Roy Heaney

Roy Heaney’s sporting career has spanned professional football, rugby league, coaching, and now advocacy work around brain injury in sport. Born in Liverpool in 1960, Roy first joined Liverpool F.C. as a teenager and was invited to train with the first team at just 16 years old before a serious leg break cut short his time at the club. He rebuilt his professional football career with Bolton Wanderers F.C., where he spent five years as a professional player, before later switching codes to rugby league with Wigan Warriors and Salford Red Devils. One of his proudest sporting memories remains scoring his first try at Central Park against Workington.

Roy later moved into coaching, becoming player-manager of Wanganui Athletic in New Zealand before gaining his FA Full Coaching Licence (UEFA A) and working with the FA to support and develop young players. Today, following a diagnosis of probable CTE and early-onset dementia, Roy is an ambassador for Head for Change, helping to raise awareness of concussion and brain injury in sport while advocating for safer futures for players and families.

“I’m very much a family man and carry those values with me from my father. He always instilled into me the value of family and community. He would often say, ‘if one’s kicked, we all limp.’”