James “Jimmy” Fryatt

James “Jimmy” Fryatt was an English football player who also played and coached in the United States. He married Valerie Fryatt and they had three children together. After noticing changes to his personality and lifestyle during the approximately 8 years before he died, his family decided to donate his brain to the UNITE Brain Bank at the BU CTE Center for answers after his passing at the age of 79. We thank the Fryatt family for their generous donation and commitment to our research.

Read Jimmy’s story below.

James “Jimmy” Fryatt was born in Southampton, England, on September 2^nd, 1940.

Jimmy had four sisters and was the youngest by ten years, which made him the baby boy of the family. He began playing sports at a very young age, from youth tennis to swimming to cricket. He didn’t particularly focus on football in his early years but played a little on the field behind his house with his friends. “He played when he was young, all sports, not particularly football, but he did play a little bit out in the field… He played tennis… rode his bike, swam, all sorts of other sports,” his wife, Valerie Fryatt, recounted. When Jimmy was only 12, he fell off his bike while visiting his sister, Pat, in the Peabody Buildings in London, England. He suffered an ankle injury that became infected with osteomyelitis and spent much of the next three years in and out of treatment. The infection got so bad at one point the doctors were discussing amputation of the leg, “fortunately that didn’t happen” Valerie said.

Once Jimmy was able to return to his all-boys school, he dispelled a growing rumor that the doctors had amputated his leg during the treatment process. At Jimmy’s school, a lot of the boys would play rugby, but Jimmy chose football over rugby, which was not attached to his school but to a local team in town. So, he began playing football at a local team that his friend Jimmy Butters had encouraged him to join.

“The other thing that he did play was cricket. He loved cricket as well… He didn’t want to play rugby and he got in… quite a lot of trouble about not playing rugby,” Valerie said. “One of the [reasons] is that the football team was not connected to the school. So it’s a big fuss about that with the family. His dad said, ‘no, you’ll play rugby.’ And he said, ‘no, I won’t,’ that sort of situation.”

Once he began playing football, Jimmy was quickly noticed as an asset on the pitch. He was scouted by Charlton Athletic at the age of sixteen and was invited to their tryouts. They signed him to play semi-professional and eventually signed him as a full professional player over three years at Charlton. After Charlton, Jimmy began playing for Southend and that is where he met Valerie who was 18 and he was 21.

“And so from there on, I was in his life. I knew he’d had all these situations… playing with and against these really good players, and I’ve got programs from that time and you see these names that are there… [who] really became very famous players,” Valerie said.

At Southend, Jimmy began to perfect the craft of heading the ball, which wasn’t used as prominently in his semi-professional football career. He began running daily heading drills to perfect his timing, head to ball placement, and increasing visibility while heading the ball. Valerie and Jimmy were married while Jimmy played for Southend and welcomed their first child together.

After three years at Southend, Jimmy was traded to Bradford Park Avenue in the north of England, Jimmy tended to accept trades quickly and hit the ground running with the next team. He never resisted being traded at this point in his career as each trade furthered his experience as a footballer. Jimmy’s thought process was ‘If the manager’s telling me that – he obviously won’t be playing me’. When Jimmy was scoring a lot of goals, teams would get interested in him and Jimmy and his family went from Southend to Bradford, to Southport, to Torquay, to Stockport, to Blackburn, to Oldham and then back to Southport.

Most teams had a clubhouse for the players and their families to live in, which is where Jimmy, Valerie, Sean, and now their daughter, Nicola, would stay during Jimmy’s time with each team. Once they got to Oldham, there was no clubhouse for them to stay in, so Valerie and Jimmy bought a house together and there they welcomed their youngest son, Edward Fryatt.

When Jimmy returned to Southport in 1972 several of his teammates were approached by the American Philadelphia Atoms franchise, part of the NASL League in the US, so the family went to America in the summer of 1973. The team ended up winning the final game that was held in Dallas, but unfortunately, Jimmy was not allowed to play in the final. Jimmy was needed back in England at Southport but he was disappointed he had to miss the final game.

The family returned to Philadelphia in 1974 but unfortunately, they weren’t as successful as the season before though just as enjoyable. Jimmy and Valerie decided that playing in America was disrupting the children’s schooling and decided to not play in the next summer season. Leading into the 1975 season, Jimmy was offered to play for the Hartford Bicentennials with pay that would ensure they were able to pay off their mortgage. So, Jimmy went out to America on his own and Valerie joined him with the children mid-season.

Jimmy was quickly traded back to Philadelphia, and a teammate approached them with a promise of helping get green cards for him and his family. During this time, a teammate from Philadelphia invited Jimmy to begin his coaching career as an assistant coach with the Las Vegas Quicksilvers. So, the family decided to relocate to Las Vegas while they were still fighting to get their green cards. They spent four years in Las Vegas, remaining even after the Quicksilver Franchise had moved on when immigration called and refused to extend their visa until the green card was approved.

“So, he helped us get the green card but that green card four years later had not come through. And the immigration people said, ‘It’s okay, we’ll extend it, we’ll extend it’ and then one day, December the twelfth, I remember it. We had to fly back to England.”

The Fryatt Family had been given 24 hours to leave the country and they flew back to their house in Rochdale Lancashire. 8 months later, they were able to return to America and Jimmy played until he was 47 in the local leagues while playing tennis recreationally with friends. They bought a house in Las Vegas and lived in Henderson since 2000, but in 2008 Jimmy began having difficult finding his way around Las Vegas. So, they went to the Ruvo Clinic, who diagnosed him with Alzheimer’s disease.

“You know when he was first diagnosed [with Alzheimer’s disease], he could still go and ride his bike and I could track him on the phone and if he got lost, I could call him and say ‘wait I’ll come and get you.’ And slowly that was not a possibility. He could go for walks with Charlie and sometimes he would get lost, but I knew where he was,” Valerie said about Jimmy’s cognitive symptoms.

She found the most useful things to entertain Jimmy as his symptoms progressed were music and jigsaw puzzles. He used to approach strangers in public and begin conversations with them, so Valerie printed cards that read “His name is Jimmy and he has Alzheimer’s disease. Please be patient with him.” She said that this helped incredibly and showed her how kind people are. They would nod and smile and some would even converse with Jimmy as if they were old friends.

When Jimmy would become suddenly angry, Valerie would throw him a tennis ball for him to catch as an instant distraction. Typically that was all it took, but if he was still upset with her she’d say “One second, I’ll be right back” and leave for a few seconds before coming back. By the time she returned, the anger was completely gone and Jimmy had moved onto something else.

Valerie started to read about many players from Jimmy’s era who were having trouble later in life and some were being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or CTE post-mortem. When Jimmy was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Valerie said they were sure it was probably CTE. One day in their local newspaper, Valerie came across an article about the Boston University CTE Center and its director Ann McKee, MD. Prior to reading the article, she had seen the movie Concussion and had a general idea of what CTE was. When she discussed it with him, Jimmy showed interest in brain donation though he always said he wouldn’t change a thing about his life. After reading the article, she had all the documents to donate his brain in line before Jimmy passed.

Jimmy’s brain was donated to the UNITE Brain Bank at the Boston University CTE Center on June 5, 2020. He was diagnosed with CTE stage IV/IV and Alzheimer’s disease by Dr. Ann McKee. Jimmy’s brain is stored at the UNITE Brain Bank in perpetuity and will continue to be used to advance CTE research and fulfill important milestones, such as diagnosing CTE in living persons.

Jimmy’s legacy lives on through his family as well. “His eldest son, Sean, who is very close to [Jimmy], because when we lived in England – even as a little boy, he would take him to all the games… if he was off school, [he went] to practice sessions… [he said], ‘I’m so lucky. I had that time,’” Valerie said. “Edward went to try out for the British Open, he was a golfer… He was doing these practice rounds [and] so many people came up to him about Jimmy and saying how they remembered his dad… We didn’t really talk about those days so much in the last few years. It was like a lifetime ago when he played and so he was very surprised how much people knew him and how many people knew him.”

If you would like to support the BU CTE Center’s research and help give more families life-changing diagnoses, you can donate here.

If you or a loved one are interested in brain donation, please view our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and brain donation brochures for more information.

You can visit our Resources page to find resources for anyone struggling with suspected CTE symptoms.

This story was written by Cassandra E. Ferreira at the BU CTE Center. If you are interested in having a donor story written for your loved one, please reach out to her at ceferr@bu.edu.