By Paul Hayward
On the final day of his latest gruelling ultra-marathon challenge to fight motor neurone disease (MND), Kevin Sinfield drew his support staff together to talk about teams.
Teams in sport, he reminded us, share many glories: trophies, medals, money, victories, praise. That brand of happiness is shared by players, coaches and fans. But the team that works to help others or fight a disease has a greater purpose. In the second half of his life, after a distinguished career in rugby league, Sinfield says he has found his true calling.
In November this year, racing lost the popular jump jockey Steve Jobar to MND at 75. Jobar won the 1980 Triumph Hurdle for David Elsworth on Heighlin and became a master saddler and carpenter when he left the weighing-room.
When Jobar's MND was diagnosed his friends rallied round. A charity day at Newbury attended by 450 people raised almost £200,000 for the MND Association. Jobar is not racing's only connection with the illness, which also claimed the trainer Jeremy Hindley in 2013. The late Rob Burrow, Sinfield's Leeds Rhinos team-mate, and Stephen Darby, the footballer still living with MND, found an outlet in racehorse ownership.
Horse racing has an outstanding record for supporting the falling and the fallen. Never does the sport look more united than when a rider takes a terrible fall or tragedy strikes at the game's extended family. The Injured Jockeys Fund is a beacon of support and rehabilitation that shames many better-funded sports.
It may be a leap to say this, but perhaps some of racing's eternally feuding factions could stop to consider the power of the teamwork all around them. They wouldn't need to look far to see the common ground that unites those working in racing. If the game can bond so tightly to help Graham Lee – paralysed in a fall at Newcastle – maybe the tribes could prioritise collectivity over self-interest every now and then.
I thought of Jobar during Sinfield's gruelling runs round Glasgow, Belfast, Hull, and from Liverpool to Wrexham, Gloucester to Bristol, and around many other far-flung points. Sinfield's fellow runners, cyclists and support staff are a tight-knit bunch utterly committed to raising money for MND research so that future generations can be spared its indignities.
Never does the sport look more united than when a rider takes a terrible fall or tragedy strikes at the game's extended family
Doubtless nobody reading this will need any lectures about charity work. Almost everyone you speak to does something for someone. The huge growth of marathon running for example is underpinned by those spurred into action by seeing a family member or friend cut down.
But Sinfield has mastered the art of urging people on in plain English that fosters a fellowship between the well and the unwell. “We all have a choice in this,” he said on his fifth annual extreme challenge. “We can sit back and accept it or we can try and change it.
“We can all do a little bit. And what that little bit looks like is different for all of us. That can be a little bit for dementia, a little for cancer…[or] whatever illness people have a real affinity or relationship with. It can be reaching out to someone who needs a hand for Christmas. If we all do a little bit it can add up to a massive bit.”
What started as an attempt to help Rob Burrow through his struggle has grown into a fund-raising juggernaut to eradicate one of the planet's most evil afflictions.
Yes, evil. MND is detestable. One by one it strips away all human capabilities: moving, speaking, swallowing, breathing. It will have done much or all of this to Jeremy Hindley and Steve Jobar, far from the public gaze. There will be others from racing we don't know about. Previously many with MND went home and pulled the curtains to suffer unseen and even conceal the cause of death.
Together Burrow, Sinfield and the late Doddie Weir have encouraged people with MND to connect publicly and join the remarkable fund-raising drive. Along the roads on Sinfield's runs, people with MND are visibly and deeply affected by being part of a community and by his self-sacrifice (this time he ran much of the 240 miles dragging one leg, after picking up a bad calf injury three weeks before the start).
The campaigns led by Sinfield and Weir are heading towards a combined total of £40m raised, not far behind the £50m the last Conservative government pledged to find a cure, after being shamed into action by the publicity garnered by Sinfield, Weir and many others.
In Liverpool on day one of Sinfield's seven ultras, the former Liverpool and England footballer John Barnes intuited the strength of mass fund-raising campaigns. He said: “You can't measure those relationships between people. That's when you've got to dig deep for each other. That's what the heart is all about.”
On one stop I spoke to an NHS carer whose MND patient had died after seven years. The carer, Katie, ran a marathon in her honour, with a photograph of the lady who had died pinned to the back of her running vest. When her knee gave out during the marathon, she kept going by touching the photograph on her back.
There's no trophy for that, no prize-money and no medals, but it's teamwork.
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