New goals – opening up on football and dementia

Dave Watson was one of the toughest footballers to play the game.

And his job, says daughter Gemma, was to head the ball. A lot.

Uncompromising, whole-hearted, no-nonsense. 

With the steely stare and thick black sideburns, Dave epitomised the tall centre-back from the 70s and 80s whose primary task – aside from kicking the odd striker – was to head the ball and run through brick walls.

“That was him,” says Gemma, as she reflects on a career which came to an end when she was seven. 

“And it’s bittersweet, because he was celebrated for being hard and tough, and headers were what he did best.

“We still celebrate him for that – but at what cost?” 

Gemma Jordan, Dave’s youngest daughter, is an award-winning film maker who now lives in the US.

Her previous work includes Netflix production Girls Incarcerated and a series on former Death Row inmate Julius Jones.

Dave and his family – wife Penny and Gemma’s siblings Roger and Heather – went public four years ago after Dave, a member of Sunderland’s FA Cup winning side in 1973 and capped 65 times by England, had been diagnosed with neurodegenerative brain disease a few years earlier.

Gemma decided to start making a film about the life of her father – who very recently turned 78 – through fly-on-the-wall moments with Penny and Dave at home, and interviews with former team-mates including Kevin Keegan and Asa Hartford.

And she is now keen to complete filming.

Gemma, who has started a Crowdfunding campaign to raise £27,000, says the cash will help pay for one more fortnight of filming with a British crew and complete her proudest work.

She tells Bdaily: “I always wanted to make a film about him. 

“He’s one of those players who didn’t have a huge ego and wasn't the biggest star, but he achieved so much.

“His career, and the way he made it to the top flight, is unusual because he was a bit older.

“Now, of course, the story is different because of the dementia.

“When I first started talking about a documentary, it wasn't out in the open and we decided, as a family, and my dad decided, ‘let's be open about this and get rid of that stigma’, because at that point there was a lot of shame around having dementia.

“He's deteriorating and it's heartbreaking; we know it’s just going to get worse and worse, but he is hanging in there and fighting." 

“I’m sure it’s no surprise to people who saw him as a player that he is battling, and I think a lot of it is to do with my mum's involvement. 

“She's been quite instrumental in setting up memory clubs at various football clubs and taking him to the different teams he played for who are now doing these memory clubs.

“They are great events and help him have some social interaction.”