said to me ‘How are the Villa doing?’

“Dad took me to Villa a few times, but the first match I can really remember was is when we beat Leicester 2-0 in 1974.”

 


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