It is almost three years since Dr Willie Stewart, the consultant and lead neuropathologist at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, made the first definitive diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (once known as punch-drunk syndrome) in a footballer.

Stewart, who is also an associate professor at the universities of Pennsylvania and Glasgow, had been asked to re-examine Jeff Astle’s brain after a post-mortem had concluded he died through playing football. What he found was more like the brain of an 89-year-old than a 59-year-old and, even in the context of his past examinations of boxers, among the worst cases he had seen.

Stewart was then also part of a study this year by the University of Stirling that found temporary short and long-term memory impairment in footballers after routine heading practice. “It struck me in two ways,” he told The Telegraph. “One, that such a low level insult [to the brain] could change what was happening and, secondly, that it is nearly 2017 and nobody has done this kind of work before. Nobody had looked at what heading might do to the brain.”

Stewart is strenuous in not overstating the science or the findings of any study but he is emphatic about the need for more wide-ranging research.