RUFC - Scott wants heart tests

Rotherham United Manager, Andy Scott knows what it`s like to have a career cut short due to a heart condition.

Due to heart problems, Scott had to end his career at the age of thirty-three, and said that the Fabrice Muamba situation on Saturday brought back 'horrible flashbacks.` Andy was playing for Leyton Orient when he had problems and was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is the same condition which killed Marc Vivien Foe when he was playing for Cameroon in an international.

Speaking to The Star the thirty-nine year old has called for heart testing to be carried out throughout football. 'I was very fortunate in that I was one of the two per cent of people with this condition that suffers symptoms - for the rest, unfortunately, it is fatal,` Andy said. 'With a condition like that, carrying on playing for me was a no brainer because of the potential for your heart packing up on you out there on the pitch.`

Andy is now involved with CRY - Cardiac Risk in the Young - and has been campaigning for the last five years for young players to be tested and the importance of it and of the findings being read properly. In 2007 he spearheaded a meeting with all football`s leading organisations, to push for improved testing throughout the country in all age groups.

Carrying on, Andy said, 'It was for young players but there are those who slip through the net, perhaps - like I did - through coming into the game from non-league. It takes very skilled people, cardiologists, to read whether someone has a (heart) condition or not and, at the moment, that doesn`t seem to be happening all the time throughout the country. There needs to be more dialogue with cardiologists who know what they`re looking for and if that can help save a life then let`s have it.

'We can`t let this happen again on a football pitch anywhere.`










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