'I was absolutely shattered' - Former Irish footballer discusses migraine attacks during career

Ex-Republic of Ireland international player Tony Cascarino has revealed that he suffered from migraine attacks during his professional career.

The striker, who played for the country for 14 years and earned 88 caps, was an ever-present figure during Jack Charlton's managerial tenure and competed at Euro 88 and two World Cups in 1990 and 1994.

The former Aston Villa and Chelsea man has since opened up about his off-the-field battle.

Cascarino said: "As a player, I used to get about 6 attacks a year and they usually last for about 24 hours.

"During my football career, I was lucky that it never caused me to miss a game. I did however miss training on occasion. On one occasion, I was physically unable to phone my manager at Aston Villa to explain what was wrong and my wife had to call in for me.

"Although the pain and the other symptoms were gone by the next day, I was absolutely shattered and unable to train again. We had a game the next day and I couldn’t even tell the physio at the club whether I could play or not. Luckily, I was fit by the following day and somehow managed to play one of my best games!

"The manager used to joke that he wished I’d get more migraine attacks if that was the way it made me play! Having migraine is not good if you are a professional footballer as it might affect your transfer value and whether teams wanted to buy you and rely on you."

A study has shown that over 600,000 people in Ireland are living with migraine - a complex neurological condition which affects 12-15% of our population.

People with migraine can experience symptoms such as stroke like symptoms in their face where the face slopes on one side, short term memory loss, loss of balance/falling over, vomiting and much more.