It is the avoidability of the accident that has taken the life of a young footballer which is one of the most shattering parts today.
Because while Billy Vigar’s death at the age of 21, after colliding with a concrete wall during a match, might seem a freak event, there had been plenty of prior warnings.
Incidents of a similar nature which has seen the Professional Footballers’ Association take its concerns all the way to the last government’s Sports Minister.
But as with so many of the threats and dangers which are taken up in football, it has taken absolute calamity and the loss of life to the authorities to shake themselves out of their lethargy and act.
Among those left haunted by Vigar’s fatal injury, sustained while trying to prevent the ball from crossing the touchline during Chichester City’s Isthmian League Premier Division match against Wingate and Finchley on Saturday, is Alex Fletcher – a one-time Bath City player who experienced precisely the same traumatic collision during a game in a National League South match with Dulwich Hamlet at Twerton Park in 2022.
The sight of Fletcher, prone on the pitch during a match which was abandoned, seemed to be the moment which would prompt action. He needed emergency surgery, was in a coma and did not play for nearly a year.
Chichester City forward Billy Vigar died at the age of just 21 on Thursday after colliding into a concrete hoarding last weekend
Football fans have launched a petition to ban brick walls being placed next to pitches
PFA chief executive Moheta Molango met Conservative Sports Minister Stuart Andrew and asked for help in encouraging action.
I’ve seen the joint letter that Molango and the Minister sent to chief executives of the FA, National League, Premier League and EFL – urging them to take a proactive approach and work with clubs to prevent something like this happening again.
It really could not have laid out the case more clearly. It opened with the legal requirement – the statement of fact that by leaving footballers at risk of collision with these concrete walls, they were in breach of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act.
But it appealed to the moral and ethical responsibility they have to those young men – and women – who were putting everything on the line for football.
It urged the organisations to look at any standardised guidance they could give to their clubs on this issue to see whether it can be refined or improved.
Some kind of padding on those walls. Something to change the skewed perception of clubs who seemed more concerned about the walls protecting fans, rather than players. And what kind of a difference did it make? Seemingly none.
Alex Fletcher is by no means the only player to have experienced a near miss. Fans who watched Camberley Town and Balham last year saw Balham’s Sebastian Fallowfield hospitalised with concussion and a broken wrist.
Stockport County’s Macauley Southam-Hales was hospitalised after slamming into the pitch-side fencing during the club’s FA Cup second round replay win over Charlton.
Former Bath City star Alex Fletcher almost died after colliding with pitch-side hoardings more than two years ago
The FA actually included the collision on their Tiktok account, later apologising and removing it. Only last week, Irish League club Carrick Rangers saw had Paul Heatley hospitalised following another horrific injury of this kind during a match with Bangor.
As complacency set in, Fletcher expressed his own frustration at the failure of those governing – and cashing in on – the game.
The issue had been ‘swept under the carpet’ he said in December 2023, a year after his injury when taking up a role within the PFA’s Brain Health team, within which he still works.
The FA’s response to Fletcher’s comments, 21 months ago, was dismal. Scandalous in the context of Friday’s news. ‘It is the responsibility of the clubs and venue owners to ensure participants are safe at their grounds,’ they said.
The PFA was careful to reserve judgement on Friday and await the full investigation into young Billy Vigar’s death. They are conscious that a family grieves. But the advance warnings condemn those who were asked to take collective action but who never quite got around to it. It is no exaggeration to say that Billy Vigar might be alive today if they had heeded that plea.
