Dementia Awareness Day at Saturday's game
AFC Wimbledon will on Saturday be staging a Dementia Awareness Day to coincide with the home game against Southend United.
With Wimbledon legends Roy Law and Tommy McCready having both passed away due to dementia, the club is fully aware of the importance of supporting this cause.
Roy’s wife Yvonne, who is a Season Ticket holder in the Paul Strank Stand, will be helping with the bucket collections at Saturday’s game and we are proud to support this charity.
The Alzheimers society van roadshow will be located in the main car park on Saturday to encourage fans to find out more information and to show their support.
We recently announced our partnership with Alzheimer’s Society as part of the Team Dementia Friends campaign to make the nation’s favourite sport more dementia-friendly.
Erik Samuelson, Ivor Heller, along with coaches, stewards and office workers, took a key step towards helping end the stigma surrounding dementia by becoming Dementia Friends.
In the first campaign of its kind, Alzheimer’s Society is working with football clubs across the nation to ensure that they are places where people with dementia and their carers feel understood and included and to tackle the social isolation the charity knows often follows a dementia diagnosis.
A Dementia Friends Information Session was delivered to staff and stewards at the club to help them understand what it’s like to live with dementia and the small ways they can support people on match day.
Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friends programme is the biggest ever initiative to change people’s perceptions of dementia. It aims to transform the way the nation thinks, acts and talks about the condition so that people can feel involved and included in their communities and continue doing the things they love.
There are almost 2,000 people living with dementia within the borough of Merton, and around 1,000 people in Wimbledon alone. The borough was recently recognised as a Dementia Friendly Community and relaunched its Dementia Action Alliance (Wednesday 22 February). The Alzheimer’s Society Dementia Hub offers an integrated support package to people living with dementia in Merton and their carers. People are able to access memory services and support groups, as well as exercises classes and specialist healthcare, such as dentistry and podiatry.
Ivor Heller, Commercial Director at AFC Wimbledon, said: “We are pleased to be able to support Alzheimer’s Society in raising awareness of dementia within Wimbledon. Several of our former players have been affected by dementia, including Roy Law and Tommy McCready, so it is a cause close to our hearts.
“Football clubs are a hub for the local community and so we are in a unique position to be able to engage with such a large number of people. We are dedicated to supporting the health of our fans. We want to ensure that people living with dementia can continue to engage with the club and enjoy match days as they always have.”
Please look out for volunteers collecting for this vital cause around the ground at Saturday’s game and give as much as you can spare on the day.
.https://www.dementiafriends.org.uk/ For details about Team Dementia Friends go to