An event billed as “the most important game of football since 1863” and supported by clinicians at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, will take place at Cambridge’s Parker’s Piece on Sunday, 1 September 2024.
‘The Generations Game: Cambridge vs The Rest of the World’ will bring together the planet’s world-leading brain injury neuroscientists and clinicians, football coaches, ex-professional players, and recreational players.
The event showcases the evolution of football rules through the generations from 1963, to the modern day, and how they affect players’ brain health.
It is part of the build up to the 2024 Meeting of the International Neurotrauma Society (INTS) which is being hosted by Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the University of Cambridge
Tickets (opens in a new tab) are being snapped up for a public symposium on sports head injury and concussion at Cambridge Corn Exchange from 9.30am to 11am on Wednesday 4 September with speakers including double Paralympian in triathlon George Peasgood.
Sunday’s Generation Game is being hosted by the UK charity Head Safe Football, in collaboration with the International Neurotrauma Society and TBI-REPORTER, a platform that makes research on traumatic brain injury accessible to scientists.
The setting is significant, since Parker’s Piece is where the rules of football were first established in 1863 and were inscribed in a stone monument that exists today.
Between 3.45pm and 5pm there will be an opportunity to play and learn from the leading global Headsafe curriculum team who bring science to the field and support coaches, educators, scientists and players to learn about heading and protecting the brain.
From 5.15pm to 6.45pm, there will be the football match in memory of Bill Gates, who was a defender for Middlesborough FC between 1961 and 1974. He played 333 games for Middlesbrough and his story featured in the book, ‘No-brainer: A Footballer's Story of Life, Love and Brain Injury’.
The match will be played in teams - Cambridge vs The Rest of the World and according to the 1863 Rules of Football, then the current rules of football, then the new FA U9 rules and by the end imagining what the rules might look like in the future.
Incoming president of the International Neurotrauma Society, Cambridge University Hospital’s professor of neurosurgery, Peter Hutchinson, said:
We are very honoured to have been chosen to host NeuroTrauma 2024 and look forward to Sunday’s football match, which will set the stage for what will be an exciting week.
Professor Peter Hutchinson
Anyone who wants to join the football match should scan the QR code on the poster above or visit NeuroTrauma2024 (eventsair.com) (opens in a new tab)