I met Billy a few months before he died. He didn't know who I was.That scared me.

ARCHIE Macpherson has called for a header ban in football after ex-players were struck down with dementia.

- PAUL HUTCHEON

The veteran commentator supports a month-long worldwide ban in the wake of research linking brain injuries to heading the ball.

He issued the emotional plea after revealing Lisbon Lion Billy McNeill could not remember him when they met before he passed away.

Research by Glasgow Uni expert Willie Stewart found ex-pros are three-and-a-half times more likely to die of neurodegenerative brain disease due to heading the ball.

Defenders are five times more likely to have dementia than the rest of the population.

McNeill and fellow Scotland great Gordon McQueen are among the stars who have passed away after a dementia diagnosis.

Macpherson, dubbed the "voice of football" after decades commentating on the Scottish game, spoke of his anguish at the rising death toll.

"It's a phenomenon that is happening in front of your eyes and nobody seems to be doing anything about it," he told the Record.

"Heading the ball in those days was like heading a cannonball." The 86-year-old recalled his last memories of his pal McNeill: "Billy was my co-commentator. Because of that I knew him very well. I spoke at his funeral.

"I think about three or four months before he died I met him in the City Chambers in Glasgow. He didn't know who I was. That scared me." 

The Scottish Football Association has banned under-12s from heading the ball and Macpherson backs curbs for adults.

He said: "Over a period of time, you have to say it has to happen and maybe there might be some kind of protection that can be produced one way or the other, either in the texture of the ball, or in the most dramatic sense you simply don't head the ball."