Former Leeds Rhinos captain Stevie Ward had to quit after a series of concussions left him suffering from agonising migraines. Now he admits… I see the simplest things I can’t do and wonder if I'll ever get back to normal

  • Stevie Ward was forced to retire in January aged 27 to protect his brain
  • It came almost a year after he suffered two concussions within a month
  • He now struggles to walk across the road, sit in a car and see in artificial light 
  • Ward says rugby league is at a 'tipping point' with the effects of head injuries

The man with the scarred face is sitting at his dining table with the lights off. Rain is pouring out of the gloom over Leeds, but as this conversation approaches its third hour, he won’t flip the switch.

That’s just the way it has to be now for Stevie Ward, and goodness knows for how much longer.

‘I think I’m getting better,’ he says. ‘Maybe millimetres at a time, but then a bad day comes and you question if there has been any improvement at all. I see the simplest things I can’t do and, honestly, I fear if I’ll ever get back to normal.’


It’s why we’re here in this house, a few hundred yards from Headingley, the stadium where they loved him.

Former Leeds Rhinos captain Stevie Ward lives a few hundred yards from Headingley

Former Leeds Rhinos captain Stevie Ward lives a few hundred yards from Headingley

The stadium where he was the brilliant young captain of Leeds Rhinos. The stadium whose echo can be heard from this living room on a match day. The stadium where he suffered the second of two bangs to his head in the space of 14 days at the start of 2020.

Concussion. It is why he retired at the age of only 27 in January of this year and it’s why we’re talking about the lights.

‘Screens are tough enough — TV, phone, laptop,’ he says. ‘After only five minutes on the laptop my symptoms kick in. Every day. The migraines are mad.

‘But artificial light is a problem for me. I’m dreading winter. I have the lights on for a bit in the evenings at the moment, but when it gets dark earlier it’s going to be bad. I know it will.’

He takes a deep breath, this guy who would play through anything back in the day.

‘The symptoms for these migraines start with this sensation that your brain is being squeezed, then my eyes burn and my scalp tingles. You know at that point you’re having a migraine.

‘I get them at least once a day. They just come with so many of the things I used to think were normal, and they stop every aspect of your life.

‘Hopefully it is only a six out of 10 but that’s bad enough. If it’s a seven or eight you go to bed, mate. When the lights are on, I’ll struggle. I guess it’s just another adjustment to living with a brain injury, isn’t it?

He was forced to retired in January at the age of just 27 due to consequences of concussion

He was forced to retired in January at the age of just 27 due to consequences of concussion

‘If I walk across a road I sometimes find myself zig-zagging because of disorientation. I struggle if I’m in a car, just from the motion. When I’m outside, I wear a baseball cap because it limits the information coming into your brain.

‘You can get cognitive overload and that is a big thing — if I talk or concentrate too long, the migraine comes. Can’t go to a lively bar, can’t exercise, can’t do a lot of the things I would need for a job. Living with that, I won’t lie, it’s hard.

‘You try not to feel sorry for yourself, but you do sometimes ask how you got to this point. How you go from playing this tough sport to not being able to stand it when the lights are on, you know?’

Precisely and painfully, Stevie Ward does know. He knows what it is to win the Super League Grand Final three times, the Challenge Cup twice and to make 55 tackles per game.

He also knows what it is to have suicidal thoughts. He knows what it is to walk out of Headingley after 20 minutes because his head is splitting.

It’s a troubling story and one that is terrifyingly familiar in a sport that should do more for those who play it.

 

Ward is laughing. It’s to do with a childhood memory which taps into the psyche that underpins rugby league.

The tale goes back to when he was 11. ‘I had been playing bulldogs at school and busted the AC joint in my shoulder,’ he says. ‘I had a game for Churwell Chiefs three weeks later and I was like, “No chance I’m missing that”. I put bubble wrap in some shoulder pads and played. Every tackle you’d hear this popping!’

Ward retired almost a year after he suffered two concussions within a month

Ward retired almost a year after he suffered two concussions within a month

Growing up in Leeds, Ward was always a tough kid, a hyped one, and he flew through the game. He was playing at six, signed pro with the Rhinos by 16, was quickly nicknamed ‘Kev’ after Kevin Sinfield, and he was playing alongside Rob Burrow, Sinfield and the rest of the first team at 18. A prodigy of the game made of the right stuff.

They still like the story in these parts about how he dislocated his shoulder a week before the 2017 Grand Final but had it popped back in and played the full 80. They won and his reputation in the second row grew. ‘Knees, shoulders — mate, I had a lot of injuries but it is part of the culture that you don’t quit,’ he says.

‘I would have died on the pitch, that was my attitude.’

On December 22, 2019, just weeks after turning 26, he was named Rhinos captain. It is desperately sad to think how quickly his career nosedived from that peak.

‘The first concussion was January 19 against Wigan, a friendly,’ he says. ‘I was tackling a Wigan lad and one of our biggest players jumped on top of it and my head got caught between the Wigan lad and the floor. I wasn’t knocked out. Then in the second half, I had another hit and started to feel ropey, like my balance was going. I came off and on the way home I started feeling nausea and irritability.’

Ward says he stood down from training in line with the sport’s concussion protocol, which mandates a gradual return and a minimum of six full days between games after a diagnosis. By Rhinos’ first Super League fixture of the season, on February 2, he was clear to play against Hull FC.

‘I stepped left into the middle of the pitch and one of the big Hull lads comes in for me,’ he says. ‘My shoulder hit his chest and his head bashed me on the cheek and it split. I came off and got stitched up and then played on. It was how I got this.’ He is pointing to the sizable scar running down the side of his right eye and adds: ‘Going home I knew something was wrong. I was just so foggy and on edge.

His career quickly nosedived from the peak of being named captain of the Rhinos at 26

His career quickly nosedived from the peak of being named captain of the Rhinos at 26

‘That night we had friends over and they had to leave early because I wasn’t in that space to talk. I was watching TV and the lights made me feel so anxious, like I couldn’t control my breathing.

‘There was this painful cloud sensation around the sides of my head. I couldn’t sleep all night — I spent so much time next to the toilet thinking I was going to be sick. I went to see a specialist about it a few days later.’ Ward has not played a game of rugby since.

 

Ward needs to take a break from our interview. Almost a year passed between the game against Hull and the announcement on January 5 that he was retiring at 27 to protect his brain and he has been asked by Sportsmail for the hardest point in that time.

It was a period when the pain of his physical condition ran parallel to the distress of realising his sporting career was at risk.

‘I need a minute,’ he says and gets to his feet. He is starting to feel that tightening around his head. When he returns, his answer is sobering.

‘I was sat in a cafe four or five weeks after the second concussion,’ he says. ‘I was just having feelings that I didn’t want to be here. I was lost in these thoughts.

‘There were suicidal thoughts, if I’m honest. Not a good place.

Ward signed pro with the Rhinos by 16 and nicknamed ‘Kev’ after Kevin Sinfield (above)

Ward signed pro with the Rhinos by 16 and nicknamed ‘Kev’ after Kevin Sinfield (above)

‘I started speaking to Nat (his partner) and a counsellor and they helped massively. My family support network, Nat, they are amazing. But that was hard, because even at that early stage I knew playing rugby again was going to be tough.’

The picture he paints of his attempts to return is one of desperation.

‘People might not understand concussion and neurological conditions,’ he says. ‘I can tell you, a brain injury, you can’t push it. I tried every day to convince myself I would be fine. I had nausea at home, I was irritable and angry for months, which are all symptoms, but I would try to train. I would try to run and the first few strides a migraine would start. Bang. I kept telling myself to run for 25 minutes, and that I could then move to the next stage. But I never got close.

‘I knew I was done by August. The team came back after the pandemic and first session I still couldn’t run more than a few strides. The migraine would hit and that was that.

‘I just realised one day, “If I can’t run without being in this much pain, I can’t take a shoulder to the head, can I?”’ He has another pause. This is hurting him. ‘I was taken away from that life so quickly,’ he says. ‘Rugby. Losing it was like a death of sorts. I cried, I grieved. I wish I hadn’t played that second game.’

 

Ward has a description for what it’s like seeing Rhinos now.

‘It’s a bit similar to watching your ex-girlfriend,’ he says. It’s a joke but it isn’t. You just have to accept it was part of your old life. My new life is dealing with a brain injury.’

He went to watch the Rhinos-Huddersfield match a few weeks back but left after 20 minutes.

‘I had a migraine from the noise,’ he says. ‘But it is also hard to watch and know you’re not in it any more.’

Whether there is blame that can be attached to the neurological injuries associated with rugby is likely to be a decision for the courts, with the firm Rylands Law building a case on behalf of as many as 40 former players with dementia symptoms.

Ward isn’t among that cohort, who reportedly intend to sue the Rugby Football League governing body, but he doesn’t want to stay quiet, either.

‘I think we’re at a tipping point,’ he says. ‘There’s people struggling with early onset dementia, with CTE. There are past players I have spoken to that are struggling with migraines, memory loss, players that have continued playing with these things.

Ward helped Leeds win the Super League Grand Final three times and the Challenge Cup twice

Ward helped Leeds win the Super League Grand Final three times and the Challenge Cup twice

‘Rugby league is a great vehicle. But there’s also things that need to change.’

Citing the absence of restrictions on contact sessions, he adds: ‘The fact we do contact willy-nilly is not right. We have research that shows cognitive decline on the brain.

‘I think there’s got to be a cap on contact sessions. There’s been a journey to my concussions — they aren’t two isolated incidents.

‘There have been seasons where I have made 55-plus tackles per game. We know smoking and drinking is bad for us so we don’t do it all the time. We have to find that balance.’

From a former captain in the Super League, this message must be heard. Likewise he queries the current return-to-play guidelines, which permit a concussed player to feature after a minimum absence of six full days. ‘Is that enough?’ he asks. Fair question.

His own health from here is a mystery. ‘I can walk further than I used to without getting disorientated,’ he says. ‘I see that as progress. I have also been making a habit of meditating 20 minutes a day and practising gratitude. I am finding peace.

‘I will find fulfilment in my life,’ he adds. ‘It is hard and if I think what my life was, I know this isn’t great. But I’m trying.’

Who knows when Ward will be well again.

‘I just hope I don’t get worse. I do fear it,’ he says, and then confirms he will donate his brain to science upon his death.

But maybe we know enough about the mystery of brain injuries already. A mystery that engulfs so many rugby players. Hard men lost in the dark. Something needs to change.

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