by Martin Spinks
martin.spinks@thesentinel.co.uk

MORE than 100 former Stoke City players have joined forces to establish an association aimed at helping those amongst them who have fallen on hard times.

The Stoke City Old Boys’ Association (SCOBA) was launched last night at the Britannia Stadium under the patronage of club chairman Peter Coates.

Membership of the group has rocketed from 38 in October to a present figure of 129, and it is still growing.

Denis Smith, pictured, has been elected president, George Berry its chairman, Phil Heath its treasurer and Geoff Scott its secretary, while Clive Clarke and Graham Shaw will manage a team of old boys ready and willing to take on local amateur clubs for charity.

Former City favourite Terry Conroy was among the early driving forces behind the association, while Scott has picked up the baton following his involvement in a national organisation for former players called Ex-Pro.

Scott, 52 and a Stoke defender between 1977 and 1980, said his involvement with both organisations followed his own diagnosis with a manageable, but incurable former of cancer.

“I had returned home to the Midlands from a job in the Middle East after the diagnosis,” he recalled, “and word obviously got back to Stoke City because Terry Conroy invited me to a game last season.

“I hadn’t set foot in Stoke for 28 years, but came back and enjoyed the game so much I started coming regularly.”

It was Conroy who introduced him to both Ex-Pro and the beginnings of SCOBA – and before long Scott’s business background was being brought to bear on both. He was fast-tracked through the ranks so rapidly at Ex-Pro that he was elected its chief executive last August.

And it’s easy to see why he became so heavily involved when he reveals: “I discovered there are around 60,000 ex-players in Britain and Ireland, which is a staggering number of people.

“Four in five of those ex-players have osteoarthritis and, even with today’s advanced medical facilities, one in three current players will contract this condition.

“The knee and hip are the main joints affected and if you do get it in those joints, you are 16 per cent disabled.

“Ex-professionals are one thousand times more likely to get the condition than any other profession, yet it is the only profession where it is not recognised as an industrial disablement.

“We are now about to launch a three-year programme to prove the link between football and osteoarthritis. And when we do, that would entitle a former player with the condition to £175-a-week in disabled benefit.

“Your Steven Gerrards will never need that kind of money, but there are plenty for whom it will make a massive difference.

“The condition can also have a knock-on effect with things like depression, alcoholism and drug addiction etc, so we are also setting up a helpline for ex-pros who have problems with any of these.”

And just to prove the benefit locally, he says that half-a-dozen of those 129 signed-up members of SCOBA require immediate help for various problems.

ANYONE interested in challenging the SCOBA football team managed by Messrs Clarke and Shaw should contact Ex-Pro, telephone 08444 120401.

Other Stoke City stories on Why Delilah today:
Higginbotham and Wilkinson doubtful for Fulham clash
Club legends Herod and Banks meet for first time