AS any football fan will attest, there is nothing better than watching a big defender rise majestically and bullet a header to grab a winning goal.

All the better if it’s in the last minute against your bitter rivals in a cup final or a league decider.

There is just something about a headed goal that seems better than even a worldie from outside the box or a sclaff off a shin on the goal-line.

It’s similar thing in rugby as you watch scrum after scrum near the try line with your team desperately fending off the oppositions attempts at getting the try that would seal the game.

Then the final whistle goes and the elation from the stands is palpable and the victorious players are hailed as heroes.

It is the pinnacle of team sports and is why they remain so popular amongst millions of people across the globe.

But while the highs of professional sport bring joy to fans and enormous pride to the participants, every single player takes to the field knowing that a career-threatening injury may not be far away.

It must be a constant worry and sadly happens to many, if not all, great athletes at some time.

More worryingly still, is the risk that participation in sports at a young age will cause untold damage in later life.

The issue has been brought into sharp focus this week with the start of a ‘world first’ Scottish study that aims to prevent footballers from developing dementia.

Researchers will study the brains of 150 ex-footballers aged between 40 and 59 to look for neurodegenerative changes which may be a precursor to the disease.

Professor Willie Stewart, whose ground-breaking work established that former footballers had a five-fold risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, is leading the project which has been backed with £1.3million funding from Fifa and the FA.

Further research by Prof Stewart and his team at the University of Glasgow found that the risk was highest amongst players who were most likely to head footballs, including defenders.

Former players who have been diagnosed with dementria include Billy McNeill, Denis Law, Stevie Chalmers and Gordon McQueen, all renowned headers of the ball A similar scheme was also launched by the SRU which will now offer former players brain health checks It follows former England World Cup-winning rugby player Steve Thompson who told how he wept when he recorded the audio version of his memoir, Unforgettable because “by the time the words were coming out of my mouth, they made no sense.”

The 43-year-old told of his struggles after being diagnosed with early onset dementia and suspected CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and now cannot even remember the games he played in during the tournament.

All of the cases are tragic and every attempt to minimise the risks should be made.

Sport is already making great strides in doing that, with scrum laws changed to make them safer and heading being banned for under-12s.

But there is a real risk we can take it too far and take the competitive edge out of some sports altogther in order to make it safer.

It is a reasonable position to take but banning heading or contact of any sort makes the games pointless.

It is a fact that while around 600 former footballers have been identified as having dementia, there are many more that haven’t.

Sadly, thousands of people are diagnosed with dementia every year who have never played any sort of sport – banning heading or tackling won’t do a jot to help them.

No rugby player ever took the field and entered a scrum without knowing there was a good chance of a serious neck injury.

Were they coerced into doing it? No, of course not. They did it because they loved playing and were willing to take their chances.

Footballers are the same.

No sport is immune from serious injury hazards – it comes with putting your body on the line repeatedly to get to and remain at the top.

After all, are any orthopedic surgeons calling for tennis to be banned because of Andy Murray’s hip or Rafa Nadal’s knees?

Likewise, playing golf every week at the highest level is not good for your back or wrists when you get older but again professionals put up with and dismiss it as an occupational hazard.

It is right to make sports safer but by taking all elements of risk away it reduces the spectacle and really does nobody any good at all.