One of only two surviving English managers to have won the First Division or Premier League title has been diagnosed among the hundreds of former footballers with dementia.

Ron Saunders, who led Aston Villa to the Division One title in 1981 as well as two League Cups during a career that also included spells at Manchester City, Birmingham, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City, has been living at a care home near Solihull since May.

A centre-forward during a playing career in which he also scored more than 200 goals, Saunders is now 85 but has been suffering symptoms for two decades. His son, Ronnie, believes that there is a contributory link between the dementia and his playing days with Everton, Gillingham, Portsmouth, Watford and Charlton Athletic.

The Daily Telegraph reported last week that Saunders’s former Portsmouth team-mate Rod Taylor had been diagnosed in a post-mortem with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and dementia with lewy bodies following his death in April. CTE can only be caused by head trauma and he is the second British footballer after Jeff Astle to be identified with the disease.

However, an anonymous University College London study of six former British players with dementia also find CTE in four cases last year and there have been hundreds of proven cases among American footballers.