EXCLUSIVE Dean Windass opens up on his biggest regrets, dementia diagnosis and Wembley heroics - after releasing new brutally honest autobiography

Daily Mail​

22-05-2025

A smile as wide as the nearby Humber spreads across the face of Dean Windass as he presses play on the video.
'The hairs still stand up on the back of my neck,' says the 56-year-old, his eyes glued to the laptop screen in front of him. 'I've seen it back millions of times, but I never get bored of it. It gets better every time.'
Windass is, of course, watching a clip of his iconic Wembley winner for Hull City in their 2008 Championship play-off final against Bristol City, an 18-yard volley which fired his boyhood club into the Premier League and him into Tigers folklore.
Was it the best day of his life? 'Apart from my kids being born, yeah, without a shadow of a doubt,' replies Windass, sitting with Mail Sport in a hotel in Hull ahead of Saturday's play-off final between Sheffield United, another of his former clubs, and Sunderland.
'It was a special, special day – the Hull lad scoring the winning goal. In lockdown, I asked the BBC Radio Humberside commentator, David Burns, to send me his commentary of the goal and my missus Kerry set it up as my ringtone. I had to change it because I kept crying every time it went off!'
Windass recalls everything about that Wembley weekend – from playing poker the night before the match, to the chairman pouring champagne over his breakfast cornflakes the morning after. The fear, however, is that one day he might not remember any of it having been diagnosed with stage two dementia.
'That scares me,' admits Windass. 'If somebody asked me about the goal at Wembley and I can't remember, then that is a worry. Then I'll know that it has got worse.'
Windass only discovered his condition last year after being encouraged to go for a brain scan by John Stiles, the son of 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Stiles, who died having suffered from the condition. Windass had been 'forgetting things' and 'struggling to remember names', yet he was still stunned when he received his results over Zoom.
'They said, 'We've found a shade on your brain, which is very mild, but it could be very serious in a number of years to come',' he recalls. 'I tried to make a laugh and a joke about it, saying I was delighted that they found a brain because I didn't think I had one, but it did scare me.'
Windass, though, kept his diagnosis private for months until David May, with his blessing, announced it on TV in January. The former Manchester United defender and Stiles are part of the Football Families for Justice campaign group, fighting for football authorities to provide more support for ex-players affected by the disease.
'Honestly, I wish I hadn't done the scan because then I wouldn't have known, and we wouldn't be talking about this now,' says Windass. 'I'd have just said I forget names and I am getting old.
'I don't want to be a burden or for anybody to feel sorry for me. I am healthy, physically. But now, I overthink things.
'I send my after-dinner speech dates to Kerry and my manager, so I don't forget them. They will ring me to remind me where I'm at. The other week I parked my car and I didn't know where I had parked it. But am I overthinking? I don't know.
'You worry about it because you think, 'Is it going to get worse?'. If I get a headache, I think, 'Is that because of this?'.
'My biggest worry is not knowing my children. I've just got a granddaughter, so I want to know for the next 20 years how she and my kids are getting on.'
Windass does not doubt that heading caused his condition, which is a particular worry for him given his two sons are also both footballers. Josh, 31, is a forward for Sheffield Wednesday and emulated his dad by scoring a Wembley play-off winner in 2023, while 26-year-old Jordan is a defender at non-league Clitheroe.
'If you've got 1,000 footballers in this room, I'd say there'd be 900-odd who have probably got it,' says Windass. 'I say to footballers, 'If you are forgetting things, go and have a scan'.
'The ball now is lighter but it is quicker. It's not about games, it's about training - heading thousands and thousands of balls in drills.
'Of course you've got to head a football. If you take that away, it's not football. But hopefully they can minimise it in training.'
Windass opens up about living with dementia in the closing chapter of his new autobiography, Deano: Beyond the Final Whistle, in which he also reveals he has recently been diagnosed with ADHD.
His book is a brutally honest and, at times, harrowing read, detailing his two suicide attempts, his battles with depression, alcohol dependency and bankruptcy, and his 26-day spell in rehab.
'I am proud of the book, but I will never do another one,' admits the man who went from packing peas in a Birds Eye factory to playing in the Premier League for Bradford, Middlesbrough and Hull.
'I did it because of the mental health side of it. I thought if I can help somebody, then I've done my job. But it wasn't enjoyable. I would never want to experience that again.
'It was stressful because you've got to look back on all the things that you've done. It's not easy talking about the past. There are loads of things in the book that I am ashamed of. I look back and think how stupid I was.'
Windass' biggest regret was when he crashed his car while drink-driving in October 2012, shortly after he was 'dropped like a stone' by his employer Sky Sports. He was found to be three times over the limit and was banned from driving for 28 months and given 250 hours' community service.
His 'lowest ebb' came at the start of that year when he felt 'beyond repair' and twice tried to take his life.
'I just thought, 'I don't want to be here',' he explains. 'I was upsetting people and it just got to the point where I just went, 'If I am not here anymore, I can't upset anybody'.
'Selfish, yes, but when you are under the influence, you don't think rationally. But I am glad I got through it and I am sat here talking to you telling the tale.'
Windass was sent spiralling by losing his dad John in 2011, having not spoken to him for the five months prior to his fatal heart attack.
'For 41 years of my life, he was my best mate,' says Windass. 'Then we had an argument, and I never spoke to him for five months and he died.
'The moral of the story is: don't argue with your parents because you'll probably regret it for the rest of your life. I've regretted it. He had a heart attack and I blamed myself because I thought he was stressed out.
'I wish I had gone and knocked on his door. When I was working for Sky Sports at Hull, I thought to go and see him but I didn't and that night he died. That still hurts.'
While Windass has never fully got over that tragic episode, he insists he is now in a better place. We are in the hotel where he comes to train in the gym every day – a ritual he started following a chat with heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury, who also struggled with depression.
'Tyson inspired me,' explains Windass, who has the phrase 'positive thinking' tattooed across his fingers. 'He said, 'You've got to keep training every day because that's your medicine'. I love training and running and keeping fit.
'I have ups and downs. You are never going to be cured. But the alcohol has stopped now in the sense of drinking every day.
'I still have a beer on the weekend. I socialise. I am not going to stop my life. When I am with my mates, I am a gobs***e. But I am quite quiet and boring when I am home. I've got a simple life.'
As well as after-dinner speaking and media work, Windass spends much of his time now playing golf or watching rugby league. Appearing on I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! is on his bucket list because 'people don't know Dean Windass, they only know Deano'.
His biggest ambition, however, is to go into football clubs offering mental health advice to young players and telling them, 'It's OK to talk', the message which is on the white wristband he is wearing.
'In my day, if I went in the changing rooms and said I'm down and depressed, they'd laugh at me,' adds Windass. 'You weren't allowed to say that in those days. They'd have said, 'Grow a pair'.
'Now, I hope that a Josh Windass would go up to a Barry Bannan and say, 'I am feeling down today', then Barry would do something about it.
'I don't know if that happens and that's why I'd like to go in front of a group of players and tell them it's not a weakness. I'd love to be able to help.'