The parents of Billy Vigar, the former Arsenal academy striker who died after colliding with a concrete wall surrounding a pitch, say the Football Association could have prevented their son’s death. In their first broadcast interview since his passing, Camilla and Keith Vigar accused the governing body of doing “nothing” after previous similar incidents.
Billy Vigar was 21 and playing for Chichester City at Wingate and Finchley FC in north London when the collision happened. He died on 25 September 2025 from a “significant brain injury”, five days after the accident. His family are marking the one-year anniversary of his death.
“You swing from sadness to anger because you just feel it could have been prevented,” said Camilla Vigar. “[Billy] had his whole life ahead of him. He was 21 years old and he lost it playing football when he didn’t need to. I personally feel that the FA could have stopped Billy losing his life because they had so many warnings.”
The family point to two earlier cases. Amateur footballer Ben Hiscox died in 2015 after colliding with a clubhouse near Bristol; after the coroner warned the FA about the risk of future deaths, padding was added to Stoke Gifford United’s clubhouse and the run-off between it and the pitch was increased. They also cite Alex Fletcher, who fractured his skull when colliding with concrete barriers next to the pitch at Bath City’s ground in 2022 and was forced to retire in 2024. The FA conducted a review of clubs after that incident.
“As far as I’m aware, nothing was done with that information and it just sat there,” said Camilla Vigar. “One of the clubs as far as I’m aware that was highlighted as being one of the high-risk clubs was Wingate [and Finchley], where Billy then lost his life.” Asked by the BBC what was done with the information it had gathered, the FA provided no comment.
At the time of Vigar’s accident, the FA’s stadium accreditation criteria, which applies to the National League System in men’s football and the Women’s National League, said clubs needed to have a “permanent” barrier around the pitch “of sound construction (eg concrete and steel)”. In light of what happened to Vigar, the FA launched a safety review of more than 900 clubs, conducted by independent experts. As a result, the stadium criteria was updated last month and “no longer permits solid brick, breeze block or concrete barriers around pitches”. The BBC has been told 169 clubs in the men’s National League System and women’s National League were notified they would need to make changes “as soon as is reasonably practicable”. Where walls are structural, they must be “covered with suitable protection”, such as padding. The FA said: “This important work is under way, and we will continue to fully support the clubs involved.” Funding is being provided by the FA and the Premier League.
BBC Sport approached hundreds of affected clubs about the changes and the status of their remedial work. Bromsgrove Sporting near Birmingham, which has a concrete wall surrounding its pitch, said the changes were “completely understandable and long overdue”, adding: “We are fully supportive of this and are grateful for the 100% funding from the FA.” The club said it had been given a deadline of the end of this season but that “being high risk it would be good to complete this side of Christmas”. Sheppey United in Kent, which has a concrete supporting wall around two sides of its 3G pitch that will be covered in padding, said: “There is always an element of risk in all sports and they can’t all be mitigated, unfortunately in this instance the remedial works are more a reactive response rather than a proactive one. If the funding wasn’t in place I think it would make it difficult for some clubs to fund this.” Bath City, where Fletcher’s incident happened, has solid perimeter walls on all sides of its pitch and told BBC Sport it welcomed the ruling because it seeks to improve player safety and recognises that funding needs to be available to support clubs implementing what it called a fundamental change to the ground grading regulations.
Keith Vigar, Billy’s father, said: “I work in the health and safety industry, and the main thing is you don’t go to work and expect to get injured, let alone even die at work in the workplace.” The Vigars want the regulations extended above and below the National League. “It needs to change basically at all levels, not just at the levels that have changed,” said Keith Vigar.
That is a view shared by Fletcher, who said the FA had “ignored” his years of campaigning on pitch perimeter safety. “It wasn’t until Billy’s passing that [the FA] came to the table on this issue,” he said. “So for me, that is a complete dereliction of duty on their part, and there should be accountability for that failing.” Fletcher added that he is worried the ban on concrete, breeze block and brick walls does not cover all levels of the game and wants that explored urgently by the authorities, saying there could still be situations where organised football is being played in the country with unsafe pitch perimeters, and that he would like to see the guidance or regulation extended to consider all of football.
Billy Vigar joined the football system later than many youngsters, but his talent was still recognised. He was scouted by Arsenal while playing for local club Hove Rivervale in Sussex and joined the Premier League side’s academy aged 14, spending almost seven years there. “It was just an amazing feeling,” said his father. “Sort of like your son’s been chosen. And I’d always promised him a decent pair of football boots if he joined an academy. So yeah, since then it’s cost me a fortune. He was something different, Billy. I think most, even at Arsenal, they saw something different in him. He was a great athlete, basically. And that started from an early age with his brother, who quickly learned there’s not much point trying to challenge him because he wanted to win.”
Injuries followed, and Vigar was recuperating from one such setback while playing for Chichester City, where he had made an instant impression. The club’s first-team manager, Darin Kilpatrick, said: “He was so coachable, he would run in behind, he would drop in short. His hold-up play was excellent and obviously he had an eye for a goal which all strikers have to have. To be fair, the way Bills was playing in his last couple of games that we had him, we would probably have only been able to keep him another six months before we moved him on into the higher levels where he belonged.” Asked what level he was aiming for with Billy, Kilpatrick said he would have gone into the National League or the English Football League “without a doubt”.
Keith Vigar said watching football again has been difficult. “It did become less important, far less important to start with, the struggle to get back into it,” he said. “When we went to see Chichester in that sense, first off, it’s hard because you’re just thinking, ‘Billy should be out there, Billy should be playing’ and that sort of thing. That’s been hard.” The Vigars said Chichester have been “amazing” during the past year, including designing a kit that makes moving but subtle references to their son. The family want accountability and answers, and are awaiting the inquest, which is likely to take place next year. As they mark the one-year anniversary, they will focus on climbing Snowdon with their children Phoebe and Ollie and the family of Billy’s girlfriend Lois. “I think it just gives us something to focus on and gives us a challenge to do,” said Keith Vigar. “And I know he’d have liked to do that. I’m sure he will be with us somewhere, looking over us in some way or form, having a laugh at us, no doubt, in the rain.”