The 800-goal player has spoken out about his fear of brain damage after a bruising AFL career.
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Richmond great Matthew Richardson fears his 16-year AFL career has left him with brain injuries.
Richardson revealed he had suffered from bouts of memory loss soon after his retirement in 2009.
“I knew I had to make an important phone call, so I did and got told: ‘Mate, we spoke for 20 minutes yesterday.’ I had pages of notes from the conversation,” Richardson told the Herald Sun.
“I don’t know if I was stressed out or it had anything to do with the knocks I took, but … that was something that was a concern to me, for sure.”
Richardson has become an ambassador for BrainLink and Brain Injury Awareness Week and spoke out about his fears, revealing he had suffered numerous concussions and broken cheek bones in his 282-game career.
“I started thinking about the knocks I’ve taken in my career and whether they’ll have any long-term effects,” Richardson said.
“I had a couple of concussions and broken cheek bones on each side during my footy career and they were pretty heavy knocks to the head, I guess.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen. I feel fine now and I don’t have any lingering effects from anything, but it does get you wondering about the future and whether there will be any side-effects.”
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